It's tough to defend or excuse an 0-5 football team, as the kind of marginal progress that doesn't lead to wins feels like filler. But we're allowed, if not charged, with at least understanding what happened Sunday in Dallas.
Sure, the Giants jumped out to a 14-3 lead after scoring two touchdowns in 65 seconds in the first quarter. They led 17-3 in the second quarter - when they hadn't scored more than 15 in a game all season - and then blew it. And there were about six chances to win the game after that, and Big Blue blew those, too. But while they left Dallas with a winless record, you clearly noticed the team always played hard, and occasionally played very well.
The Giants somehow held the nuclear Rams to 17 points, in Los Angeles, yet were helpless to blunt a comeback by an underachieving Cowboys club that entered the game 1-3. When the Giants regained the lead, 34-31, halfway through the fourth quarter, they painfully failed to seal a game that they finally should have won. But the Giants just aren't a good football team. They've lost their best player and person, Saquon Barkley, for the season. They have played largely without one of their most dependable wideouts in Sterling Shepard, and fellow wideout Golden Tate is in his 12th NFL season and clearly isn't as explosive as he used to be. So, naturally, when the Giants get this unbelievably rare lead on a team you want them to close the deal.
The sheen of their effort, and the game in general, was partly erased by the gruesome injury suffered by Dak Prescott. The Cowboys quarterback is universally liked by the media and masses, and clearly felt the love from his peers while writhing and then crying on that cart. But part of the NFL's beauty and barbarism is that it rolls on without any single player, no matter how good or beloved.
So the fact that the Giants lost to Dallas could be attacked as a loss to backup QB Andy Dalton, who was so good he was let go by the Bengals; or excused by an inspired effort by the Cowboys, fueled by a rabid desire to win one for their fallen leader.
Maybe it's a mixture of the two. But at least Big Blue hasn't given up on their coach, and their season, the way their Gang Green neighbors have down the solemn halls of MetLife Stadium. While the Jets were getting smoked by the Arizona Cardinals inside the New Jersey swamp, the Giants were at least giving you a reason to turn on, and keep on, the television.
As the Jets plunged helplessly behind the 4-0 Buffalo Bills in the AFC East, the Giants, bizarrely enough, could have been a whisker out of first place if they just kept the Cowboys from charging back. Had the Giants just held on, the NFC East would have had four teams with one win, and Big Blue would be a half-game out of first place.
That probably leads to more frustration than inspiration for Giants fans, but rookie head coach Joe Judge clearly has his guys sweating and swearing and caring on the field. Judge will have to start winning games eventually or he will lose his team, and his job. But for now, anyway, fans must settle for moral victories until the actual ones come.
Follow Jason Keidel on Twitter: @JasonKeidel
