Giants lose to the Steelers 26-16

"After watching the two NFC East 'favorites' Cowboys and Eagles take losses on the opening day weekend, I was hoping the Giants could do as well as Washington and surprise everyone. In some ways they did. The Giants got off to a good start, but it didn't last. They scored first after the special teams unit recovered the punt following their opening drive.
The Giants couldn't punch it in from the Pittsburgh 3-yard line with Saquon Barkley, and incomplete passes to Darius Slayton and Evan Engram, and they settled for a field goal. The defense had the Steelers 3-and-out, but let them tie the score on their next turn. The Giants followed that up with a touchdown when Slayton caught a 41 yard pass from Daniel Jones. The Giants were up 10-3, and I was wishing I was at the stadium to enjoy things with other fans.
That thought didn't last long. After another nice 3-and-out by the Giants defense, Jones next pass was intercepted by T.J. Watt. Ben Roethlisberger soon threw a touchdown pass. As luck would have it, the point after attempt failed, so the Giants still held a 10-9 lead. Unfortunately, that's all the luck the Giants had as Roethlisberger threw another touchdown pass right before the half ended, and the Giants were trailing 16-10.
When the Giants next got the ball, mostly working no huddle, they moved from their 9-yard line all the way down to the Pittsburgh 4-yard line. That's when Jones was hit while throwing and his pass to Slayton was intercepted. The spark was gone after that, and the Steelers were able to add another field goal and a touchdown, before the Giants scored again with less than two minutes left.
I guess I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up so high from what I saw early on. Everything is all pretty new to the Giants with all the coaching and player changes this year. Anyway, Pittsburgh left town with a 26-16 win, and hopefully the Giants will be able to work off this first game experience before they set off to Chicago for the second one."

"As we said in the preview, the Giants were at a disadvantage here, heading into this season with a new head coach and coaching staff. Mike Tomlin had made very few changes to his staff, and was also able to build off last year's experiences with most of the players. For the Giants and Joe Judge, everything was brand new.
Golden Tate was listed as questionable, and did not play in a game where they could have used every hand on deck. Sterling Shepard caught every pass Jones tossed his way, and was 6 of 6 for 47 yards. Darius Slayton had 6 catches for 102 yards, and 2 touchdowns. That's the end of the good news.
While the offensive line allowed Daniel Jones opportunities to be effective, they provided nothing for Saquon Barkley. Jones had more rushing yards than Barkley, who finished up with 6 yards on 15 carries. He actually had ten times that yardage catching 6 passes for 60 yards, which put him second in receiving yards. Maybe that's how they should have used him after seeing how poorly the running game was working out in the first half.
The Steelers are a tough team to go up against, and for awhile the Giants held their own. They led at one point 10-3, fell behind, and could have taken the lead again after pushing the Steelers around in the third quarter with an impressive 19 play drive. They really needed to come away with some points right there instead of an interception that killed the drive.
In this first game there were many players, close to twenty, who had never played for the Giants before, trying to get their acts together. Head coach Joe Judge will have them learn from the mistakes and missed opportunities. We'll see how much they build off this game next week in Chicago against the Bears. They need for that to happen. In less than a month the Giants will begin a stretch that includes five of their six divisional games."

Daniel Jones has thrown at least one touchdown pass in each of his first 13 career starts.

Darius Slayton, Saquon Barkley and Sterling Shepard each had 6 receptions.

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