Fear of serious Daniel Jones knee injury hangs over Giants' ugly loss to Raiders
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LAS VEGAS — It had been a long eight games for the Giants and it is going to be an excruciatingly longer final eight games for a team that is in the midst of a horrific season.
The Giants welcomed back Daniel Jones for Sunday’s game against the Raiders but the 26-year old quarterback did not make it out of Allegiant Stadium unscathed.
He got hurt on the final play of the first quarter and went down and out for good on the first play of the second quarter with what looked to be a serious injury to his right knee.
The Giants ended up losing 30-6 in noncompetitive fashion and face the likelihood that they will be without Jones for the remainder of the season.
It continues to get worse and worse for the Giants.
They are 2-7 and headed nowhere fast, with a Week 10 game coming next, on the road, against the Cowboys, an NFC East rival that sent this moribund season in motion with a 40-0 thrashing in the opener.
That set a rotten tone that the Giants have been unable to shake.
Can the Giants win another game?
They have Tommy DeVito as their emergency fill-in quarterback and Matt Barkley on the practice squad.
It is almost as if all the smarts and good fortune they exhibited in 2022 in Brian Daboll’s first season as the head coach expired, replaced by bad luck, bad performance and badness all around.
It was a 7-0 deficit for the Giants when Jones went out and it was a cavernous 24-0 hole at halftime.
On the final play of the first quarter, Jones needed to plant his right foot in order to avoid Maxx Crosby on a pass rush.
Jones tried to cut inside and nearly collided with tight end Lawrence Cager.
On the next play, to start the second quarter, Jones took the snap out of the shotgun, tried to backpedal and fell to the grass, stumbling on his own, immediately grabbing for his right knee.
He got to his feet, walked into the blue medical tent positioned behind the Giants’ bench and then walked on his own, alongside team medical personnel, into the locker room.
That meant it was another DeVito game for the Giants, as Tyrod Taylor is on injured reserve with a rib cage injury. It went about as expected.
On his third series, DeVito tried a deep shot to rookie Jalin Hyatt, throwing into double coverage, and the pass did not have enough height or juice on it and Amik Robertson made a leaping interception on the 1-yard line, got to his feet and scampered 40 yards.
On the next play, rookie Aidan O’Connell hit rookie Tre Tucker on a 50-yard bomb, with Deonte Banks trailing badly. Josh Jacobs took it in from the 2-yard line and it was 21-0.
DeVito’s next pass was behind Darius Slayton, who could have done a whole lot better than what he did.
The ball glanced off Slayton, hit off the right hand of Marcus Peters and into the grasp of Nate Hobbs for another interception.
That gifted the Raiders a field goal and a 24-0 halftime lead.
DeVito was 1 for 3 for 11 yards and the two interceptions in the first half and steadied himself in the second half.
Jones looked shaky and rusty in his brief outing after missing the previous three games with a neck injury.
He fired his first pass well over the reach of Saquon Barkley.
He twice sent Hyatt deep down the left sideline and overthrew him both times.
Jones misfired on four of his first five passes and ended up 4-for-9 for 25 yards.
Jones tried a quarterback sneak on fourth-and-1 from the Raiders’ 34-yard line late in the first quarter.
It failed, even though the attempt was made to push him from behind to gain the needed 1 yard.
The wisdom of having Jones, in his first game back from a neck issue, asked to lower his body on this play can certainly be debated.
If Jones is out for the remainder of the season, it will be a disastrous start to the four-year, $160 million contract he signed after helping the Giants go 9-7-1 in 2022, winning a playoff game for the first time since 2011.
The Giants actually thought they might be able to get something accomplished, getting back Jones and the two starting offensive tackles, Andrew Thomas and Evan Neal, both returning from injuries
The Raiders came into the game having fired head coach Josh McDaniels, general manager David Ziegler and offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi. Perhaps they would be all out of sorts with interim head coach Antonio Pierce, the former Giants Super Bowl-winning linebacker, running the team. Plus, the Raider benched Jimmy Garoppolo and started O’Connell at quarterback.
All those storylines went bust, Jones went out and that was that.
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