Giants’ defense deserves its share of blame for loss to Cowboys in Kayvon Thibodeaux’s NFL debut

Plenty of hands were raised around the Giants’ locker room late Monday night when it came time to play the blame game for the team’s first loss of the season.

All the offensive linemen were pleading guilty to exposing quarterback Daniel Jones to way too many sacks (five), hits (12) and pressures (who can count that high?). Truth be told, that probably was the No. 1 reason the Giants fell 23-16 to a Dallas Cowboys team playing with backup quarterback Cooper Rush at MetLife Stadium.

The defense, however, wanted to make sure it was held accountable, too.

“We didn’t do well in the run game,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “We didn’t do well in the pass game. We didn’t have any turnovers.”

Other than that, it was a wonderful evening for the defenders at the Giants’ biggest home game in years.

“Every game we play is going to be tight,” McKinney said. “It’s going to come down to a 60-minute game, but I thought this was a winnable game. We have things to work on.”

Despite the thoroughly flawed performance of the offensive line, the Giants still took a 13-6 lead with 5:31 remaining in the third quarter when Saquon Barkley broke free for a 36-yard touchdown run.

That was the time when the defense needed to be at its best. Instead, the Cowboys scored touchdowns on their next two possessions, going 75 yards on nine plays to tie the game late in the third quarter before taking the lead with an 11-play, 89-yard drive in the fourth quarter.

McKinney was spot on about the run defense. The Cowboys dynamic duo of Tony Pollard and Ezekiel Elliott combined for 178 yards on 26 carries, a 6.8-yard average that had to leave defensive coordinator Wink Martindale bleary eyed as he watched the film.

Rush, meanwhile, managed to complete 21 of 31 passes for 215 yards and a fourth-quarter touchdown that came on a brilliant one-handed grab by CeeDee Lamb. It helped significantly that the Giants’ defense could not record a single sack and only laid two hits on Rush, who, unlike the Giants, did improve to 3-0 as a starting quarterback.

McKinney admitted that the Giants missed Leonard Williams in the middle of the defensive line. Williams sat out for the first time in his career after suffering a Week 2 knee injury against Carolina.

“He’s a big key to what we’re trying to do as a defense and how we game plan,” McKinney said. “He wasn’t there because of an injury, so hopefully we can get him back soon. Obviously, we haven’t been able to have a whole group together yet.”

The Giants were hoping that Monday night would be the start of a new pass-rushing era with rookie first-round pick Kayvon Thibodeaux making his NFL debut after missing the first two games with a sprained knee ligament. Azeez Ojulari, the team leader with eight sacks a season ago, also returned after missing the first two games with a calf injury.

Neither player came close to recording a sack on this night, but they were not alone in that failed endeavor.

Thibodeaux was credited with one tackle and one pass defended in his NFL debut.

“It was pretty solid,” he said when asked about his first game. “Obviously we didn’t come out with the win so it wasn’t good enough. We’re just going to keep going back to the drawing board and keep getting better. I feel like I played pretty decent. I could have done more. I feel like there was some money left out there for me. Now it’s about watching the tape, seeing what I can get better at and get ready for next week.”

The fact the Giants did not force a turnover seemed to bother McKinney the most.

“We have to do a better job of being more aggressive on the ball and try to get more takeaways,” the safety said.

As a team, the Giants have three takeaways this season, but only one was created by the defense. The other two came compliments of special teams.

“We didn’t stop the run, we didn’t really stop the pass and we didn’t have any turnovers,” McKinney repeated for a second wave of reporters that gathered in front of his locker. “When that happens, you’re probably going to lose the game.”

Hard to argue his point.

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Bob Brookover can be reached at rbrookover@njadvancemedia.com.

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