Grading the Giants: That's Forty points, with a capital F

OFFENSE

Grade: F

Daniel Jones’ first game since signing a four-year, $160 million contract with the Giants was a dud. He was bad, but so was everyone around him. He threw for 104 yards, was intercepted twice, was sacked seven times and had a passer rating of 32.4. Saquon Barkley, in his first game since signing a one-year, $11 million contract, ran 12 times for 51 yards and caught three passes for 12. The Giants had three turnovers, including an interception Dallas returned for a touchdown. They totaled 171 yards.

DEFENSE

Grade: F

The special teams and offense gave up early touchdowns, putting the defense in a tough spot from the start. And in fairness, the defense was less awful statistically than the offense. So go ahead and give them an F+ if your grading philosophy allows for that. But it seemed every time the Cowboys needed a big play, they got one. Dak Prescott was not sacked, and his 49-yard completion to a wide open CeeDee Lamb set up an early field goal. Tony Pollard averaged 5.0 yards per rush and scored two touchdowns. Turnovers forced: zero.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Grade: F

No single play defines a loss of this magnitude, but if there was one, it came in the middle of the first quarter, when Graham Gano’s 45-yard field-goal attempt was blocked by the Cowboys’ Juanyeh Thomas and returned 58 yards for a touchdown by Noah Igbinoghene. Gano later badly missed wide left on a 36-yard attempt after a shaky snap. He also limped to the imaging room after the game and said he was cleated by an unidentified player. Not the night that Gano was looking for after signing a three-year contract extension Friday.

COACHING

Grade: F

Reigning NFL Coach of the Year Brian Daboll got a cold, hard slap of reality in the first game of his second season, a shockingly thorough rout that had to have him wondering about the state of his team — especially because his background is on offense. Daboll got the job in part because of his work with quarterbacks. Then he lived up to that by getting an excellent year out of Jones. Now he has to go back to the drawing board and get Jones back on the right track, starting with a better plan to protect him. Giants fans have seen too many head coaches suffer sophomore season jinxes in recent years. Daboll needs to get this figured out.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.