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    • NY Giants QB with yet another reminder of an uncertain future
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    NY Giants QB with yet another reminder of an uncertain future

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    EAST RUTHERFORD – You can’t keep giving away plays in the NFL.

    This is how games are lost. This is how seasons are lost.

    That is ultimately how jobs are lost in a competition that is cutthroat.

    Given the opportunity to take a major step forward Sunday night, the Giants walked off the field after their 17-7 loss to the Bengals as if letting another story-changing outcome slip away.

    Worse, two of their best players, left tackle Andrew Thomas and outside linebacker Brian Burns, limped away from postgame interviews at their lockers with varying degrees of discomfort and disillusionment.

    Not exactly how the Giants hoped to enter this week in preparation for Saquon Barkley’s return to MetLife Stadium as the Eagles make the trek down the New Jersey Turnpike. The game could have been one where Big Blue had a chance to announce its presence within the NFC East, with the Cowboys and Commanders both losing earlier Sunday and the Eagles barely edging past the Browns at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

    While the Giants-Eagles game still carries some weight here, given all the circumstances surrounding it, it’s hard to accept another performance where Daniel Jones and the offense failed to pull through.

    “It’s hard to win games when you score seven points and that’s the reality,” said Giants coach Brian Daboll, who repeatedly emphasized during his postgame news conference that the onus is on him to start.

    Of course yes, there is no argument for that. This is Daboll’s team, and the offense has scored one touchdown in three home games to start the 2024 season, with the head coach calling the shots.

    Mind you, it’s not a matter of accountability, but rather execution and the Giants’ inability to avoid the mistakes in details on the offensive side of the ball that continue to hold this team back.

    Unfortunately, that starts with the quarterback. Everything in the NFL starts and ends with the quarterback, and Daniel Jones is now 1-15 in prime time games in his career, including the playoffs.

    When the Giants fail to play explosively, there is usually blame, and rightly so.

    But in this league, because you see the action happening every week, the quarterback has to be the facilitator.

    The quarterback cannot block the rusher who hits his arm under duress. However, he may make the wise decision not to throw the football into the air in a poor attempt to throw it out of the end zone; instead, Jones’ duck was intercepted by Bengals linebacker Germaine Pratt, ending a promising Giants drive deep in Cincinnati territory, while bringing back memories of a similar play against the Steelers in the 2020 season opener on ” Monday Night Football”.

    Jones has played 33 home games and 33 away games in his career, and the division is stark. He has thrown 27 touchdowns and 30 interceptions at home in his career; along the way, Jones has 41 touchdown passes and 14 interceptions.

    In games like the one the Giants coughed up on Sunday night, they didn’t necessarily need Jones to beat Joe Burrow. What they needed was at least one play, maybe more, where Jones rose above the X’s and O’s and showed why he deserves more respect for his ability than he gets.

    The results spoke volumes about why the Giants faced the reality Daboll was talking about.

    The NFL today is built on quarterbacks making plays that up the ante for everyone – around them and against them.

    The more Jones is put in that position, the more apparent the need becomes for Giants to find a QB who does.

    The problem is not with the play caller. The problem is no longer the offensive line, nor the weapons.

    In the decisive moments, Jones is who he is. The joke is on us if we expect this to change in six years.

    Can the Giants win with Jones? They have no better choice this year than to try.

    Can the Giants win thanks to Jones? His actions still suggest otherwise.

    And here’s the thing: The Giants beat the Seahawks the week before in part because Jones came through with those kinds of plays. His deep throw to Darius Slayton on the right sideline, followed by the 30-yard touchdown strike on a deep overroute that left the Seahawks swinging in the air.

    The truth is: the only consistency in Jones’ game is the fact that he is wildly inconsistent, and that continues to cost the Giants. If Jones plays better in Week 2, forget what happened to Graham Gano; the Giants probably have the upper hand over the Commanders. If Jones plays better here against the Cowboys in Week 4, the Giants will likely take home that win as well.

