It’s getting harder and harder to say that the faults of the New York Giants are all because of their players.
The Dallas Cowboys might be in the lead in the division, but their three losses coming into their matchup with the Giants on Monday Night Football showed that they aren’t an invincible team by any means. In the first half, the Giants were competitive with them and went into halftime with the lead. Or at least, the team would have went into halftime with the lead if it wasn’t for a sudden collapse that allowed the Cowboys to score about ten points in a minute to jump in front.
Likewise, the Giants were competitive with the Cowboys for a time in the second half before the other team was able to pull away, only taking advantage further in situations where there were fumbles, blown coverage leading to a wide open touchdown, and other such moments – all things that are largely more preventable than simply running into a more talented team and being defeated on that fact alone.
No, the Giants have plenty of talent, but failed to capitalize on it enough to hang with the Cowboys through the whole game and maybe even get out of the rivalry matchup with a win.
The blame has to start falling on coaching at some point, especially when the team flashes potential and momentum that, under a better coach, might be carried further into the game to give them a better shot at coming away with the victory. In the case of Pat Shurmur, it’s a matter of whether or not the blame will keep falling on coaching – Shurmur has already received plenty of blame in some of the team’s previous losses.
The Giants have shown that they aren’t afraid to make big moves during the season, over the past couple of years. Damon Harrison was traded during the season last year, Daniel Jones replaced Eli Manning only a few weeks into this season, and the team recently completed their first ever trade with the Jets to bring Leonard Williams onto the team at the season’s halfway mark.
With that context in mind, it’s not entirely out of the question to ask the Giants to do something about their coaching problem, to allow for the coaching search to begin earlier and for the team to play out the rest of the season under a different head coach, something that has injected life into other teams in similar situations at times.
Will the front office make the move?
That’s impossible to say without insider knowledge. But it’s easy to say that until a change is made, the Giants will likely have plenty more games like this – ones where they flash their potential but ultimately fall after failing to fully take advantage of their talent, instead making preventable mistakes and allowing the game to get away from them.
This isn’t, after all, the first or the last game this year to go that way.