Giants lose to the Commanders 21-18

"Everyone, the coaches, the players, and all the fans were hoping to see the Giants shake off their poor season opening game. It didn't start well when you saw the Commanders return the opening kickoff for a touchdown. Things seemed better when a penalty flag was thrown and the touchdown was negated, but then you heard that kicker Graham Gano was injured on the play.
Even though our defense gave up with two sacks on their rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, the Commanders opening drive took up most of the quarter. They got all the way down to the Giants 4-yard line, but had to settle for a field goal and 3-0 lead.
The Giants offense looked much better this week, both passing and running, and the Giants closed out their drive with a 7-yard touchdown run by Devin Singletary. Our punter Jamie Gillan tried to kick for the extra point, but missed it, and now the Giants were up 6-3. Brian Daboll didn't have Gillan try that the next time the Giants scored a touchdown, which followed after two more Washington field goals. The two point conversion attempt failed when Daniel Jones pass to Darius Slayton was incomplete, and that basically ended the half with the Giants holding a 12-9 lead.
The Giants started off the second half with a few good plays until Singletary completed his 15-yard run by fumbling the ball over to the Commanders, where they had it at their own 35-yard line. That resulted in another field goal, and the Giants defense couldn't seem to stop them. The Commanders couldn't score a touchdown, but they added three more field goals on their next three possessions. During that time the Giants scored one more touchdown which wasn't enough and the Giants took a 21-18 loss. The Giants scored some touchdowns this week. Jones completed a number of passes to rookie Malik Nabers. Singletary had room to run, and he took advantage of that. The defense has some accounting to do. They didn't allow any touchdowns, and came up with 5 sacks, but couldn't get the Commanders off the field for our offense to have more shots."

"The Giants defense bent, and didn't break, but one big part of the Giants offense broke right at the start, Graham Gano, and that played a big factor in the Giants losing this game.
What was working best for the Giants in the first half was quick passes to Malik Nabers, and then letting him do what he can do. Nabers made some nice moves that had him catching 5 of the 8 passes Daniel Jones threw his way, and with his yards after the catch, had 73 yards and his first career touchdown. The offensive line was working for Jones, and also for running back Devin Singletary, who had 5 carries for 35 yards and 1 touchdown. The offense had only three possessions during the half, but had scored two touchdowns for a 12-9 lead, much better than last weeks outing.
The defense had only 1 sack last week, and had already sacked rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels four times. Daniels didn't take the hint though, and by the end of the half had completed 11 of his 13 passes for 87 yards. Daniels had also run on the defense 7 times for 30 yards. He and running back Brian Robinson Jr., 10 carries for 63 yards, kept the chains moving for the Commanders. The half ended with them taking a knee on a one play possession with 7 seconds left, but they had scored a field goal on each of their first three possessions. The Commanders had control of the ball for 21:39, and the Giants just 8:21.
The Giants did better on those numbers in the second half, but Singletary's costly turnover on their first possession really hurt. They would otherwise have had a first down at the Washington 32-yard line. The Commanders continued doing in this half what they had done in the first, score a field goal on every possession, and that turnover was no exception. The Giants followed up going three-and-out on incompletions to Nabers, Wan'Dale Robinson and Darius Slayton. They scored a touchdown the next time they had the ball early in the fourth quarter on a short pass from Jones to Robinson. They weren't able to advance their 18-15 lead when the two point conversion failed.
After the Commanders scored another field goal to tie things up, the Giants got themselves down to the Washington 22 yard line. It was fourth down and typically Gano would kick a 40-yard field goal to tie things up, but he wasn't available. Brian Daboll didn't trust his punter trying extra points or field goals after he failed on his first extra point attempt. Jones threw a nice short pass to Nabers, but he was unable to come up with it. It's too bad, because he's made more difficult catches.
The Commanders scored their inevitable field goal after that, to win the game 21-18. Daboll is going to have to answer a lot of questions about not activating their practice squad kicker. Despite the fact that Gano pulled his hamstring chasing a kickoff return, he was dealing with a groin injury and was on the injury report the day before. Daboll also has to find a viable kicker for his upcoming game with the Cleveland Browns next week."

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