EAST RUTHERFORD — Stop the presses for another groundbreaking development in the Meadowlands.
The Giants are toast.
That was clear more than ever Sunday night when, on a primetime stage and a chance to build on an offensive outburst in Dallas, the Giants again failed to win a football game. They again didn’t play complementary football. And this time they also embarrassed themselves by not having a contingency plan for injury-prone kicker Graham Gano, who hurt his groin during pregame.
What more is there to say?
The Giants’ 22-9 loss to the Chiefs dropped the team to 0-3, a near death sentence in the NFL. Since the league expanded the playoffs to 12 teams in 1990 (now 14 teams), only four of the 165 teams to start 0-3 have made the postseason.
Not that anyone who follows the Giants viewed this team as a playoff contender before this loss. This game was simply about quieting the noise — at least temporary — around this failing regime. This was about giving your fans something to cheer about in the home opener, about perhaps delivering a dagger to the Kansas City dynasty (the 1-2 Chiefs do not look good either).
Hope. It’s a feeling that the fanbase can’t possibly feel anymore with GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll running the show.
Unless … maybe … if the Giants fully commit to playing rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart for the remainder of the season.
There’s no point in the Giants trotting past-his-prime Russell Wilson onto the field anymore. He was signed here to win games after last season’s 3-14 debacle, and that isn’t happening. His 450-yard passing game in Dallas was clearly a mirage, as an actually good defense in Steve Spagnuolo’s Kansas City unit proved Sunday by recording two interceptions and taking away deep balls.
So enough with sprinkling in Dart occasionally to run a zone-read play. That’s pointless. Just give the first-round pick full runway for the remaining 15 weeks. Develop him in games and see what the younger, more athletic player can do, because he’s the future and he’s the only prayer that Schoen and Daboll have at this point.
In the meantime, we have to examine how comical it is that the Giants continue to operate with egg on their faces.
Remember last season in Week 2 when Gano got injured on the opening kickoff and the Giants couldn’t kick field goals or extra points because they only had a punter available to kick? Despite Gano being a late addition to the injury report the previous day?
Well, the Giants again didn’t have a viable backup when Gano got hurt Sunday. He hadn’t been on the injury report, but sorry, that’s no excuse. This is a 38-year-old kicker who missed seven games last year because of a hamstring injury, and he underwent knee surgery in November of 2023. It simply is not prudent to have him as your kicker anymore without a game-day backup, and the Giants have a kicker on the practice squad in Jude McAtamney.
And in a low-scoring affair with the Chiefs, the Giants lost four points in the first half because they couldn’t attempt a 45-yard field goal and had an extra point blocked with a new kicker and a new holder.
Gano gutted it out in the second half and managed to convert a chip-shot 25-yard field goal with 10:12 remaining to cut the Giants’ deficit to 16-9, but you never got the feeling they were seriously going to overtake the Chiefs, who promptly went on a game-clinching 77-yard touchdown drive. Go figure.
Nothing feels right with the Giants in a season that was supposed to be different.
The only way that might change in any meaningful way is to play Dart, so it’s time to stop delaying the inevitable.
