The stars were sparkling Big Blue.
They had won four straight games. Their defense had become more rugged by the week. They were fresh off the biggest upset of the year, beating the Seahawks in Seattle with a backup quarterback to claim first place in the NFC East. And they were facing an Arizona Cardinals team on a three-game skid, a team that watched their record melt from 6-3 to 6-6 before traveling cross-country to face the sizzling Giants.
So, naturally, the Giants shoved Daniel Jones back on the field too soon. Cardinals linebacker/safety Haason Reddick feasted on the hobbled Giants QB with five sacks, a single-game franchise record, and the Cardinals notched eight sacks in all en route to a 26-7 pummeling. While the now 5-8 Giants have lost games and left with lessons and slivers of hope, this game was ugly, and served no useful purpose for the future.
We'd heard during the week that all-world wideout DeAndre Hopkins was hobbled and may not play. We heard the same of star running back Kenyan Drake, and without his two favorite weapons, the elusive, emerging star QB Kyler Murray would be exponentially easier to defend. But both played, and played really well, all of which led to this shellacking of the hometown Giants.
This was a beat down by any metric. The Cardinals had 22 first downs to 10 for the Giants, 390 total yards to 159 for the Giants, and just under 38 minutes of possession to 22 for the Giants. Big Blue fumbled five times and lost three, while the Cards didn't post one turnover. This loss hurt and perhaps dashed hopes of a playoff run.
With Washington whipping the 49ers on the road Sunday to move to 6-7, their chances of making the playoffs spiked to 71 percent. Big Blue, meanwhile, started the day at 48 percent but now has just a 17 percent shot at the NFC East crown, the second-smallest chance of making the playoffs out of any NFC contender (ahead of only the 6-7 Bears at 14 percent). The Giants' tangible edge over Washington was the tiebreaker of beating them twice, but now the DC squad has a vise grip on first place after beating the previously-perfect Steelers and then San Francisco, both on the road.
Perhaps the worst news to emerge from this smoldering rubble of a loss is the condition of the quarterback. Jones clearly hadn't healed his bum right hamstring, as seen by the normally nimble passer limping around the pocket; that made him an easy target for Arizona's pass rush, which forced Jones to fumble three times and finish his afternoon with a 9.0 QBR. Even Colt McCoy, who got mop-up detail, threw just three passes, but also managed to cough the ball up to the Cardinals. New York’s leading receiver, Golden Tate, had 39 yards on one catch.
Now the Giants will be considerable underdogs in their next two games - home against the Browns and then at the Ravens - and before hosting the bipolar Cowboys in the last game of the season.
Sometimes we need someone to scold, lecture, or warn us, to tell us something we don't want to hear. The Giants should have forced Jones - who was campaigning to play all week - to watch this game from the sideline, clutching a clipboard, while serving as McCoy's consigliere. Then perhaps he would have been fit to play next week.
Now Jones, who seemed to aggravate his hamstring injury, is one big variable the rest of the way, and instead of telling Jones what he needed to hear, the Giants get to hear us tell them the last thing they want to hear: they just lost a game they couldn't afford to lose, and may have blown a season that 48 hours ago seemed so promising.
Follow Jason Keidel on Twitter: @JasonKeidel
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