DANIEL & BIG BLUE DROP BALL
No match for Broncos in opener
BRONCOS 27 GIANTS 13
Broncos offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, the former Giants head coach, got a celebratory cooler of water dumped on him in the MetLife Stadium visitors’ locker room Sunday night.
That’s how few stops the Giants defense made in a 27-13 Week 1 dud defeat, the franchise’s fifth straight season-pening loss.
“Extremely backbreaking,” linebacker Blake Martinez said of his defense’s failures.
A hopeful building full of Giants fans shook in disgust when Daniel Jones’ third-quarter red-zone fumble killed any hope of a comeback. And Saquon Barkley (10 carries, 26 yards) was a shell of himself, tentative in his first game back on his repaired ACL.
But coach Joe Judge wouldn’t blame his beleaguered offense for the Broncos converting on 3-of-3 fourth downs and 7-of-15 third downs.
“Defenses go out there and they execute,” Judge said. “We’re not looking at anything offensively in terms of how the defense performed. We’re not gonna start writing excuses for any phase of the ball with execution.”
MetLife Stadium was nearly empty in the final minutes. Only a few hundred Broncos diehards in orange jerseys had descended behind the Denver bench, cheering as running back Melvin Gordon raced 70 yards to ice the Giants for good.
“It’s been frustrating the past few years, and I understand their frustration,” wide receiver Sterling Shepard said of Giants fans. “We’re not happy about it, as well. I hate seeing them have to leave the game early. It’s something that I honestly really notice. I’m locked into the game, but you can’t help but see people lined up in the tunnels. It’s no fun seeing it.”
It was even less fun for the Giants (0-1) to watch Broncos QB Teddy Bridgewater carve up their defense, though, especially on key downs.
“Story of the game,” said safety Logan Ryan, who forced a turnover in the first half that only delayed the inevitable. “We’ll be all right. We didn’t make their defense play enough defense tonight. We were terrible early last year in a similar way on third and fourth down, and we’ve got to be better.”
Bridgewater completed three passes for 33 yards and a TD on fourth downs. All three conversions led to points. The killer was his 4th-and-1 TD pass to tight end Albert Okwuegbunam from the 4-yard line with 6:48 remaining in the third for a 17-7 Denver lead.
Bridgewater stiff-armed safety Xavier McKinney to make the throw, and Martinez missed a tackle on the tight end before he dove for the pylon.
Ryan said in one breath that the game “falls on the defense not giving our offense enough touches.” In another breath, he said the Broncos defense probably would have struggled similarly if it had been on the field longer.
“I believe their defense probably would have been bad if they’d played longer, but they didn’t,” Ryan said. “We’ve just got to get off (the field) on those fourth downs. They went for it a lot on fourth downs. They didn’t kick. They went for it. And they made us pay for going for it. Extended plays. The pass rush needs to be better in areas, but the secondary, we need to be much better in what we do.”
With the Giants trailing, 17-7, Jones and Shepard connected on two passes for 35 yards to drive deep into Broncos territory. But then Jones coughed up the ball on Denver’s 13-yard line as he was sandwiched by linebackers Josey Jewell and Alexander Johnson on a scramble.
A turnover on downs on the next, last-gasp drive sealed the loss. Jones added a 4-yard rushing TD for posterity as time expired, finishing 22-of-37 for 267 yards passing and a TD, plus a team-leading 27 rushing yards and the late score.
“We certainly expect to score more points,” Jones said. “I think as a group we’re not gonna get emotional about it or get too discouraged or down. We’ll look at what actually happened and what we can correct in certain situations to score those touchdowns.”
Jones had no help from his run game. The Giants rushed seven times for eight yards in the first half. New receiver Kenny Golladay (four for 64) made some late catches. Rookie first-round pick Kadarius Toney was a non-factor with two touches for -2 yards on six snaps.
Up 7-3 late in the second quarter after Ryan’s forced fumble, the Giants went three-and-out and promptly gave the ball back. Then the Broncos went 57 yards in seven plays for a 2-yard TD pass from Bridgewater to Tim Patrick to go up 10-7 at half.
“There’s a number of things we didn’t do well,” Jones said. “And we’re not gonna let ourselves get emotionally down or disappointed as a group.”
A quick turnaround to Thursday Night Football at Washington (0-1) provides no time to dwell, but it also means the Giants need answers fast. They basically scored seven points on offense until garbage time. This is getting old.
“We believe in each other. We’ve just got to go out there and capitalize,” Barkley said. “That’s been the theme for the last, what, I guess this is my, wow, fourth year. That’s what it’s been: We have the talent. We have the players. Logan (Ryan) kind of said it after the game: there’s a lot of situations where the players, we didn’t capitalize.”