The New York Giants fell to 1-4 yesterday, but this time, it’s not because of a lackadaisical offense. The offense showed up and produced the highest points total of the season, putting 31 on the board and setting the bar high for the Carolina Panthers to beat. Unfortunately, that Panthers team was up to the challenge and it was the Giants defense that needed to step up.
Six of the Panthers’ scores came from field goals, including the one that won the game at the very end, while the others were passing touchdowns from Cam Newton. Usually, holding the opponent to a field goal instead of a touchdown is viewed as success. But if one less field goal had been scored, the Giants would have won this game. It was a game where the defense couldn’t afford to give up five field goals, setting the Panthers up to kick one more and walk off with a win.
Of course, one could blame the refereeing for the multiple controversial calls in this game. But let’s be real. If the Giants had picked up one more stop in this game, the officiating wouldn’t have mattered. If some of the blame here is on the officials, an even larger percentage of it should be directed at the players who put themselves in a position where the game could be decided by bad calls.
What has been said about the heartbreaking loss?
“I don’t regret anything that I said. If it took that for us to come together as a team like we did today, I can take that every single time. I spoke to the team just to kind of relay the message that sometimes stuff comes off the wrong way,” said wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who was in the news in the buildup to the game for his criticism of teammates. It doesn’t, however, seem like those remarks had a negative impact.
“Grit, whatever the words you want to use for that, we had it, and we came up short, but I’m proud of this team, and this is the team that we are going to be for the rest of the season. Like I said, if it took that to get us going, I can take that. I’m trying to be a leader, I’m in a position I’ve never been in, I’m trying to grow, I’m learning on the way, on the fly, but I’m proud of where we went,” continued Beckham, who had his first touchdown of the season yesterday.
But the defense is less happy about how things turned out. “It wasn’t a first down. It just feels like you’re playing against two people out there, two teams,” said safety Landon Collins, when talking about Christian McCaffrey’s late game first down conversion. Collins also had something to say about his fourth quarter penalty for making contact with a defenseless player. “I went for the ball, my eyes are on the ball. From that point on I don’t know what kind of call that was. That’s how they say saw it. That call was bad. It’s a bad call.”
His sentiments aren’t that different from the ones held by the Giants fanbase, following a loss that brings the team record down to 1-4. “I don’t want to hear nothing the official got to say. I know the rules.”