No one expects a team to hit the panic button after Week 1. But if you’re the New York Giants, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to at least know where the button is. Because after getting trampled by the Commanders — a 21–6 reminder that offseason wins mean nothing — the message coming out of the locker room somehow leaned more “everybody relax” than “we’ve got a real problem.”
Related: 2 winners (and 5 clear losers) from Giants' Week 1 dumpster fire vs Commanders
That tone was set by Darius Slayton, who did his best to downplay the immediate calls for Jaxson Dart and prop up the veteran quarterback who just went 17-for-37 for 168 yards with no touchdowns. Slayton had one target in the loss, zero catches, and yet still defended Russell Wilson like the guy hadn’t just walked the offense off a cliff after the game:
"But the reality is that things take time, and not everything is just a 9-1-1 situation,"Slayton told the media. "We have good coaches. We have a good quarterback in Russell Wilson, and it's one week."
Darius Slayton tries to ease fan panic after brutal Week 1 loss
There’s something admirable about a team leader trying to keep things calm, especially when the outside noise gets this loud, this fast. But the issue here isn’t just the noise. It’s what caused it.
Slayton wasn’t wrong to stand by his quarterback — that comes with his $36 million contract extension. But the way this offense looked in Week 1 was alarming. And pretending otherwise doesn’t exactly scream accountability.
Slayton essentially chalked it up to a slow start, the kind of result that supposedly gets cleaned up with a better week of practice. But let’s not dress this up into something it's not. This wasn’t just a couple red zone misfires or boneheaded penalties.
This was 231 yards of total offense, zero touchdowns, and an offensive line that couldn't block to save its life. The same problems that torpedoed last season are already alive and well. The protection was unreliable, the running backs couldn't make it out of the backfield, and Wilson looked like a player closer to the bench than the Hall of Fame.
Maybe it’s not time to call first responders, but if someone isn’t at least sounding an alarm inside that building, the G-Men are going to be 0-a lot before they know what hit them. Slayton might think it’s not a 9-1-1 situation. But if they treat this like business as usual, it’s going to turn into one real quick.
It's time to stop telling fans what not to do and focus on what the team needs to do to get it together.
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