NEW ORLEANS — The Giants’ heads were still spinning from the mess they’d just made during Sunday’s inexcusable 26-14 loss at the Saints.
They surrendered 23 unanswered points to one of the NFL’s worst teams, after leading 14-3 midway through the second quarter. They turned the ball over on five straight drives (three fumbles and two interceptions). And they lost to a quarterback, Spencer Rattler, who was 0-4 this season and 0-10 in his career.
So what happens if the Giants play like this Thursday night at home against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles (and that Saquon Barkley guy)?
“We won’t,” wide receiver Darius Slayton insisted after Sunday’s debacle. “So we won’t find out what that’s going to be like. We’re going to hold on to the ball.”
At this point, why should anyone believe that hot-seat fourth-year coach Brian Daboll is even capable of fixing the Giants’ latest mess, especially on a short week?
We have seen enough evidence of who Daboll and Joe Schoen’s Giants really are — this season and, really, ever since 2023. They are, ultimately, a group that can’t get the basics right consistently enough. It’s hard to figure out which is worse — five turnovers in New Orleans or those 14 penalties for 160 yards in Week 2 at Dallas.
And now, the Giants and rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart (1-1 as a starter) must navigate a brutal stretch of their schedule (Eagles, Broncos, Eagles) without their best offensive weapon, wide receiver Malik Nabers, done for the year with a torn ACL.
Why should anyone feel confident that they’ll do anything other than lose all three of these games and send another season straight down the drain?
Daboll is 1-4 this year and 10-29 over the past two-plus seasons. Forget last week’s shocking win over the Chargers in Dart’s starting debut. For these Giants, that sort of well-rounded performance is an aberration. Everyone should realize that by now. Sunday’s dud in New Orleans is much more typical of the Daboll/Schoen era.
While falling to this Saints team — in this sort of brutal manner — put this loss among Daboll’s worst, there was nothing particularly unusual about the Giants’ failings. Because under Daboll, this is who they are.
Safety Tyler Nubin, who gave up an 87-yard touchdown pass Sunday, offered a blunter answer to the big looming question: What happens to the Giants if they perform like this against the Eagles?
“If we have this many self-inflicted mistakes against my high school, we’re not going to win,” he said. “I think you know the answer to that question.”
The answer: It would just be business as usual for Daboll’s Giants — more losing, especially against an NFC East opponent.
The Daboll/Schoen Giants are 4-15-1 in regular season division play, including 0-7 against Dallas and 1-5 against Philadelphia (1-6 if you count the playoffs). They have lost eight straight against the division, including last year’s 0-6 record — their first ever winless NFC East season.
Now they have to play the Eagles twice in a three-game stretch, coming out of a putrid showing in New Orleans.
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It wasn’t just Nubin’s coverage bust. It wasn’t just that the Giants had five (straight!) turnovers Sunday, including lost fumbles by Slayton, Dart and Cam Skattebo (returned for a touchdown).
“Can’t have those things,” Daboll said of the turnovers. “Those kill you.”
Ya think?
The Giants on Sunday also managed zero takeaways — a week after their defense produced two picks that both gave Dart the ball on the Chargers’ 3-yard line (and essentially handed the offense 10 of its 21 points).
So here they are again, at 1-4, teetering on the brink of another nightmare start (like 2-8 in 2023 and 2-13 in 2024). Daboll is inching toward a 10-30 record over a 40-game stretch.
And even though Dart has shown plenty of encouraging signs so far, he needs to actually win some winnable games (like Sunday) for Daboll to stick around.
Based on what we’ve seen from Daboll’s Giants — for far too long now — it’s hard to imagine any of that happening.
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