By the time the ball got to Malik Neighbors on first possession, the Giants had already lost.
Anyone who expected Brian Daboll to force the ball to Neighbors in his first game as play-caller, or Daniel Jones to force the ball to Neighbors in his first game of the now-or-never season, or his first game as a highly-anticipated rookie, would have been surprised Sunday to see Neighbors not targeted until the Giants' 13th snap of the offense.
“Daniel said they were trying to get me the ball,” Neighbors said after the Giants' 28-6 loss to the Vikings in his NFL debut, “and he saw a bunch of people in front of him. I mean, you can't control that. They were trying to get me the ball and it didn't work out, so I've just got to fix it.”
Neighbors had five catches for a team-high 66 yards, but most of the damage came in the second half after the game got out of hand.
He also caught one of the team's five dropped balls, admitting that he was “trying to move before I made the catch.”
“We've got to catch the ball,” Neighbors said. “We dropped it too many times, myself included. When you have an opportunity, you've got to make that play and we didn't do that today.”
Before the Giants gave Neighbors their sixth-round draft pick, they were concerned about how Neighbors would react if he missed early games.
Maybe the Vikings saw that conversation on “Hard Knocks” and knew to weaken the first quarter safety's help in that way.
“We lost and our offense didn't go very well and I don't think anybody was happy about it,” veteran receiver Darius Slayton said. “Malik's a competitive guy. We're all disappointed with the result. We all want to do better. We all believe we can be better. He wasn't happy, but at the same time, I didn't think he'd be happy.”
Jones and Neighbors played two quarters together in the preseason and showed good chemistry.
“I [him] “Throw the ball more,” Jones said.
The biggest surprise was that the Giants touted a downfield passing attack in training camp and the preseason, yet settled for short and medium passes even when the pocket was clean against a blitz-heavy Cover-2 defense.
“They did a great job of staying over the receivers' heads,” Neighbors said, “and Daniel was just trying to get the ball into the open zone.”
Wan'Dale Robinson led the Giants with 12 targets.
“I thought we played pretty well for our first game,” Neighbors said. “We've dropped the tempo since we first came out, but we still have a lot to learn and a lot to take from there and fix.”
He then added, “I'm trying to get out of my route and make a play. I'm trying to throw a better pass for him. I'm just doing my job. That's all I can do.”
