The Giants just earned their first win of the season on the road in Cleveland. That alone should have their fans at MetLife Stadium excited for Thursday night’s opening kickoff against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 4.
Once this NFC East prime-time showdown begins, however, it will be on Brian Daboll and the Giants’ players to validate the crowd’s hope with their play.
It will be on the Giants to compete at a higher level than they did in their 28-6 Week 1 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, to create belief that this is a team headed in the right direction.
“Honestly, just give them something to cheer about,” left tackle Andrew Thomas said.
The Giants (1-2) didn’t do that in their season opener. They gave the fans every reason to boo, call for Daniel Jones’ job and leave early. And the fans obliged:
They did all three.
The game ended with Vikings fans taking over MetLife Stadium and chanting “Skol!” at the top of their lungs. And afterward, star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence said of the booing: “I don’t respect it, honestly. I get it. They want to see their team win. It’s a rough patch. I mean, it just is what it is.”
That nightmare is almost three weeks in the Giants’ rear-view mirror now. And they have played better in their Week 2 loss at Washington and in Sunday’s road win over the Browns.
But for the New York season-ticket holders, the PSL-paying public, this is game No. 2 on the home schedule and a nationally televised opportunity for the 2024 Giants to vanquish a division rival that regularly rubs their faces in the turf.
So Daboll and the Giants understand: they need to bring it on Thursday night. They’re aiming for a victory obviously, but in the grand scheme, before they even do that, they simply need to put a product on Thursday’s field that the fans are proud of.
“Over the last two games on the road, too, it’s been outstanding support on the road,” Daboll said of the traveling Giants faithful. “At Washington, it was outstanding. At Cleveland, there was a lot of people. So our job is to go out there and play and perform well and love our fans, and hopefully give them something to cheer about.”
The good news is that while Daboll and the Giants’ players came across as tense on Tuesday, the leaders sounded confident.
Jones and Lawrence didn’t make guarantees, but both of them said the Giants are eyeing a win.
“We don’t like losing to anybody, especially a divisional game,” Jones said. “We understand what this game means, and we’ll be ready to go.”
The Giants have lost six straight and 13 of their last 14 as a franchise to the Cowboys. Lawrence isn’t fazed.
“I have confidence in us to go out here and win this game, and that’s the message on the short week,” Lawrence said.
He even promised that the Giants defense will sack the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott, or any Dallas quarterback, for the first time since the 2021 season.
That’s right: the Giants have not sacked a Cowboys QB in their last four meetings.
“That’s going to change,” Lawrence said. “I feel like we can get after him pretty good.”
It’s harder to sack the quarterback, of course, when a team is rarely playing with the lead. And that was the case last season: the Giants never held a lead in their two 2023 games against the Cowboys.
They fell behind 40-0 in a Week 1 shutout loss at home and got buried in a 28-0 hole in their 49-17 road loss to Dallas in November.
A good start to changing their fortunes in this lopsided rivalry would be to break even on special teams, especially the opening kickoff.
The NFL’s new “dynamic kickoff” might as well be renamed the “catastrophic kickoff” inside the Giants’ building. Coordinator Michael Ghobrial’s kickoff units have made huge mistakes that either permanently ruined or temporarily compromised the entire game.
In Week 2 at Washington, the Giants allowed a 98-yard Austin Ekeler touchdown return on the opening kickoff as since-deactivated linebackers Benton Whitley and Tomon Fox lost contain. The play got called back due to a Washington holding penalty, but kicker Graham Gano — who was playing through an injured groin already — hurt his hamstring chasing Ekeler and couldn’t play the rest of the game.
Daboll abandoned any extra point or field goal attempts after punter Jamie Gillan missed his only extra point try, and the Giants lost, 21-18.
Then last Sunday in Cleveland, tight end Daniel Bellinger missed his block on the opening kickoff, and his man, Browns corner Tony Brown II, forced a fumble by running back Eric Gray. Cleveland recovered on the Giants’ 24-yard line and scored a touchdown on its first play from scrimmage for an early 7-0 lead. The Giants still recovered for a 21-15 win.
Special teams are a sore subject in this Giants-Cowboys rivalry, too, because of last season’s unforgettable Week 1 debacle.
Dallas blocked Gano’s opening drive field goal attempt and returned it for a touchdown, and left tackle Andrew Thomas (hamstring) and Gano (calf) both got hurt chasing down the return. Both players would miss a ton of time during a disastrous season that essentially ended before it began.
The Giants also are up against it in Thursday night’s kicker battle: Cowboys All-Pro Brandon Aubrey is 10-for-10 already this season, including 5-for-5 from 50-plus yards. New York’s Greg Joseph missed his only field goal attempt as a Giant badly, wide right, from 48 yards in Sunday’s fourth quarter in Cleveland.
The Cowboys nevertheless seem vulnerable.
They are searching desperately for answers to their league-worst run defense (185.7 yards allowed per game) under new coordinator Mike Zimmer. And while the Giants’ running game is not great, Daboll’s offense did average 5.8 yards per carry against Washington in Week 2. So they have moved the line of scrimmage at times.
The Giants need to impose their will and set a tone early, though, even if safety Jason Pinnock said the team’s motivation is less about the outside than the team’s own belief.
“Truthfully, it’s more about showing ourselves,” Pinnock said. “It may be a corny response, but it’s just how we feel in this building. Not really trying to prove people, like the non-believers, trying to prove them wrong. We’re just trying to prove to ourselves in this building and our loved ones who believe in us that we’re right.”
At a certain point, it’s just about winning division games, too.
The Giants are 1-8-0 against the Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles in Joe Schoen’s and Daboll’s two seasons running the Giants. And they have been outscored 140-53 overall by Dallas, going 0-4 against Jerry Jones’ team coached by Mike McCarthy.
The significance of beating these rivals was not lost on Thomas this week.
“It’s a division game, so there’s more emotions to it,” he said. “To play meaningful football in December, you have to win the division games. So it’s definitely going to be a top-notch matchup.”
To that, a secondary down two corners in Dru Phillips and Adoree Jackson will have to step up in a big way against CeeDee Lamb and the Dallas receiving corps.
Prescott dominates the Giants. He has won 12 straight against them, and he has the chance to become the fourth quarterback to earn 13 consecutive wins against an opponent in NFL history. He would join Pro Football Hall of Famers Bob Griese (Bills) and Steve Young (Rams), as well as Tom Brady (Bills), per ESPN Stats & Info.
Lawrence didn’t want to hear about the Giants’ futility against Dallas, though. Losing any week bothers him.
“I’m sick of losing to anybody,” he said. “I don’t hold more weight on one game than the other. They all hit the same. They all count the same. I want to win regardless. It doesn’t matter against who[m] or how we win. I just want to win.”
That’s all the fans want, too: a competitive team. A win. They’ll stay and cheer if the Giants give them a chance at that.
