New York Giants Hit Rock Bottom in Loss to Jaguars

In a loss of epic proportions, the New York Giants (3-9) squandered away a 21-3 halftime lead to the Jacksonville Jaguars (2-10), a team that coming into this week’s game had just one win but outscored the not-so-mighty Giants 22-3 in the second half to emerge with a 25-24 win.

Let that sink in for a moment.

The Jaguars, playing the role of David to the Giants’ Goliath, never gave up and played like a team with nothing to lose and everything to gain, outdueling a Giants team that, at least over the last month, appears to have suddenly forgotten how to finish games in the final 30 minutes.

Opponent	Halftime Score	Final Score
Seattle	17-14, Giants	38-17, Seattle
San Francisco	9-7, 49ers	16-10, 49ers
Dallas	21-10, Giants	31-28, Dallas
Jacksonville	21-3, Giants	25-24, Jacksonville

“Guys are playing hard and doing a lot of good things,” quarterback Eli Manning told reporters after the game. “We’re not at rock bottom.”

Sorry, Eli, but welcome to rock bottom. 

What’s even sadder is that every week the reasons for the losses—and there are many reasons—seem to be reoccurring, regardless of what head coach Tom Coughlin and his players say about being close to pulling this badly damaged ship off the rocks.

Stephen B. Morton/Associated Press

There are breakdowns along the offensive line that leave Manning running for his life. Manning has been sacked in every game this season, and that total's now up to 26, just 13 shy of last year’s career-high fiasco.

Within that total, he has been sacked four times in a game twice this season and has had to absorb more than one sack in five other games, making it seven of 12 games in which his protection hasn’t always been there for him.  

“You try to adjust, but they were doing what they always have done. They had 33 sacks coming in,” Coughlin told reporters in his postgame press conference.

“They do have a good defensive line and they finally did get pressure on us. We hadn’t had that kind of pressure in the first half. We finally had the pressure, and we didn’t respond to it.”

There are the turnovers—this week three fumbles by the offense and, if you consider it a turnover, a missed field goal—that are then converted into points by their opponents.

Jacksonville did just that, scoring 19 points, including two touchdowns off Giants fumbles and a third following kicker Josh Brown’s first missed field-goal attempt this season, at 43 yards out.

Stephen B. Morton/Associated Press

One of the turnovers was by tight end Larry Donnell, who now has four fumbles this season.

“I can’t even process it right now at this point; I’m mad about the loss,” Donnell said.

“I have to take care of the ball and do my job. That’s all I can really think about right now. I have to figure it out. It’s something I must eliminate because it’s critical to this team. I have to find a way to hold on to the football. ”

The defense? Just when you thought defensive coordinator Perry Fewell had it right regarding the personnel, he delivered another head-scratcher.

This week, the team made the right call to bench slot cornerback Jayron Hosley, who according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required) has the worst NFL Rating (153.3) out of all slot cornerbacks who have taken at least 25 percent of their team’s snaps on defense.

However, linebacker Devon Kennard, who had the best game of his young NFL career thanks to two sacks, three tackles for a loss and two quarterback hits, was on the bench instead of the field for part of the Jaguars' final scoring drive.

“At the end of the day, we didn’t win, and that means we didn’t do enough on defense,” Kennard said. “If they don’t score, they don’t win, and we let them score too many points.”

In a new twist found in the rubble from this week, receiver Rueben Randle, who is supposed to be a key part of the offense and a leader, was benched for the first quarter by head coach Tom Coughlin for disciplinary reasons after Randle forgot about a schedule change and missed a team meeting.

The coaching on offense?

After playing so well in the first half and having an answer for everything the Jaguars threw at them, something happened in the Giants' locker room at halftime that made rookie Odell Beckham Jr., who had five receptions for 59 yards in the first half, disappear from the offense for a while.

Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press

Beckham, the Giants’ best offensive weapon, finished the game with seven catches for 90 yards, which means he only had two receptions in the game’s final 30 minutes.

“To an extent, we should have put the pedal to the metal and kept going at them, instead of trying to strategize and things like that,” he told reporters after the game. “I think we could have done a better job at moving forward. We have to finish our game.”

So where do the Giants, who seem to keep finding ways to sink lower every week, go from here?

“We just talked about staying together and fighting,” Coughlin said during his press conference.

“I didn’t use the term 'giving up,' because there is not going to be any of that. It was a tremendous test for all of them. It’s more than you can possibly imagine in what we’re trying to go through.”

Manning, always the optimist, said, “We just need to come together as a team and a group and find a way to win football games. It’s a team effort. 

“Offense has to help the defense, and we’ll do it for a while, but [we] can’t give up points on offense and put our defense in a bad situation," he added. "We still fought, and the guys are preparing well. We just have to do it for 60 minutes.”

Given the way they have been playing during this seven-game losing streak, that is probably easier said than done. 

Patricia Traina covers the Giants for Inside Football and TheSportsXchange. All quotes and information obtained firsthand unless otherwise sourced. Follow me on Twitter @Patricia_Traina.