Positives and Issues

[Leek21]

Positives:

1) Those were some really booming kicks by the punter and coverage was pretty solid.

2) Running game was actually decent.  Opening drive Barkley, Jones and Breida all had decent runs.
Barkley ended up with 12 carries for 51 yards with a 4.3 average.  That's something they can build on for the offense. The run blocking seemed decent.

3) Defense - I'm not saying they were great, they weren't.  However let's look at the 40 points Dallas scored and see if we can fairly blame the defense:
1) Field Goal blocked for a TD.  Not defenses fault.
2) Interception return for a TD.  Not defenses fault.
3) Interception and fumbles in Giants end gave them terrible field position on some other drives.


Overall Defense wasn't great, but legitimately we can blame them for giving up about 20-24 points.
Prescott only threw for 143 yards (13 of 24), no TDs. Pollard had some decent runs, and got 70 yards on 14 carries, so run defense didn't do as well but wasn't horrible.

Issues:

1) I primarily blame the O-line pass blocking.  Jones didn't have time to throw, WRs didn't have time to get open. 

2) I blame the WRs.  When Jones did have time to throw it seemed to me like he had no one to throw to.
It could be Jones was just slow reading the field and finding the open targets but my take is the WRs weren't open and Dallas does have a good secondary.

3) Even when Jones had time, he wasn't completely accurate and had some bad throws (Paris Campbell passes come to mind).  Also I think Jones shares some of the blame on that interception off of Barkley's hands.  Hodgins pass was great but he got stripped.

Bottom line:

There is reason to believe the Giants will play better going forward and that is based around the O-line playing better. Rookie center had some bad snaps, that can be cleaned up. I trust the coaching staff to make some adjustments on the O-line, I don't expect miracles but I do expect improvement going forward.  Also not all front 7s will dominate the O-line like Dallas did.
If O-line does better, that will help the passing game, and defense.

[RelaxTension]

The defensive numbers are low/respectable due to the game being over and the Cowboys deciding to take it easy in the 2nd half.
I do hope they are a real good group but without any pressure this will end up being a problem as the season progresses.

[umassgrad]

I appreciate the attempt to look at the positives but even those you mentioned are not totally accurate due to the nature of the blowout. Dallas started resting guys early and then everyone tried to end the game with as few injuries as possible. The facts about our defense:
Dallas could run and pass against our defense and if we played a full game they would have scored a lot of points against our D because we could not stop the run nor develop any kind of pass rush.
We did punt well.
Folks might want to go online a listen to the audio clip of the Dallas defense mocking our O line. If that doesn't light a fire in your ass then nothing will.

[RelaxTension]

Also not all front 7s will dominate the O-line like Dallas did.
If O-line does better, that will help the passing game, and defense.

The bench mark for this team to be able to compete again are the front 7 of the Eagles, Cowboys and 49ers so this whole mantra that it's ok they sucked because it was one of the best doesn't make sense unless everyone is fine with beating a bunch of average/bad teams.

Add in the Jets front 7 and that's at least 5 more games that could end up looking like this one if something doesn't change to improve them a lot.

[kingm56]

The bench mark for this team to be able to compete again are the front 7 of the Eagles, Cowboys and 49ers so this whole mantra that it's ok they sucked because it was one of the best doesn't make sense unless everyone is fine with beating a bunch of average/bad teams.

Add in the Jets front 7 and that's at least 5 more games that could end up looking like this one if something doesn't change to improve them a lot.

That's fair perspective; Parsons is a future HoF, but the rest of the Cowboys oline is good...wait until fans see the Jets, Eagles and 9ers....they have objectively better front 7s. The 9ers game could be a bloodbath, since we have to play on 3 days rest.  We'll see....

[Leek21]

The facts about our defense:
Dallas could run and pass against our defense and if we played a full game they would have scored a lot of points against our D because we could not stop the run nor develop any kind of pass rush.

The real facts are Prescott went 13 of 24 for 143 yards and no TDs. Prescott is the starter.
That includes a 49 yards pass where Jackson was picked out of the play but it is what it is.

I give the young CBs credit, I think overall they played well.  Hawkins got a few penalties but overall
both played well.

As for the pass rush, take into consideration how fast Prescott was getting rid of the ball, it's not like he was taking is time in the pocket most his pass were quick.

