MAKE NO MISTAKE ...
Giants simply have no margin for errors
THE 47-yard field goal attempt off the right leg of Giants kicker Aldrick Rosas drifted inches wide of the right upright on the second play of the fourth quarter Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
The missed kick, which had it gone through would have tied the game at 10-10, didn’t lose the game for the Giants, who would go on to lose 24-7 to the Seahawks. But those mere inches the Rosas field goal missed by did symbolize the state of the Giants’ season right now in that they have no margin for error.
First of all, the Giants — offensively challenged with their two top playmakers, Odell Beckham Jr. and Brandon Marshall, out for the season and replaced by practicesquad receivers — cannot afford to miss any field goals.
The game felt like a slow bleed, an inevitable Giants’ loss despite the defense’s best efforts to keep it within winning reach.
The Giants now stagger into their bye week with a 1-6 record and are challenged to trick themselves into believing there’s any hope left in their season with nine games remaining.
Their only hope going forward is that their defense, heralded after performing so well in 2016 and dominant a week ago in Denver, can keep them in games. It did so admirably for three quarters against the more talented and deeper Seahawks on Sunday despite spending way too much time on the field.
The Giants’ defense staved off Seattle points with an impressive goal-line stand at the end of the first quarter into the second quarter
Then safety Landon Collins essentially handed the Giants their only score of the game when he picked a Thomas Rawls fumble and returned the ball 32 yards to the Seattle 17. Two plays later, Eli Manning gave the Giants a 7-0 lead with a TD pass to rookie tight end Evan Engram, his only dependable pass catcher.
“We know this defense has to win games, because we know the situation that we’re in,’’ Collins said. “Pressure? No. We look at it as a boost, because we want the game on our shoulders.’’
The Giants defense could carry the team only so far on this Sunday before the game got too heavy.
The Giants offense cannot live by Manning-to-Engram alone and it caught up to them, caught up to the defense, which was gassed after a first half during which it was on the field for 20:38 of the 30 minutes and 41-of-59 plays.
“I think guys were kind of wearing down,’’ Collins conceded.
When the Seahawks took their first lead of the game on a 22-yard Wilson scoring pass to Doug Baldwin it gave them a 10-7 lead that felt like 30-7 considering how anemic the Giants’ offense looked.
The score came with still a quarter-and-a-half of football remaining, but it felt like if the Giants had until next Thursday they weren’t going to be able to score enough points on offense to win the game.
The dagger for the Giants came with 9:34 remaining in the game when Seattle took a 17-7 lead when Wilson connected with Paul Rich-. ardson on a 38-yard TD pass that Collins believed he possessed as the two players crashed to the end-zone turf wresting for the ball.
Referee Tony Corrente said after the game that the simultaneouspossession rule was in play, which favors the offensive player when both he and the defensive player have possession of the ball.
Collins insisted Richardson never had possession.
“It was an interception,’’ Collins said. “I came down with the ball on my chest.’’
No matter, though. The Giants offense (two offensive TDs in the last two games) hadn’t shown a lot of signs that they were coming back from the 10-7 deficit anyway.
“Regardless (of the circumstances on offense), we’ve got to come out and finish the game and we didn’t do a good job of that obviously,’’ Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul said.
Giants defensive tackle Damon Harrison would have no part of any talk that the offense let down the defense — despite the statistics stating otherwise.
“I wouldn’t say that, man,’’ Harrison said. “We had the lead 7-3. The game could have ended 7-3. We didn’t need to score after that.’’
Sadly, this is the Giants’ plight: A margin for error smaller than the fan approval rate of their general manager Jerry Reese and head coach Ben McAdoo.