Big Blue Review: Week 5 at Saints; L; NYG: 14, NO: 26
In Week 4, hope was born. In Week 5, hope died.
Dear hope,
Thank you for being born. Thank you for giving us a week of your time. I know how difficult it must have been for you to visit the New York Giants, a once-respected franchise that has become the joke of the NFL. I know your power can only extend so far, and once the Giants committed their fifth turnover on Sunday, you had to catch a plane to Buffalo. I hope the Patriots enjoy you as much as we did for one week in New York.
For as bad as the Giants are, and as disappointing as their 14-26 Week 5 loss to the New Orleans Saints was, the then-worst team in the NFL, it feels like this Giants team has the pieces to be successful. It’s their coaching staff that isn’t good enough, from Brian Daboll to Mike Kafka to Shane Bowen.
That is not fair to Jaxson Dart.
Tonight, the Giants will host the Philadelphia Eagles in Thursday Night Football. The Eagles are hundreds of thousands of leagues above the Giants. They are the defending Super Bowl champions. They turned Saquon Barkley rogue. They have the most effective team in the NFL, even though many of their players are having “down years.”
If anyone thinks Barkley is having a “down year,” that will definitely end tonight against the team that drafted him. Because there’s nothing new to discuss, the narrative around tonight’s game is still the fact that the Giants let Barkley go before the 2024 season.
Will the joke of the Giants ever end?
Ever?
Ever?
Buehler?
Last Sunday, right before the Yankees lost 10-1 to the Blue Jays – and we all know how that ended – the Giants laid their biggest egg of the season, committing five turnovers against the 0-and-4 Saints. Dart was responsible for three of those turnovers, including a lost fumble and two interceptions.
“Obviously, I’m young, and that can’t be an excuse,” Dart said. “I’ve got to continue to get better.”
To be fair, Dart didn’t have his star receiver Malik Nabers, who is out for the season with a torn ACL, and the Saints elevated their game defensively when they heard a depleted Giants team was coming to town. Their secondary exceeded expectations, and their offense was terrific, highlighted by a two-play drive in which Spencer Rattler found Rashid Shaheed for an 87-yard receiving touchdown.
The Giants initially led this game 7-0 and then 14-3 as Dart connected with Theo Johnson for two touchdowns. But once New Orleans made that 87-yard play in the second quarter, it was a 14-13 football game, and they never looked back.
“That changed the momentum, [and we] couldn’t get it back,” Brian Burns said.
The Giants committed their first fumble in the second quarter with just over one minute remaining. Dart completed a pass to Darius Slayton, who hobbled for a nine-yard gain before the football was forced out of his hands, and he lost it. New Orleans was able to move the ball 27 yards the other direction, and they turned the takeaway into a go-ahead field goal at the end of the first half.
“The quarterback can’t be perfect,” said Slayton, who is a captain on this Giants team and a leader in the clubhouse. The veteran wideout had no excuse for losing that fumble.
Jaxson Dart was responsible for the Giants’ second turnover, as he got sacked on the eighth play of his team’s first drive of the second half. The ball wasn’t forced out, though; Dart just lost it.
And then, in the fourth quarter, New Orleans was leading 19-14, but the Giants were finishing a long seven-minute drive. The football was at New Orleans’ 13-yard line, and Cam Skattebo was holding it before Bryan Bresee forced it out, and Jordan Howden recovered it. As soon as the CBS Sports broadcast returned at the start of the fourth quarter, without fail, there was Howden, running the other direction with the football, and reaching the end zone cleanly for a touchdown.
That was that. The game was all but over. “He got a good punch on it, and I handed them a touchdown,” said Skattebo. “I fumbled. I’ve just got to be better at holding onto the ball. He got it out perfectly. He punched the ball from the back side, and I didn’t hold on tight enough.”
That was the moment hope left the building. During hope’s short visit to New York, it looked like Skattebo was the rookie running back of the Giants’ dreams. That, too, ended quickly.
Skattebo claimed, “It’s not on the coaches. We’ve got to take care of the ball better.” It’s true, he only had himself to blame for his blunder. The coaches were not responsible for that fumble. But they might have been at fault for the results of the Giants’ next two possessions, as Jaxson Dart got picked off twice.
The first interception came on a missed throw to Jalin Hyatt. On the second, Dart had all the time in the world to make a play, and instead of throwing the ball away on 2nd-and-long, he threw it right to Kool-Aid McKinstry. Perhaps a more confident play call from Mike Kafka would have yielded a different result.
“We gave them the game,” Wan’Dale Robinson said. “When we were driving, it felt like we were moving the ball whenever we wanted, and then we just gave them the ball, multiple times.”
Team Stats:
Scoring Breakdown:
Scoring Drives:
Tonight, the Giants will try to do a better job of holding onto the football as they host the 4-1 defending Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles, in a Thursday Night Football matchup.
Thursday Night Football (TNF) Injury Report (10/9):
LB Swayze Bozeman (ankle) did not practice this week and has been ruled OUT to play tonight.
LB Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles (hamstring) did not practice this week and has been ruled OUT to play tonight.
WR Darius Slayton (hamstring) did not practice this week and has been ruled OUT to play tonight.
OL Jermaine Eluemunor (back) practiced in a limited capacity yesterday and has been ruled QUESTIONABLE to play tonight.
S Dane Belton (shoulder) practiced in a limited capacity yesterday and has been ruled QUESTIONABLE to play tonight.
S Jevón Holland (calf) practiced in a limited capacity yesterday and has been ruled QUESTIONABLE to play tonight.
S Tyler Nubin (groin) practiced in a limited capacity yesterday and has been ruled QUESTIONABLE to play tonight.
CB Andru Phillips (hip) practiced in a limited capacity yesterday and has been ruled QUESTIONABLE to play tonight.
RB Tyrone Tracy Jr. (shoulder) practiced in a limited capacity yesterday and has been ruled QUESTIONABLE to play tonight.
