SI:AM | Giants’ Poor Planning Cost Them in Loss to Commanders

A crucial mistake by Brian Daboll forced his team into some difficult situations.

Daboll’s roster decisions came back to bite the Giants on Sunday. / Luke Johnson-Imagn Images

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I wonder if Aaron Judge is going to be able to get to 60 home runs again after his recent cold streak. He got back on track this weekend, though, and hit his 53rd on Sunday.

In today’s SI:AM:

🔵 Rough loss for Big Blue
😅 Chiefs’ comeback win
🏴‍☠️ Are the Bucs contenders?

What a mess

The New York Giants don’t look like they’re going to win very many games this season, which makes Sunday’s 21–18 loss to the Washington Commanders all the more frustrating.

After a dismal showing in a 28–6 loss in Week 1 to the Minnesota Vikings, the Giants showed signs of life in Week 2. Quarterback Daniel Jones threw two interceptions and was sacked five times in the opener while completing just 52.3% of his passes but did not turn the ball over on Sunday, was sacked just once and threw two touchdowns. The majority of Jones’s passes went to rookie receiver Malik Nabers, who had a breakout game with 10 catches for 127 yards and a touchdown. Running back Devin Singletary, the replacement for Saquon Barkley, was bottled up in the opener (37 yards on 10 carries) but had 95 yards on 16 carries in Washington.

And yet the Giants still lost, mostly because of a questionable roster management decision made by coach Brian Daboll.

New York kicker Graham Gano injured his groin in Friday’s practice and was added to the injury report on Saturday. Despite the injury, the Giants opted not to use a practice squad elevation to add another kicker to the gameday roster on Sunday. So when Gano pulled his hamstring on the opening kickoff, the team was left without a kicker for the rest of the game.

The Giants tried to have punter Jamie Gillan handle the kicking duties, but he wasn’t up to the task. He missed the extra point after New York’s first touchdown and was not called upon for any more placekicking opportunities.

The absence of a capable kicker forced the Giants into some difficult situations on offense. They attempted two-point conversions on their next two touchdowns and failed on both. Then, with just over two minutes left in the game, the Giants were forced to pass up a 39-yard field goal attempt that would have given them the lead and instead attempt to convert on a fourth-and-4. Jones did a good job buying enough time to find an open Nabers near the sideline, but the rookie inexplicably dropped what should have been an easy catch.

Giants can't convert the 4th down attempt and Jayden Daniels will receive the ball in a tie game with 2 minutes remaining in the game.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! pic.twitter.com/Lalrpz5nWW

— Chad Ryan (@ChadwikoTWW) September 15, 2024

The drop allowed the Commanders to get the ball back and march down the field for a game-winning field goal—kicker Austin Seibert’s seventh of the game. How unbelievable is that? The Giants became the first team in NFL history to score three touchdowns, allow no touchdowns and lose the game in regulation.

It isn’t hard to see how the game could have gone differently if the Giants had a healthy kicker available to them. But their practice squad kicker, Jude McAtamney, isn’t a sure bet, either. McAtamney is from Northern Ireland and only started playing American football in 2020. He played one year of Division II football at Chowan University in North Carolina and two years at Rutgers. He was 12-for-18 on field goal attempts as a junior but was removed from field goal duty as a senior and only handled kickoffs. He made one extra point and two field goals (23 and 43 yards) in the preseason.

Daboll defended his decision not to elevate McAtamney and leave Gano as the only kicker available.

“We thought Graham would be okay,” Daboll told reporters. “He got hurt chasing down [the returner]. It was a hamstring. He didn’t hurt his groin. He hurt his hamstring.”

But Daboll was either being naive or disingenuous in asserting that Gano’s hamstring injury had nothing to do with the groin injury he picked up in practice. He’s a 37-year-old who was already dealing with a lower-body injury. The groin issue could have absolutely been tied to the injury he sustained on the kickoff.

The other issue is Daboll’s decision to have an already injured Gano handle the kickoffs in the first place. Gillan did a good job on kickoffs after Gano went out, kicking two touchbacks. Gano wouldn’t have been in a position to hurt himself trying to make a tackle if Gillan had been the one taking the opening kick. But Daboll’s decision to have Gano handle that relatively insignificant play ended up impacting the rest of the game.

That’s the way things have gone for the Giants under Daboll. A lot has gone wrong for the team in his two-plus seasons in charge, and even when things go right, they’re undone by sloppy mistakes.

Daboll’s mismanagement of the roster this season is particularly galling. A similar situation unfolded in Week 1 when return man Gunner Olszewski aggravated an existing groin injury in pregame warmups and could not play. That left New York without any players with pro experience returning punts. Receiver Darius Slayton muffed his first punt return of the day and the Giants were fortunate to fall on the loose ball. Olszewski was placed on injured reserve this week, but the team did not add another player to the 53-man active roster to take his place. Instead, it used its two practice squad elevations on a pair of linebackers—Tomon Fox and Ty Summers—who only appeared on special teams. Either one of them could have been added to the 53-man roster and the team could have used the other practice squad elevation to make McAtamney active for the game. Instead, the Giants decided to play a man down.

The Giants have taken a big step backward since finishing 9–7–1 in Daboll’s first season in charge. Last year’s 6–11 finish can’t even be blamed on the season-ending injury to Jones, since New York was 1–5 before he got hurt. And now the team is 0–2, staring down the possibility of another lost season. Daboll needs to get things in order if he’s going to save his job, and errors like the one he made this week could cost him.

Mayfield (6) has led the Bucs to an impressive start this season. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The best of Sports Illustrated

• Here are Albert Breer’s Week 2 takeaways, leading with the Chiefs’ comeback win over the Bengals.

• Kyle Koster rounded up the best and worst of Tom Brady’s second week in the Fox booth.

• Gilberto Manzano thinks the Buccaneers could be legitimate title contenders.

• It’s a really bad time to be a college football fan in Florida, Pat Forde writes.

• Garrett Johnston was on the ground in Virginia, where the U.S. beat Europe to win the Solheim Cup for the first time since 2017.

• Wake Forest will pay $1 million to cancel next year’s scheduled game against Ole Miss after the Demon Deacons got stomped this weekend by the Rebels.

• Tua Tagovailoa is reportedly not planning to retire.

The top five…

… things I saw yesterday:

5. Will Levis’s spinning escape from a sack.
4. Caitlin Clark’s career-high 35 points to set the WNBA rookie scoring record.
3. Marvin Harrison Jr.’s first two NFL touchdowns. The toe drag on the first one was perfect.
2. Heliot Ramos’s home run into McCovey Cove. He’s the first right-handed batter ever to hit one there in the stadium’s 25-year history.
1. The ref’s blazing speed on Justin Jefferson’s 97-yard touchdown.