The New York Giants fell 17-7 to the Cincinnati Bengals at MetLife Stadium. Sunday night football.

They are now 2-4 on the season with the Philadelphia Eagles and Saquon Barkley entering Sunday.

Here are several things we learned from the deflating loss.

Giants cannot overcome Bad Daniel

Daniel Jones came into the game with a series of steady performances, only to crash back to earth against one of the NFL’s most porous defenses in Cincinnati.

Jones’ line (22 of 41,205 yards, no touchdowns and one interception for a QB rating of 57.5) wasn’t what the Giants hoped, but it’s the one interception that stands out. It killed an eight-play, 48-yard drive that had gotten them to the Bengals’ 14.

Jones looked mortal without his top wideout, rookie Malik Nabers, who stuck to short passes and didn’t complete a single pass of more than 15 yards that night.

Secondary does its job – again

The Bengals entered Sunday night with a full complement of offensive weapons. Both stud wideouts, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, were healthy and ready to go.

But the Giants’ young secondary was up to the task. Neither player reached the end zone and — for the sixth game this season — the Giants surrendered no more than 100 yards to a single wide receiver.

Chase caught five passes for 72 yards with a long of 33. Higgins has a seven-catch night for 77 yards with a long of 24.

They bent but didn’t break against one of the NFL’s best tandems.

Missed opportunities prevented a possible victory

The Giants were in this game and probably should have won it. Kicker Greg Joseph missed two field goals and the defense allowed Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who had never had a run of more than 23 yards in his career, to rush 47 yards untouched for the opening score.

Another frustrating moment came late in the first quarter when Jones hit Darius Slayton for a 56-yard gain that would have put the Giants at the Cincinnati 35 as the half narrowed. Instead, the play was called back as left tackle Andrew Thomas was called for being illegally downfield. The Giants eventually kicked the ball away.

Daboll tries to spark the offense

As the Giants offense sputtered, head coach Brian Daboll decided to try to spark the offense by going for it on multiple fourth downs. Five times he decided to roll the dice and three times the Giants won.

One of the examples was on his own 38-yard line on the Giants’ first possession of the third quarter. The fourth-and-2 attempt failed when Jones tried to force a pass to Wan’Dale Robinson, who was batted away.

“Yeah, we didn’t have any points. I felt good about the stuff we had,” Daboll said of the decision after the game. “We picked up the pace a little bit and then our defense did a great job of holding on, getting the ball back and then going down and scoring. But it’s hard to win football games when you score seven points. is the reality of it.”

Tracy has another solid outing

Devin Singletary (groin) was ruled out again Sunday night, meaning rookie Tyrone Tracy Jr. would take the lead again.

Tracy responded with another impressive performance totaling 107 yards (50 rushing, 57 receiving) and the Giants’ only touchdown.

“He played well,” Jones said after the game. “He played well in Seattle last week and came in and ran hard. He made a few plays in the passing game and thought he had a good night.”

Tracy himself was not so much concerned about his performance as about that of the team.

“On the offensive side, we had a lot of accidents. Our defense played great. They gave us the ball. We have to take our chances,” he said. “If we get a short field, or if the defense has a three and out, or whatever it is, we have to play complementary football. And today we didn’t do that in the first half. In the second half we came out of it. ” We’ve tweaked it a little bit, but at the end of the day we have to take care of the little details and just fall back on our fundamentals.”

This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: What we learned from Giants’ 17-7 loss to Bengals