{"id":188846,"date":"2024-09-09T11:30:12","date_gmt":"2024-09-09T15:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=188846"},"modified":"2024-09-09T10:57:32","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T14:57:32","slug":"giants-tarnish-100-year-celebration-with-week-1-loss-to-vikings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/09\/09\/giants-tarnish-100-year-celebration-with-week-1-loss-to-vikings\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants Tarnish 100-Year Celebration with Week 1 Loss to Vikings"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a home opener planned to celebrate the rich 100-year history of the New York Football Giants, Big Blue fans instead left East Rutherford angry. The Minnesota Vikings <\/a>beat up the G-Men 28-6 on Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium. Fans jeered and booed throughout the game,\u00a0and left early as the Giants offense gained a total of 240 yards and scored two field goals. For the Vikings, former New York Jet signal-caller Sam Darnold looked like a No. 3 overall draft pick<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Darnold\u00a0completed his first twelve passes, finishing the game 19\/24 with 204 yards, and two touchdowns. Now with Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders on deck, the Giants are back to the drawing board after a disastrous loss to the Minnesota Vikings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Giants’ Defense Struggles to Contain Vikings’ Offense in Week 1 Loss<\/h2>\n

Vikings Carve Up Giants’ Secondary<\/h3>\n

One of the key matchups<\/a> to watch was the Giants\u2019 secondary versus Justin Jefferson and the Vikings\u2019 receivers. While Jefferson was relatively quiet (four catches for 59 yards and one touchdown), he averaged nearly 15 yards per reception. Jefferson\u2019s fellow receivers were wide open<\/a> for most of the afternoon. Jordan Addison averaged more than 10 yards per catch. Plus, Jalen Nailor caught a 21-yard pass from Darnold to cap off the Vikings’ opening drive of the third quarter.<\/p>\n

When Darnold and the Vikings weren\u2019t exploiting the Giants\u2019 secondary, running back Aaron Jones was running for 94 yards and a touchdown. The Vikings’ longest drive of the game was 99 yards, resulting in a touchdown. It was not a stellar debut for Shane Bowen\u2019s new Giants\u2019 defensive attack.<\/p>\n

The Giants only managed one sack of Darnold during the entire afternoon. But the revamped defensive line was invisible. Kayvon Thibodeaux had zero sacks and only one quarterback hit. Defensive end Brian Burns, the major acquisition of the Giants off-season, had only four tackles, with zero QB sacks, and hits.<\/p>\n

Daniel Jones Reverted to Being Daniel Jones<\/h3>\n

The calls to bench Daniel Jones will get louder this week after his Week 1 performance. Jones finished the game 22\/42 for 186 yards and two more interceptions. Jones was also sacked five times. When Jones had time to throw, he looked tentative or used bad footwork. In the fourth quarter with the Giants driving, Jones rushed a speed out to Wan\u2019Dale Robinson near the goal line. On the next play, Jones threw his second interception of the afternoon to Harrison Smith.<\/p>\n

Asked during the post-game press conference about a potential quarterback change, Brian Daboll said, \u201cWe’re going to watch everything. That’s not in my mind<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Jones said, \u201cObviously not good enough<\/a>. Didn’t get in the end zone, scored six points. Didn’t create much rhythm and flow for ourselves. I’ve got to be better, certainly got to play better, give ourselves more chances to make plays and execute more consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giants Looked Unprepared in Loss<\/h3>\n

The kinder, gentler Daboll approach<\/a> this preseason may not have prepared the Giants for the regular season. The Giants committed nine penalties for 95 yards and dropped several passes. Head coach Daboll has much more on his plate this season. He has taken over play-calling duties from Mike Kafka and is relying on almost an entirely new coaching staff on defense. From the team\u2019s performance in Week 1, details were overlooked.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the only bright spot in the game for Giants fans was the debut of rookie wideout<\/a> Malik Nabers. Nabers finished the game with five receptions for 66 yards. After the Giants’ Week 1 loss to the Vikings, \u201cLik\u201d may have to carry the offensive burden of the team for the Giants to have any chance of winning.<\/p>\n

Nabers said, \u201cI feel like I did pretty well for my first game. The tempo slowed down since I first got out there but still a lot of stuff to learn, still a lot of stuff to learn from and fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main Photo: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Giants started the 2024 season off on the wrong foot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5259,"featured_media":188952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[3472,4688,32135,45,7307,1535],"class_list":["post-188846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-giants","tag-brian-daboll","tag-daniel-jones","tag-malik-nabers","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-new-york-giants-roster","tag-sam-darnold"],"modified_by":"Josh Buckhalter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}