If you want to feel better as a fan, take a look at the positives that were squeezed out of the Giants' 20-15 loss to the Cowboys on Thursday night.
If being a fan improves your sleep quality, then that's for sure. Write a sonnet about the night Daniel Jones made a mostly effective 29-of-40 pass (he looked much better before failing on his last five attempts). Let's sing praises about the defense that kept Dallas from the end zone in the second half. Kudos to the offense for playing with competency for the third straight week, several episodes north of what we've seen in recent years.
Knock yourself out.
Or they could do what the Giants should have done this morning in the days leading up to next Sunday's game in Seattle. Make no mistake, this was a winnable match. Forget what the oddsmakers said. The Cowboys came to MetLife Stadium injured and vulnerable.
They lost badly to the Saints and trailed to the Ravens, but both games were at home with fans ready to reach for the torch or pitchfork and some with itchy trigger fingers on speed dial. It was done right in front of owner Bill Belichick. They just can't stop that run, and in fact the last two weeks it looked like opposing teams thought they were playing flag football when they ran the ball.
Or touch with both hands.
So the Giants, whose running game looked very promising in Cleveland last week, were going to put the ball down the Cowboys' throats. They were going to take them to the mouth and keep the Dallas defense on the field to slow down the clock and make the season 2-2.
The Giants ran the ball, OK. Twenty-four times.
They gained 26 yards.
If you don't have a calculator handy, I can help. That's an average of 1.08 yards per carry.
Surprising news: They didn't score a touchdown. Even more surprising, they're not 2-2.
He also couldn't protect the Cowboys' offense, which looked shaky 50-50 against New Orleans and Baltimore. Dak Prescott was great: 27/22, 221 yards, 2 touchdowns. Brandon Aubrey made his customary 60-yard field goal (although he missed a 51-yarder that stunned the entire stadium and kept the most loyal players in their seats a few minutes longer). Ta).
“The result was terrible,” Giants manager Brian Daboll said. “But we also saw improvement. Last week we got the result we wanted (a 21-15 win against the Browns). This week that wasn't the case. We played the way we needed to. I played the game.”
He doesn't do anything wrong with that. But if the Giants really want to be judged on performance rather than curveballs (as they claim every week), then this is Week 4 of the football season. It was the biggest buzzkill you could imagine.
There was momentum in the Browns' win last week, and it was widely believed that the Browns caught up with the Cowboys at the perfect time to end a six-game losing streak and 13 of 14 games. And look, they had the ball for 35 minutes out of 60 minutes. Jones played so well that coaches gushed about his performance. There was some good stuff on the field Thursday night.
But the scoreboard outperformed the field.
The scoreboard read Cowboys 20, Giants 15.
Do this 7 times in a row.
I give it 14 out of 15.
Please make it 1-3.
“Give them a lot of credit. It's a tough question,” Daboll said. “But we have to do a better job than that.”
Football season is a crazy roller coaster. A week ago today, many Giants fans were already looking forward to the draft. And on Sunday in Cleveland, they looked as good as they've looked in years. All of a sudden, those same fans might be 2-2 and convincing themselves of what that means for the rest of the season.
now?
This is 1-3. They now face a four-week stretch of games at home in Seattle, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, as well as in Pittsburgh. If you're not careful, the season will fly by.
The Giants' play in Cleveland last week put an end to that buzz, but it was only a short reprieve. The Cowboys were begging for elimination last night, and the game was scheduled to go through 60 minutes. It's all good things, but that's the biggest gain. As Daboll said, the results stink. Even if the team doesn't.
And 1-3 is 1-3.