    Like it or not, if Jones makes a handful of the plays he can, you could say the Giants would be 5-1 right now. Instead, three close games went against them.

    On Sunday, Jones completed just 2 of 9 passes with an interception on throws of 10 yards or more. The Giants (2-4) know the margin for error is so small for them, when Thomas is run over by Bengals rusher Trey Hendrickson (two sacks) and he commits an illegal man downfield penalty on an RPO, negating a 56-yard catch done -and-go from Darius Slayton, they need to be able to lean on their quarterback to answer the bell.

    Malik Nabers is a playmaker at that level, which is why he was drafted No. 6 overall. The Giants need a quarterback who can do that too. Take a look around the NFL: The teams that don’t have one are usually at the bottom of the standings and are not in the hunt for a spot in the playoffs, but for a higher pick in the next NFL Draft.

    “I’m just focused on winning games, playing well and winning games,” Jones said. “Tough thing (Sunday night), but next week we have another chance and that’s what we have to do: focus on that and get ready to go.”

    Every week shouldn’t be a referendum on Jones’ future; that will take care of itself.

    But without Nabers, who could be back for next Sunday’s game depending on how his progress in concussion protocol plays out, the Giants won’t get the level of play from their quarterback that will lift all boats.

    Jayden Daniels does that for Washington, even on a losing Sunday. Dak Prescott did that for Dallas, if not against Detroit in a blowout loss Sunday, especially against the Giants. And Jalen Hurts, despite his own efforts to spice things up this season, is still managing to make enough plays to get his team to the finish line.

    Jones isn’t playing at that level, and that’s not an easy thing for the Giants to embrace. There are only so many times the quarterback is able to change the narrative and actually deliver, and it’s been a while since Jones had the MetLife crowd chanting his name.

    Case in point: When the Giants called rookie running back Tyrone Tracy’s number, he produced by finishing with 107 total yards and his first career touchdown. That was the first score for the attack on its own field this season.

    “We have to go back to the drawing board, make sure that this feeling, this anger that we have right now, we take it out on the practice field and execute at a high level,” Tracy said. “Be very detailed in everything we do, come out against the Eagles next Sunday and make sure we leave here with a smile on our faces.”

    That’s exactly it: the Giants were angry because they knew they had given away another one.

    Azeez Ojulari recorded six pressures and 2.0 sacks in his first start with Kayvon Thibodeaux on injured reserve after wrist surgery. The six pressure points are the same for all players in week 6. Brian Burns had his best game yet with the Giants, collecting four pressures with eight tackles, two tackles for loss and a sack.

    On the Bengals’ final drive, Burrow hit Princeton’s Andrei Iosivas for 29 yards on a third-and-12. If we stop there, the Giants will have another offensive opportunity. Then came the hardest one to accept: Micah McFadden stripped the ball from Bengals back Chase Brown, and the fumble squirted onto the turf, away from safety Jason Pinnock, toward the sideline and then out of bounds after the two-minute warning with 1:58 left.

    One play later, Brown ripped off a 30-yard touchdown run. Ball game.

    “It’s frustrating and there are more actions we can take and more things we can do to change the game,” Burns said. “If we want to be an elite defense and live up to who we say we are, we have to make those plays. When that ball came out, that’s a ball we have to take. It’s that simple. We had the opportunity. lay on the ground.”

    And with that bouncing football went the Giants’ last gasp to make it a game, despite their QB1.

    Now the concern is turning to Thomas, who said he will go for an MRI and further testing on Monday to check for a foot injury that clearly bothered him in the second half.

    When asked how he thought he played against the Bengals, Thomas joked, “Not good enough.”

    There was certainly plenty of that sentiment again for the Giants. It’s worth remembering that Daniel Jones fills the position from which NFL success essentially requires elite performance that makes the difference.

    Honestly, with each passing week, the Giants are getting harder and harder to forget as they continue to miss opportunities to win games and turn this season around.

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