Takeaways from Giants 28-6 Loss Over Minnesota Vikings

Giants at a crossroad with quarterback Daniel Jones.

Sep 8, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones (8) carries the ball while being defended by Minnesota Vikings safety Harrison Smith (22) during the first half at MetLife Stadium. / John Jones-Imagn Images

As the New York Giants celebrate their 100 greatest players in franchise history, a flashback appeared for me as the great Eli Manning’s name was announced to thunderous applause by an otherwise disappointed and deflated Giants home crowd being subjected to yet another round of unacceptable football.

Manning, who retired after 2019, was famously benched after two games, both losses that season, by then-head coach Pat Shurmur. Shurmur was desperate to unlock a new layover of his playbook that the immobile Manning couldn’t execute.

So after the Giants lost that second game, a 28-14 decision to the Buffalo Bills, Shurmur handed the franchise keys to quarterback Daniel Jones, the first of the team’s three first-round draft picks that year.

That year, Jones provided a glimmer of promise, throwing for over 3,000 yards, a feat he wouldn’t accomplish again until 2022, with 24 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.

But since then, well, we all know the story. It’s true that the Giants haven’t helped Jones out much in the years since by consistently putting a decent-performing cast around him.

That excuse will only take things so far. In the six seasons Jones has been at the helm, the story is the same: take away his first read, and that’s all she wrote.  

Witness the debacle against the Vikings. Yes, the Giants' defense made Viking journeyman quarterback Sam Darnold look like a Pro Bowler. And yes, the offensive game strategy was a headscratcher. And yes, the five drops by the receivers shouldn’t be happening now.

But at this point, Jones needs to help his team and not hurt it. We have seen far too many times that when his first option is taken away, he goes into semi-panic mode and throws the ball either at the feet of his receivers or to a different-colored jersey.

Of the five sacks he took against the Vikings, an argument could be made that at least three could have been avoided with quicker decision-making and pocket decisions.

Yesterday was Daniel Jones 20th career start with 0 TD passes on at least 13 pass attempts or more in a game, the most such games in the NFL since 2019. #Giants100

— WBG84 (@WBG84) September 9, 2024

And it seems that the more Jones is out there, the worse he looks. And if he’s going to look as bad as he did on Sunday, similar to how he looked most of last year before his torn ACL except for two-quarters of play, how can the Giants continue to justify putting him out there week after to week? 

What does this all have to do with Manning, the Giants franchise record holder for virtually every passing-related record? 

It only took two losing performances by a Manning-led team for the franchise to seek a spark elsewhere. And while it right now seems obvious the Giants franchise quarterback is not on the roster if the Giants aspire to show team ownership that the arrow is pointing in the right direction, the decision-makers cannot be reluctant to pull the plug on a quarterback who, save for one decent year in 2022, has yet to elevate those around him consistently.  

About the Punt Returner Situation

I understand that a team can’t be held responsible for injuries, but I found the handling of the punt return situation a headscratcher.

Gunner Olszewski has missed most of camp with a groin issue but was said to be trending in the right direction by head coach Brian Daboll. Yet as recently as last week, leading into the game, Olszewski still appeared to be laboring in his movement, if just slightly to where it wouldn’t have been surprising if the team held its breath in hopes that the receiver didn’t have a setback.

Sure enough, he did. The setback was happening in pregame warmups. And for a Daboll-led team that is said to prepare for everything and anything, why they didn’t have an Ayir Asante on the practice squad, whom they could have elevated as a backup plan, is a mystery. 

Instead, when Oslzeewski went down, they turned to receiver Darius Slayton, who has never returned a punt in an NFL game and whose punt return experience has been limited to fielding the ball.

Maybe that’s what the Giants expected of Slayton, who ended up muffing the punt only to thankfully have it recovered by Dane Belton. 

But why not give yourself another competitive edge by having a standby capable of getting you yardage on the change of possessions rather than settling for someone to secure the ball?

We’ll Say It Again  

This insistence by Daboll to limit starters to just one preseason game has GOT to change because, in two games in a row now, the starters have come out and have been outclassed by the opposition. 

This past summer, Daboll’s approach was to hold the starters out of preseason games if a joint practice was held leading up to the game. The flaw in this logic is that it’s a controlled environment in a joint practice. 

I love Kevin O’Connell post game speeches.pic.twitter.com/btCADluf5r

— The Purple Persuasion (@TPPSkol) September 8, 2024

The quarterback cannot be touched–and how many times have we seen instances where a quarterback in a practice session should have been sacked, but because the play was allowed to continue, the quarterback ended up with more time to make a play than had that been a real live rep in a game.

I get that there’s a concern for injuries, but it’s football. Players will get hurt in practice (see Austin Schlottmann, who broke his leg in practice on grass), preseason games, and regular-season games. It’s more important to get guys ready than to approach the preparation conservatively, as the Giants have done the last two summers because clearly, it’s not working. 

In Case You Missed It

In 2022 and 2023, left tackle Andrew Thomas participated in 73 special teams snaps, mainly on field goal and PAT teams.

So after Thomas pulled a hamstring last year chasing down a blocked field goal for a touchdown return in the regular-season opener, it was interesting to see that the Giants best offensive lineman was not a part of the special teams unit in the Week 1 loss to the Vikings, one of two starting offensive linemen (center John Michael Schmitz the other) to be relieved of special teams duties.

Joshua Ezeudu took Thomas’s spot at left tackle on the field goal line.

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