Forty to zip?! Giants’ opening-night humiliation leaves lingering questions | Politi

Thou shalt not overreact to a Week 1 result.

This is carved into stone with the other NFL commandments, a long-tested truism that is meant to protect overzealous pundits (ahem) from reading too much into one poor performance and looking silly when it is long forgotten in a month. The season is a marathon, players on these losing teams remind us all the time. And they are right.

Still, some opening-night losses are more difficult to shrug off than the others, and that list that is now topped by the one 80,809 paying customers at MetLife Stadium witnessed on Sunday night to start the 2023 season — one that, for the few shellshocked home-team fans who stayed until the bitter end, no amount of therapy will help them unsee.

Cowboys 40, Giants 0.

That is another level of putrid. That is the kind of massacre that leaves lingering questions, because all of the concerns the Giants had entering the season seemed amplified against their old NFC East rivals. The Giants were supposed prove to a national TV audience that they had closed the gap on their division tormentors, but instead, that gap is as yawning as the one on the right side of their offensive line.

“It’s one game,” head coach Brian Daboll said, and he had the good sense not to leave it at that. “It wasn’t a good game. Don’t sugarcoat it. It was a bad game, and that’s on me. We’ll work to fix the things we need to fix, which is certainly plenty of things.”

Daboll had a season-long honeymoon in 2022, bringing competence to the sideline where there was none — with a Coach of the Year trophy as proof. This, however, was easily his worst night on the job. Not only was his team woefully unprepared for a crucial first test, but he unnecessarily put quarterback Daniel Jones at risk by allowing him to get battered when the Giants were down six touchdowns with a third-string tackle protecting his blindside.

“I was going to let (Jones) see it through until that last series,” Daboll said, explaining that he was “trying to get something positive going.” Well, the only positive thing that happened was that Jones, who signed a $160-million contract extension in the offseason, didn’t leave the field on the back of a cart in the face of a brutal pass rush.

The Cowboys sacked him seven times. Midway through the second quarter, Jones had completed one of six passes for no yards and two interceptions. His passer rating was identical to Blutarsky’s GPA in Animal House: Zero-Point-Zero.

And, somehow, it only got worse from there. He finished with a measly 104 passing yards on 15-of-28 passing, costing this team any slim chance of coming back when he carelessly threw into double coverage while running out of bounds in the second quarter. Cornerback Stephon Gilmore made a shoestring interception, and that was that.

Don’t hang this one on the quarterback, though. Jones never stood a chance behind this offensive line, and that’s a bigger concern. Even left tackle Andrew Thomas — locked up with a massive offseason extension — struggled after an early-game injury, but at least the team knows he’ll bounce back. The rest of the offensive line offers far less confidence and hope, and that’s on general manager Joe Schoen.

Evan Neal, Schoen’s pick at the top of the 2022 NFL Draft, was supposed to put his rookie struggles behind him this fall, but the Cowboys’ rotating collection of pass rushers ran around him like he wasn’t there. To be fair, the interior of the line — guards Mark Glowinski and Ben Bredeson and rookie center John Michael Schmitz — wasn’t much better, and there are no reinforcements waiting.

The blame doesn’t end there, either. Running back Saquon Barkley had a ball pop out of his arm during a tackle, bouncing into the hands of Cowboys cornerback DaRon Bland for an easy Pick Six. Reliable place-kicker Graham Gano had one field-attempt blocked for a touchdown and shanked another after a bad snap.

This was a night when everything that could go wrong, did — and yes, that happens in Week 1 sometimes. The challenge is making sure it doesn’t impact what happens next.

“We can come in and listen to the media and let those ‘poor mes’ creep in, and they can trickle in and have an effect on our season,” Barkley said. “That’s the reality of it. It’s on the coaches, it’s on the leaders, it’s on us to learn from it and move on. It sucks, but sometimes you need an opening like this.”

Sorry, but what they needed was proof that they can compete with the top two teams in their division. The Giants have been outscored 78-7 in their last two games, against the Cowboys on Sunday night and the Eagles in the NFC playoffs. Dallas has won 12 of the last 13 in the rivalry, while Philadelphia has claimed 12 of 14. Good luck convincing anyone the gap is closing.

The Giants weren’t expected to crash Super Bowl LVIII, but the arrow was pointing up after the team won its first playoff game in a decade last winter. Well, at least, it was supposed to be. We are taught not to overreact to a Week 1 result, but this loss tests the limit of that NFL commandment.

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Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.