Not quite must-win, but Lions game is a Giant one

It’s just the second game, and even in New York it’s way too early to panic, but if Ben McAdoo is this tight at 0-1, imagine what he will be like at 0-2. If the Giants don’t beat the Lions on Monday night in the home opener at MetLife Stadium, and McAdoo’s offense continues to drool all over itself, the heat will officially be on him. McAdoo is the prototypical NFL coach: Secretive and paranoid. Must-win vs Detroit? Nah. But it’s pretty close. The 2007 team, which will be honored at halftime, lost its first two games and gave up 80 points to the Cowboys and Packers, and went on to win Super XLII by defeating the undefeated Patriots. In fact, three of the four Giants teams that won the Super Bowl lost their first game (1986, 2007, 2011), but when you start 0-2, all the stats start coming out about the history of 0-2 teams making the playoffs.

So, is this an it’s-not-a-bad-idea-towin game? You bet.

The entire mood will change if the Giants beat the Lions because it will bring them even at 1-1 with the Cowboys, Eagles and Washington in the NFC East instead of being all alone in last place.

The Giants go to Philadelphia next week, where they have lost three in a row, and then on to Tampa, which could be a playoff team. Bill Parcells used to say when he lost the season opener that he worried himself sick with sleepless nights wondering if the first victory would ever come.

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish in the NFL, and I think that’s an important lesson,” Eli Manning said. “We can hopefully only get better from that first game. You’re going to analyze and you can’t get too sensitive after the first game.”

The 19-3 loss to Dallas last week brought back all the offensive woes from last year. It was just the fourth time in 13 career opening day starts that Manning didn’t throw a TD pass. He looked gunshy in the pocket behind a leaky offensive line and didn’t throw his first pass downfield until late in the second quarter. Dumping the ball off has never been his game.

The Lions opened with a comeback victory against the Cardinals. Detroit QB Matthew Stafford recently became the highest-paid player in NFL history with a five-year, $135 million contract, which is a nice payday for a guy who has never, ever, won a playoff game. But he’s a dangerous player, especially late in games: 26 of his 52 victories have come from fourth-quarter comebacks. One QB expert I really trust compares his skills to Aaron Rodgers.

That’s an issue for the Giants defense, which held Dak Prescott, Zeke Elliott, Dez Bryant and Jason Witten to just one touchdown.

The real problem, of course, continues to be the Giants offense.

McAdoo needs to look down at his diner-sized laminated menu of plays and order up an appetizer, main course, dessert and beverage that has the Giants offense feeling so bloated that it explodes…and scores 20 points. Okay, 20 points is nothing, but we’re talking about taking baby steps, especially if Odell Beckham Jr., after he tests his left ankle in a pre-game workout, is unable to play again. The Giants have failed to score 20 points in seven consecutive games, which goes back to the Dec. 4 loss in Pittsburgh last year. The last time the offense shut down this long was 2003, Jim Fassel’s final season, when the Giants finished 4-12. They lost all seven games in that offensive-less streak. The 2016-17 Giants are 3-4 during this streak of not reaching 20 points. McAdoo must self-scout to find out what’s changed with the way he’s run the offense as the head coach compared to his two years as offensive coordinator. When he worked for Tom Coughlin in 2014-15, the offense failed to score 20 points in just seven of 32 games. They won only 12 games, but that was on the defense.

In his 18 games as head coach, including the playoff loss to the Packers, the Giants have won 11 times but also failed to score 20 points in 11 games. Beckham played in the first 10, so last week’s offensive ineptitude can’t be solely placed on his absence.

Is McAdoo not spending enough time with the offense because he’s now got so many other things on his plate? Has he lost his nerve and is less inclined to take chances because he’s in charge of the entire team? Has he lost faith in Manning? What happened to the creative offensive genius the Giants thought they had groomed for two years to be next in line when Coughlin was fired?

Then there’s GM Jerry Reese, who brought back the same starting five without giving McAdoo any alternatives. The biggest draft day mistake Reese made was in 2016 when he was in prime position, with the 10th overall pick, to move up two spots to Cleveland’s pick to get Michigan State offensive tackle Jack Conklin, a player the Giants coveted. Reese has never moved up or down with his first-round pick in his 11 drafts as GM and this time he got burned. The Titans moved all the way up to the Browns’ spot and grabbed Conklin and he went on to be named first-team AllPro as a rookie. Reese took cornerback Eli Apple, who continues to struggle.

I don’t blame Reese for passing on Laremy Tunsil after that bong video surfaced less than a half hour before the draft. The Giants already had issues with Tunsil and were not about to invest a fully guaranteed $15 million in Tunsil after seeing him wearing a gas mask in a cloud of smoke. But if Reese took a chance, Tunsil, picked 13th overall by Miami, would be starting at left tackle with Ereck Flowers moved to the right side.

The outlook will be much different by midnight Monday if the Giants win, score 25 points and Beckham takes a slant and runs 70 yards for a touchdown. If they lose, score 10 points and OBJ doesn’t play, yes, it will be time to panic.