Notebook: Giants look to regroup after 0-2 start

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, from 2000, when Daboll made his NFL coaching debut with New England, through 2023, 200 teams started 0-2. Only 19 of them (9.5%) made the playoffs. In 2020, the NFL added a seventh playoff team in each conference. In the four seasons since, the percentage of 0-2 teams making the playoffs has declined to 6.3 (two of 32).

This is the ninth time a team Daboll coached for has started 0-2 (or worse). Only one of those teams rallied to make the playoffs; the 2001 New England Patriots, with whom he won the first of his five Super Bowl rings.

Today, the fact impresses Daboll not at all.

“That was a long time ago, 2001,” he said. “(That team was) 1-3. So again, that’s 2001 or 2020, none of that really matters. What matters is doing the things we need to do internally to fix some of the things that we’re having issues with. Again, there’s been some improvement. There was improvement in the red zone defense from Week 1 to Week 2. There was improvement, I’d say, in almost every area offensively and we need to continue to build off those things and then fix the things that that aren’t up to standard.”

One of the first orders of business is selecting a kicker for the game in Cleveland. Graham Gano suffered a hamstring injury on the opening kickoff yesterday. When punter Jamie Gillan missed on the first extra point attempt, Daboll elected not to try another PAT or a field goal, a situation that is untenable going forward. And Gano’s return is not imminent.

“We’ll see where he’s at and I would assume it’s going to be a few weeks here,” Daboll said.

The Giants have Jude McAtamney on their practice squad, but he has never kicked in an NFL game. The team also held a kickers tryout today.

“We’ll work guys out and Jude has been with us, so we’ll make a decision off of the workout,” Daboll said. “Based on how they do in the workout and then Jude.”

As he turns his team’s attention to the Browns, Daboll looks to build on what the Giants did well yesterday and correct the parts of their performance that were less satisfactory.

The Giants played much better than they did in their season-opening loss to Minnesota, with some notable exceptions. One, of course, was the kicking game. The defense gave up 215 rushing yards, including 133 by Brian Robinson, Jr., Washington converted 50% of its third down opportunities (7-14) and its only fourth down try, and never punted.

“Usually (when) this happens for run defense, (it’s) two things, tackling and then run fits,” Daboll said. “So, those are two things that we stress every week but will put an added emphasis on them this week.”

“Defensively, we got to do a better job tackling,” linebacker Bobby Okereke said. “Need to shore up our run fits and just have more discipline doing our job. Talking about me specifically, (it was) kind of three quarters doing your job, a quarter trying to do someone else’s job, trying to make a play. And that trickles down. I think everybody needs to focus on doing their job.”

The offense was more efficient and productive than it had been vs. the Vikings. Quarterback Daniel Jones threw for 178 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. Rookie Malik Nabers accounted for 71.3% of those yards (127) while catching 10 passes and scoring his first NFL touchdown.

“There were numerous things we could have done better and need to work on, but we are not going to make excuses,” Jones said. “There are things we’ll work on and fix going forward, and that’s what I’m focused on.”

Devin Singletary ran for 95 yards, averaged 5.9 yards a carry, and scored the Giants’ first touchdown on a 7-yard run.

“I’d just say the offense in general, I thought, made very good improvements from Week 1 to Week 2,” Daboll said. “We stayed on track. We played in positive down and distances. We ran with the ball well. I’d say the receivers blocked well. That was a really good run to start off the game by Motor (Singletary), a great block by (wide receiver Darius) Slayton coming in on the right side and then Motor making the guy miss, crack replace guy. Wasn’t a lot of free runners. Most of the time we got a hat for a hat, we got movement at the line, and I thought Motor ran well. Saw the hole well, made good cuts, got downhill, that was an improvement.

“The pass protection was an improvement (Jones was sacked once after going down five times last week). We didn’t have very many negative plays, which helps offensively when you’re moving the ball. There was a lot of a lot of good things that came out of that and a lot of improvements on that side of the ball.”

“Definitely took a step in the right direction,” Singletary said. “It wasn’t an outcome that we wanted, but we could definitely build on this.”

That’s exactly what the Giants intend to do.

“The first thing Dabs said when we had meetings today is, ‘Basically look in the mirror and see what you could have done better as a player,'” left tackle Andrew Thomas said. “It’s really easy when things aren’t going well to finger point. But the great teams, they stick together by looking in the mirror and seeing what each individual could do better. So, we’re doing that. I’m doing that as an offensive lineman. Obviously, our room sticks together and wants to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to help the team win.”

“Each week we got to focus on the team we’re playing and the things we need to do to go out there and perform well,” Daboll said. “And that’s where our guys’ heads are at. That’s where they’re going to be at. Learn from the things from one week to the next and keep improving.”