Giants again prove to be own worst enemy in bitter loss
Tyrod Taylor of the Giants looks on against the Rams at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Bad teams do bad things that result in bad results.
If there was any confusion about where the Giants fall on that spectrum, Sunday cleared things up.
The Giants proved that simple axiom yet again, gloriously tripping over themselves to again — and for the final time in 2023, thank goodness — find new and creative ways to sink themselves.
Their 26-25 loss to the Rams at MetLife Stadium came down to a 54-yard field-goal attempt that was short and offline with 30 seconds remaining, but really, their fate was sealed on any of a half-dozen previous plays in which they could have — should have — performed better than they did.
It felt as if every time the Giants made something positive happen — a big pass, an electrifying punt return for a touchdown, a long scramble to get in range for that game-winning field-goal attempt — it was counterbalanced by the weight of incompetence from a penalty, a missed throw or a baffling coaching decision.
“It was definitely disappointing,” wide receiver Darius Slayton said, using not only the word of the day but the word of the year for this team. “We had multiple chances to win the game by seven or more, honestly. If we execute a little bit better in a few spots . . . we’d probably have some more points at the end of it and probably just be able to kneel it out. It just didn’t go that way.”
Why? Because these Giants are a bad team right now. And what do bad teams do? That’s right.
“There’s been a lot of different moments during the season when you leave here frustrated, you leave with a bad taste in your mouth, because you know you should have executed better and taken advantage of the opportunities to win games,” tight end Darren Waller said.
Add this Rams game to the ones against the Jets and the Seahawks and the Bills and all the others that have crushed this once-promising season into dusty despair.
Even though they already had been eliminated from postseason contention, this game seemed to sting even more than last week’s lopsided one against the Eagles in which they were outclassed. This time it was the Giants who beat the Giants.
“Wins don’t just occur or fall in your lap,” Waller added. “They don’t happen without you making them happen in this league. We had opportunities. When you don’t take advantage of those opportunities, you come away with the L.”
Let’s catalog the shortcomings for posterity:
There was the 80-yard catch- and-run by rookie Puka Nacua after Adoree’ Jackson missed an arm tackle at the Rams’ 22 to set up the 2-yard touchdown run that gave the Rams a 20-10 lead early in the third quarter.
There was the missed extra point by Mason Crosby after the Giants responded with an 80-yard touchdown pass from Tyrod Taylor to Slayton that made it 20-16 late in the third.
There was the fourth-quarter holding penalty against Daniel Bellinger that negated a 47-yard pass to Jalin Hyatt on a drive that ended with a fourth-and-1 pass, again to Hyatt, for a loss of 1 and a turnover on downs.
There was the 15-yard scramble by Taylor to near midfield that was negated by a hold against John Michael Schmitz.
Gunner Olszewski’s 94-yard punt return for a touchdown brought the Giants within 26-25 with 3:27 left. After an encroachment penalty on the tying extra point, the Giants decided to go for two points from the 1 and Taylor short-armed a pass to Saquon Barkley on a play that was so well designed that either of them could have reached the end zone (Taylor said it was “indecision” that got in the way of his terrible toss).
Those are all execution errors, though. The kinds of mistakes that sometimes happen. The crowning gaffe was an inexplicable brain spasm by the coaching staff.
After Taylor ran the ball 31 yards to the Rams’ 34 and spiked it to stop the clock with 42 seconds left, the Giants, without any timeouts, ran a draw to Barkley on second-and-10. The play resulted in a loss of two yards and pushed Crosby’s field-goal attempt from an already arduous 52 to 54 on a day in which kicking was a struggle for everyone (the Rams missed two extra point kicks too).
Brian Daboll said the call for the handoff came straight from the headset (ostensibly from offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, although Daboll didn’t name names) to the huddle.
“I’d like to have that play back,” Daboll said several times.
Ya think?
Throw in a dropped touchdown pass by Isaiah Hodgins, several dropped passes by Barkley, a botched snap on a fourth-and-1 play in the first half, and the list swells. If someone didn’t know any better, they might suspect the Giants were trying to lose.
(This result, by the way, kept them alive for the second overall pick in April’s draft.)
Asked which of the misadventures stuck out the most, Waller shrugged.
“All of them,” he said. “They’re jumbled together . . . We didn’t really execute on any of them.”
Said Taylor: “I don’t think what should’ve or could’ve matters at the end of the day because we didn’t. We did enough to put ourselves in position to win, but we also hurt ourselves in some areas.”
The Giants were lucky that the Rams called a timeout after the draw play to Barkley — perhaps they were so confused by the Giants’ tactic that they panicked — which gave the Giants one last offensive snap to try to improve their position. It was an incomplete pass to Wan’Dale Robinson. Then Crosby, signed a little more than a week ago, trotted out for the doomed flail at winning the game.
“It’s not all bad,” Taylor said of the overall performance. “It’s just not good enough.”
That should be the subtitle of the book on this Giants’ 2023 season.
aylor was asked how he intended to spend the evening, the final night of the calendar year. He said he has family in town for the holidays and wanted to see them for a while, but he also planned to re-watch the film of the game while it still was fresh and raw in his mind.
Any plays in particular he wanted to focus on?
“All of them,” he said.
That sounds like a good start.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
