With high expectations, the Giants are looking to get back on track with how they started heading into the 2024 season.
Their offense was awful. Their defense was solid early but then faded. Their coaching was off the mark for much of the day, and their personnel was odd. The Giants want to get over their 28-6 loss to the Vikings at MetLife Stadium, but they can't do that unless they look back and figure out what on earth happened to lead to such a terrible opener.
There's not much good to say. Let's get started.
When Coach Brian Daboll said many times, “It all starts with me,” he wasn't kidding. For the second year in a row, the Giants started the season looking unprepared for the big game. Their 2023 opening game was a humiliating 40-0 defeat to the Cowboys at home following their playoff win the previous season. Coach Daboll tried to prevent a slow start this season by changing his approach in the spring and training camp, forcing his team to work more 11-on-11. The strategy seemed reasonable, but the offense never looked competent from the first innings. Coach Daboll's NFL debut as head coach in 2022 was a spectacular come-from-behind victory against the Titans in Nashville. Since then, the Giants' opening act has been terrible. Perhaps he needs to rethink his strategy of keeping his key players away from preseason games.
Before the season began, Wan'Dale Robinson, not rookie Malik Neighbors, was expected to lead the team in targets, and a week later, that prediction appears to have paid off. Robinson was targeted a team-high 12 times, but his poor performance (six receptions for 44 yards) was further evidence that Daniel Jones has serious accuracy issues. Neighbors played all 71 snaps on offense and was targeted seven times. He had five catches for 66 yards, including two for gains of 25 yards, showing his ability to find gaps in the defense is real.
— It wasn't the kind of massive crowds that happen when the Eagles or Cowboys visit, but it was notable how many purple fans crowded the seats closest to the field in the final minutes of the Vikings' season-opening win at the Giants' field. Things got so bad that early in the fourth quarter, most of the 81,908 fans already there made a hasty exit, leaving MetLife Stadium's lower stands nearly full of Vikings fans, clapping along to the chants that usually only seem to be heard in their hometown of Minneapolis.
— All the downfield passes seen in training camp and the three combined practices were gone. Jones attempted 42 passes, and none of them went longer than 20 yards. Sure, Daboll called for a few deep shots in his first game after taking over the play-calling, but Jones either didn't have the time he needed in the pocket or, more likely, his eyes weren't where they needed to be to see the play unfold downfield.
“We're going to take another look at it,” Daboll said. “Obviously, we called the plays, and sometimes they blocked us from doing that. We've got to do a better job in every aspect, and that starts with me.”
Did the Vikings really “keep you at bay” so many times that Jones never had a chance to throw a deep pass? Daboll said the Vikings didn't get after Jones much — “we didn't really pressure him that much” — and the defense “played a lot of soft-shell, split-safety plays.” In other words, the Vikings were intent on keeping the ball in front of them, challenging Jones to beat them with short passes down the field. Jones just wasn't accurate enough to do it.
The Giants entered the season with the league's fourth-youngest roster overall, and although their projected starting lineup included two rookie starters (offenseman Neighbors and defensive nickelback Dru Phillips), they were actually much younger than that. Five rookies started the game, the most for the Giants in 55 years since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970. It was also the first time since then that the Giants started two rookies on both offense and defense in an opening game.
Neighbors and tight end Theo Johnson started on offense and three newcomers started on defense — safety Tyler Nubin, inside linebacker Darius Muasau and defensive tackle Elijah Chatman. Phillips was not a starter, but he took the field on the third defensive snap and recorded a forced fumble on his first snap, hitting fullback C.J. Ham.
Muasau started because Micah McFadden was still nursing a groin injury sustained in the second preseason game. Chatman became the first undrafted rookie to start the Giants' defense's first game of the season since 1970. All six of the Giants' 2024 draft picks appeared in the game.
Putting McFadden in a uniform was a strange move. He was either healthy enough to play or he wasn't. He missed games, so giving him a roster spot was basically a waste.
Another surprising move was using Cordell Flott as the slot corner after the coaching staff had him work on the perimeter all summer. Flott played 37 of the 55 snaps on defense. Adoree' Jackson, who re-signed a week ago, was on the field for 19 snaps, more than expected, after Nick McCloud was sidelined with a knee injury.
— Want more evidence that the Giants' offense wasn't ready to make the switch from preseason to regular season? They committed six fouls on offense, four of them before the snap, and their receivers dropped five passes. That, combined with Jones' tendency in this game to throw the ball at the feet of his targets, led to some ugly confusion.
— The fourth wide receiver, as Jalynn Hyatt hasn't proven himself worthy of more playing time than veteran Darius Slayton. Hyatt was on the field for just 16 snaps but dropped the ball on his only target. Slayton (3 catches for 26 yards) appeared for 51 snaps on offense.
It was the Giants' sixth straight loss in their home opener. Their last win in front of their home fans was on Sept. 12, 2010, when they beat the Panthers, 31-18, in their first regular-season game at MetLife Stadium.
