Giants head coach Brian Daboll pointed to himself and deflected criticism of quarterback Daniel Jones in the immediate aftermath of a 28-6 defeat at the hands of the visiting Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.
New York mustered only two field goals, Jones was intercepted twice — one for a pick-6 — and sacked five times. The offseason-long focus on pushing the ball downfield was invisible to the bewilderment of Daboll, whose team was embarrassed 40-0 by the Dallas Cowboys in the 2023 season opener.
Jones was asked postgame about preventing a similar decline in confidence as the one he lived through in 2023 before a season-ending ACL injury.
“I think it’s about seeing where we need to be better and addressing those areas and then executing. It comes down to making the play, executing and getting going. I know we’ve got the guys to do that,” Jones said. “Confident in myself, confident in the group and we’ll go from there.”
The only pass play over 20 yards in the game was a 25-yard connection with rookie first-round pick Malik Nabers. Jones averaged 4.4 yards per pass attempt.
Daboll said the Vikings “didn’t pressure that much” and he “called the plays” to take shots down the field. Asked why they never panned out, Daboll again pointed to himself.
“Well, they played a bunch of soft shell, split safety stuff. They did. Again, I’m going to go back and watch it,” Daboll said. “We can do everything better, but it all starts with me.”
Jones and the Giants are on the road next week, visiting Washington and new Commanders coach Dan Quinn. He was the defensive coordinator in Dallas responsible for crafting the plan and delivering the opening-week shutout last season.
“It’s certainly frustrating and disappointing to get the result today that we did,” Daboll said. “I think for us, we’ve got to understand this is the first week and there’s a lot of football to play, so we’ve got to clean it up. We’ve got to make some improvements fast and we have a lot of football to play, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
