Giants lose to the Chiefs 22-9

"The Giants were looking for their first win of the season, and it would be a big one if it happened in their opening home game at MetLife Stadium. It was a lot to hope for considering the visiting team was the Kansas City Chiefs. The Giants had the ball first and kept making first downs until they had a 4th-and-3 from the Chiefs 28-yard line. It would have been an easy field goal for our kicker Graham Gano, but he had injured his groin in practice before the game started. Russell Wilson's pass to Tyrone Tracy was incomplete, and Kansas City took over.
The Chiefs then scored when their kicker hit on a 54-yard field goal. That was a lucky break for them, as after the ball hit the upright, and then bounced in for the 3 points. They added another field goal in the second quarter. Soon after that on a third down play, Wilson threw a deep pass to Wan'Dale Robinson, and it was intercepted. The Chiefs got down to where they could kick a 40-yard field goal, but this time the Giants got lucky, and it was a miss!
With Tracy being injured earlier, Cam Skattebo was doing all the running on the Giants next drive. He was doing a great job, and finished things off with a 13 yard touchdown run. Punter Jamie Gillan came in for the extra point try, but it was blocked, so the game was tied at 6-6.
The next time the Giants had the ball there was less than a minute left and Wilson threw another interception, this time trying to connect deep with Malik Nabers. With little time left and the ball at the Chiefs 20-yard line, it looked like we'd have a halftime tie, but no! The Chiefs gained some small yardage on a few plays, and faced a 3rd-and-10 with 27 seconds left. It was a bad time for cornerback Andru Phillips to draw a 5-yard Illegal contact penalty, which gave the Chiefs an automatic first down. Then bad went to worse when Phillips was next hit with a 52-yard pass interference call. That gave the Chiefs a chance to add another field goal, and they closed out the half leading 9-6.
With that score, things didn't seem too bad until the Chiefs started off the third quarter with a long drive ending with a touchdown. The Giants put together their own long drive the second time they had the ball, and they got down to a 1st-and-10 at the Kansas City 12-yard line. They gained five yards and faced with a 4th-and-5, Gano came in to try a short 25 yard field goal, and it worked! It was a great effort by an obviously hurting Gano, and now the score was 16-9 with just over 10 minutes to play in the fourth quarter.
It was a one score game, but it was hard to see the Giants defense then give up two long completions when Mahomes was facing 3rd-and-long, and that second one was a 33 yard touchdown pass that put his team up 22-9 when they missed on the extra point. On the next drive, the Giants had a first down at the Kansas City 4-yard line and couldn't punch it in on four tries.
Even though the defense got the Chiefs off the field with a three-and-out, with 2:04 remaining you knew there was no chance to pull this game out. The offense turned the ball over on downs, and and the Chiefs ran the clock to take the win. A few plays here and there, and the Giants could have given the home fans a thrill, but that didn't happen tonight."

"The Giants were catching the Kansas City Chiefs at the right time. Their offense was struggling with their ground game, and Patrick Mahomes was having trouble finding someone to throw to. The exception of course was tight end Travis Kelce, but Mahomes leading wide receiver Xavier Worthy, was injured in game one, and was still out for this game. He's also stuck with Rashee Rice off the field as he's still on suspension. Hollywood Brown has been targeted the most.
The Giants defense held Brown to just one catch by the halftime break, but they messed up real bad on him just before it. A 52-yard pass to Brown fell incomplete when Andru Phillips interfered with him, drawing a penalty that allowed the Chiefs to add another field goal. Penalties are a killer, as the Giants learned last week when the team committed a total 14. The defense was doing much better in that area with just two penalties by Phillips, but this last one led to the Giants trailing 9-6 at halftime.
They were also doing a nice job containing Mahomes, who had thrown the ball 23 times and completed just 12. Mahomes was averaging 4.3 yards a pass with no touchdowns, and the Giants had sacked him twice. Mahomes was the lead rusher for his team in each of his last two games, and he so far had totaled just 5 yards on 2 carries. Mahomes, along with the other rushers 8 carries, had the team with a total of 48 yards.
On the Giants offensive side, things were not working out well at all. Russell Wilson was coming off a game where he had thrown for 450 yards and 3 touchdowns. In these first two quarters he had completed 7 of his 13 passes and had 2 interceptions. The total receiving yards were 39, and 16 of them came on a single pass to running back Cam Skattebo, who pulled in 3 of his 4 targets. Tyrone Tracy, another running back, had caught 2 of 3 for 7 yards.
As for the receivers, Darius Slayton caught both his targets for 13 yards, Wan'Dale Robinson and Malik Nabers combined for no catches on 4 targets. The Giants have made most all of their progress with the running game using Skattebo, 75 yards on 16 carries and 1 touchdown. Tracy has 7 runs for 29 yards, and Devin Singletary has 7 yards on 3 carries, giving the group a total of 75 yards. It should be noted that Graham Gano was questionable from the start, and Tracy hurt his shoulder on the Giants first drive and did not return to the game.
The Giants knew they'd have to get their offense going in the second half. Wilson was leading the league with 8 completions of 25 or more yards, and Kansas City schemed to keep him in check. By the end of the game, Wilson's numbers improved, and though he did get off a 26-yard pass to Robinson, the Giants were able to come up with just one more field goal. Kansas City scored two more touchdowns, and had a 22-9 win.
Skattebo was the lead rusher with with 10 carries for 60 yards, and ended up being the top receiver with 6 catches for 61 yards. Nabers was able to come up with just 2 receptions on 7 pass targets for 13 yards. The Giants will have to figure out a way to get both the offense and defense working well in the same game if they expect to win one. This week they'll play their second home game against the Los Angeles Chargers."

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