40 to nothing pounding, so it's hard to say anything positive; but trying to be objective I think the defense wasn't as horrible as the score board showed.  (the offense was that terrible).

[Leek21]

The bench mark for this team to be able to compete again are the front 7 of the Eagles, Cowboys and 49ers so this whole mantra that it's ok they sucked because it was one of the best doesn't make sense unless everyone is fine with beating a bunch of average/bad teams.

Add in the Jets front 7 and that's at least 5 more games that could end up looking like this one if something doesn't change to improve them a lot.

There was no mantra that it's okay to suck because Dallas was so good. That wasn't the point.
It's my opinion, the O-line won't continuously get dominated like they did against Dallas, and if that is the case then we should expect improvement in the passing game and defense.  You can disagree, but understand I wasn't making the point you argued against.

[RelaxTension]

There was no mantra that it's okay to suck because Dallas was so good. That wasn't the point.
It's my opinion, the O-line won't continuously get dominated like they did against Dallas, and if that is the case then we should expect improvement in the passing game and defense.  You can disagree, but understand I wasn't making the point you argued against.

My comment was for all the fans who want to give the oline a mulligan because it was against "one of the best front 7 in the league".
Guess what they will be seeing these type of front 7 a handful more times this season with 4 of the games against the teams they need to compete against if they want to be a contender.
Also who cares if they can only run a competent offense only if the other team doesn't have a good dline.
That was my point and it's ok if you have no issues with them only being compatitive against the weaker teams but it is for me.

[Philosophers]

Here's my positive.  It was one game.  No reason yet to be worried.

[DaveBrown74]

I see zero positives from that game. I can usually find some after a bad game by squinting my eyes, but I can't do that with this one. Nor am I going to try. In my mind it was an abject, catastrophic failure across the board, period.  A horrifying display of sheer ineptitude for a full 60 minutes (or I guess 58 minutes since the first drive up to the bad snap was ok).

I just hope it has no bearing on how the rest of the season plays out, but I also cannot just pretend it did not happen. I will now need to see multiple good performances in a row to begin to really mentally move on from this one. It was just too historic and extreme for me to have a more accepting attitude than that.

[Leek21]

My comment was for all the fans who want to give the oline a mulligan because it was against "one of the best front 7 in the league".
Guess what they will be seeing these type of front 7 a handful more times this season with 4 of the games against the teams they need to compete against if they want to be a contender.
Also who cares if they can only run a competent offense only if the other team doesn't have a good dline.
That was my point and it's ok if you have no issues with them only being compatitive against the weaker teams but it is for me.

We are in agreement on your point, definitely not okay to suck against good teams and only be competitive against weaker teams.

And yes, I am scraping the bottom of the barrel to find positives.
I do think the punting and coverage was good.
I do think the CBs for the most part played well.
I do think the running game wasn't horrific and is something they can build on.

[RelaxTension]

We are in agreement on your point, definitely not okay to suck against good teams and only be competitive against weaker teams.

And yes, I am scraping the bottom of the barrel to find positives.
I do think the punting and coverage was good.
I do think the CBs for the most part played well.
I do think the running game wasn't horrific and is something they can build on.

Not to nit pick but you can only be talking about the two rookies which I agree because Jackson was terrible.

[GloryDays]

I have a hunch and hope that the line is told if major improvement is not visible against AZ, they will make changes right away.

[Philosophers]

My 1 real issue was that Dabs said he had no interest in taking DJ out even at 33-0 as he just wanted to get something positive out even if meaningless.  So would an ending TD in a blown out loss have really been worthwhile if it meant losing your QB to a season ending injury?  Sorry but that was a mistake and frankly a reckless one.

[DaveBrown74]

My 1 real issue was that Dabs said he had no interest in taking DJ out even at 33-0 as he just wanted to get something positive out even if meaningless.  So would an ending TD in a blown out loss have really been worthwhile if it meant losing your QB to a season ending injury?  Sorry but that was a mistake and frankly a reckless one.

I agree. I think many times coaches, even reputable ones, like to make the scoreboard look a little better than the game itself actually was if they can. Judge was big on that. I know that Daboll didn't quite admit that that was what he was attempting to do here, but on some level I am sure it was. Nobody likes being as humiliated as we were, even a coach who is not on any sort of hot seat or anything of the sort.