Two eight-play drives ending in Jaxson Dart TD passes to Theo Johnson had the Giants up 14-3 two minutes into the second quarter, and the defense held New Orleans to two field goals on their first three drives to hold a 14-6 lead halfway through that quarter.
And then the bottom fell out, with the Giants turning the ball over on five straight drives from the second through fourth quarters and New Orleans scoring 23 unanswered to grab a 26-14 win in the Superdome Sunday.
“Five turnovers to zero, you’re not going to win in this league,” head coach Brian Daboll said after the game. “Five in a row, it’s hard to do, and I don’t know how many teams have won with a 5-0 turnover ratio.”
Jaxson Dart threw for 202 yards and those two touchdowns in his second NFL start, but also accounted for three turnovers that, despite only leading to three Saints points, stalled three important drives for the Giants.
In all, five turnovers doomed Big Blue, the first coming when Darius Slayton fumbled inside the Saints’ 35 with just over a minute to go – moments after New Orleans had missed a field goal attempt and gave the Giants good position – and the Saints responded with a field goal at the whistle to go into halftime up 16-14.
“I had the first one, so from an accountability standpoint, I feel I started that, but for everybody, we have to hold on to the football,” Slayton said of his turnover kicked off the cavalcade. “Five turnovers in one game, it’s really hard to win – just about impossible – but somehow we were still in there at the end. We moved the ball up and down the field all game, but we stopped ourselves.”
Dart was sacked and fumbled on the Giants’ first possession of the second half, leading to a Saints field goal, and on the next drive, Cam Skattebo fumbled in the red zone and it was returned 88 yards for a New Orleans touchdown, another potential 14-point swing that made it 26-14 after Big Blue had a big chance to take the lead.
And to top it off, Dart threw interceptions on consecutive drives, both to Kool-Aid McKinstry, and although neither led to points – New Orleans punted and then missed another field goal – the damage was done, as they were down 12 with two minutes to go.
“Felt like we had a lot of opportunities, we just hurt ourselves; I felt like we gave the game away with those turnovers,” Dart said. “I have to tuck the ball (on the fumble)…I was the one who should have been putting the team into a better situation to win the game. (Five turnovers) is not good; we have to cut that out, and that starts with me as a leader. I have to be a better example in those situations.”
And so, what looked like the road to a second consecutive win even 20 minutes in is the Giants’ fourth loss in five games, the Saints’ first dub of the year – and the first for New Orleans head coach Kellen Moore, who flummoxed the Giants for years on the Cowboys and Eagles’ staffs – and another negative tally in a season that is quickly spiraling the same way 2024 did.
“We had some missed opportunities, and then the turnovers. Not good enough,” Daboll said. “It’s hard to operate when you’re turning the ball over, but that’s the NFL. Every play matters, and collectively, we have to do a better job.”
As Tiki Barber noted on the postgame show, rookies will make mistakes, but hopefully, Dart feels like he belongs, and games like Sunday’s will be growing pains as he starts his NFL career – the question is, though, if the most important column on the stat sheet, the win column, doesn’t start to fill up, will he have the same regime with him next year?