The New York Giants will host the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday Night Football to kick off Week 4 of the NFL season.
The Giants are fresh off their first win of the year this past Sunday in Cleveland. Meanwhile, Dallas just dropped their second game in a row, so both teams will enter Thursday’s divisional matchup with an identical 1-2 record.
Despite the game being at MetLife Stadium, the Giants have opened up as home underdogs against their rivals. This will be the first of the two matchups between the two teams this season, the second one coming on Thanksgiving Day.
The game certainly picked up a little more steam with the Giants winning on Sunday and coming in at 1-2 instead of 0-3.
With the division rivals facing off on Thursday, here are three causes for concern.
Trevon Diggs
Trevon Diggs is a ballhawk who has a knack for forcing turnovers against the Giants. In Diggs’ last five games against the Giants, he has three interceptions and a forced fumble.
With the Giants going to Malik Nabers early and often, the Cowboys are likely going to try and get a takeaway off of Nabers. New York will have to be careful and Head Coach Brian Daboll may have to get creative in getting Nabers the ball without risking a turnover.
Daniel Jones had a good day on the stat book in Week 3 against the Browns. However, he had an interception on the team’s first offensive play of the game that was called back due to a penalty, and two other balls that easily could have been picked off — one being Nabers’ most impressive catch of the day, stealing the ball from the defender’s hands.
The Giants must protect the ball on Thursday at all costs.
Giants secondary
The Giants came into the season with a belief in Deonte Banks as a strong No. 1 cornerback after an impressive rookie season.
Banks was torched by Amari Cooper and looked lost on the field on Sunday. And the Cowboys rank first in the league in passing yards per game.
The road will not get any easier on Thursday as CeeDee Lamb will visit MetLife Stadium. Lamb plays well against the Giants and Banks will have to step up to slow him down.
Lamb has seen at least nine targets in four of his last five games against the Giants and with the Cowboys’ running game not what it used to be, he will likely see a heavy workload on Thursday.
Special Teams
The Giants have had issues on special teams the last few weeks. In Week 2, they lost their kicker, Graham Gano, on the first play of the game.
With Gano on IR, the Giants signed Greg Joseph to fill in. Joseph naturally continued the Giants special teams woes on Sunday by missing a kick with three minutes left in the fourth quarter, which would have made it a two-possession game.
Head coach Brian Daboll was noncommittal on Joseph being the kicker in Week 4 on Monday despite the game just a few days away.
The Giants have also had their fair share of issues at both kick returner and punt returner over the last two weeks, including a fumble on the opening kickoff this past Sunday which quickly put Big Blue behind in the game Sunday.
The Giants will need to clean up the special teams miscues going into Thursday.
