How New York Giants Plan To Recover From 40-0 Loss To Dallas Cowboys
When a team loses, 40-0, to a division rival to begin the season, there are seldom many bright spots. New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll didn’t mince words about it Sunday night after New York;s loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
“We just got skunked here, 40 to nothing,” Daboll told the media following the game. “When you play a game like that and coach a game like that, there’s nothing that’s good enough. Our job is to go back and look at it with a critical eye, just like we would do in any game, but 40 to nothing is not a good score, obviously. So, a lot to work on and that’s what we’ll do.”
It is one game of 17 regular season contests. One need only look back to 1986, a season that began with a loss to the Cowboys, too, but concluded with a victory in Super Bowl XXI, to remind everyone of just how early it is. Yet part of what was so disspiriting was how many of the biggest offenders in New York’s underperformance were critical parts of their offseason, looking to build on last season’s playoff appearance.
The biggest-ticket item in New York’s offseason, of course, was putting the ball into the hands of quarterback Daniel Jones for the forseeable future. The numbers were ugly in his first game under his new contract terms, just 104 yards passing, no touchdowns and two interceptions. It is worth pointing out, though: on most of Sunday’s snaps, Jones simply didn’t have a chance to make a play.
“I think, for one, we’ve got to own it,” Jones told reporters postgame. “Own what happened out there. We didn’t play well enough. Didn’t execute well enough, didn’t give ourselves a chance to win the game and we got to own that, and then we got to attack the process this week of correcting it, of being critical and finding what we got to work on and making sure we are prepared and doesn’t happen again. Yeah, we’ve got to own it and move on.”
The lack of productivity filtered down throughout the offense’s numbers. Darren Waller, acquired in the offseason as a playmaker at tight end, finished with just three catches for 36 yards. Third round pick Jalin Hyatt, expected to stretch the defense as a deep threat missing from last year’s roster, was targeted just once, the result of the constant pressure from the Cowboys.
It didn’t matter, though. He dropped that one target.
Even Graham Geno, just signed to an extension this past weekend due to his consistent excellence as a kicker, missed both his attempts, the first a 36-yard kick he has routinely completed. (He’s made 49 of 52 attempts 30-39 yards since 2017.)
Ultimately, though, it will be up to the Giants mainstays, especially the captains, to navigate team’s ability to put this behind them and focus on the Arizona Cardinals this coming Sunday.
“The danger is we can come in and listen to the media and listen everyone and let those ‘poor me’s’ creep in and they can trickle down and have an effect on our season,” Giants running back Saquon Barkley, who rushed for 51 yards on 12 carries, largely sidelined by the lopsided score all night, said postgame. “That’s the reality of it but at the end of the day, it’s on the coaches, it’s on us—the leaders, it’s on the players to come in next week, come in tomorrow, watch film, learn from it, put it in the past and move on. It sucks, but sometimes you need an opener like this. You never want it to be this way, 40-0, home, to Dallas, but you’ve got to hold each other a little more accountable and that starts with meetings on Monday and then come to practice, raise your level and push each other.”
