New York Giants: 3 takeaways for Week 5 loss to Vikings

Daniel Jones is no longer an undefeated quarterback as the New York Giants went down 28-7 to Minnesota on Sunday. Here are our three takeaways from the game.

The New York Giants mini winning streak is over. Sunday they dropped a 28-10 decision to Minnesota. Big Blue didn’t get totally steamrolled, but they once again came up short against a good team. It was a learning experience for rookie quarterback Daniel Jones, he found out what it’s like to play against a good defense.

As far as the Big Blue defense goes, their performance left much to be desired. They couldn’t stop the run or the pass. When they did manage to make a good play, it was undermined by a penalty or a bad play soon after. The D was maddeningly inconsistent.

Defense against the run, or lack thereof

The Giants couldn’t stop Minnesota’s running attack. Against Big Blue, Dalvin Cook had his fourth 100-yard rushing performance of the season. He carried the ball 21 times for 132 yards. Additionally, Cook was deadly catching the ball out of the backfield with six receptions for 86 yards. His 218 combined yards was more offense than the entire Giants team had (211).

Coming into this game, a smart plan for the G-Men would have been to play tight in the box and let Kirk Cousins beat them. The Minnesota quarterback had a good game, and hats off to him for doing so. The problem here is that Minnesota pounded the ball down Big Blue’s gullets for 211 yards on 34 carries. Yielding 6.4 yards per rushing attempt will get a team beat every time.

Trenches

Cliche’s become cliche’s because they are phrases that are repeated so much, everyone knows them. So its no surprise to anyone who follows the football, let alone the players that “games are won and lost in the trenches.” The New York Giants got their butts kicked on both sides of the ball. Sure the Giants D-line had three sacks, but generally, they were pushed around by Minnesota’s men up-front.

The Giants offensive line was manhandled as well. Minnesota had four sacks, seven tackles for loss, and eight hits on Daniel Jones. In addition, they let up a safety on a rushing play and weren’t even close to getting the ball out of their own endzone.

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They have to do a better job going forward because Jones took some big shots on Sunday. If they keep playing so poorly Jones will get hurt, and that can’t happen.

Maximize chances

The Giants lack of overall talent means they have less margin for error than most other teams do. So when they get opportunities to put points, especially touchdowns, on the board, those chances must be capitalized on. It was something the G-Men couldn’t do on Sunday. Bad passes and penalties undermined them all day.

Here is a good example. Big Blue took the opening drive of the second half down to the Minnesota six-yard line for a first down. Eight plays later, Aldric Rosas kicked a 32-yard field goal. In those eight plays, there were two runs for negative yardage, a 10-yard sack, and a pair of incomplete passes. At one point the Giants kicked a 28-yard field goal, but due to personal foul against Minnesota, the had another first down at the three. So they had several shots at a touchdown, but couldn’t cash in.

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