ARLINGTON — Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus gave Brian Daboll some much-needed cover before the Giants even took the field on Thanksgiving Day.
It was going to be tough to top Eberflus’ disastrous game management as the clock wound down on the Bears’ 23-20 loss to the Lions, an error that surely will cost the Bears coach his job.
Daboll and Giants GM Joe Schoen similarly entered Thursday on the ropes.
Another no-show blowout like their 30-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers four days earlier would confirm that they were no longer the right men to lead this organization into 2025.
All they had to do was avoid getting embarrassed again in a seventh straight loss and let Eberflus’ disaster carry the day.
And yet there were signs from the very beginning of Thursday’s 27-20 defeat that this was too much to ask of the Giants — and that both Schoen and Daboll are now in jeopardy of getting fired at any moment.
It started on the game’s first drive: The defense thought they had forced a Cowboys three-and-out, but there was a yellow flag on the turf.
Offsides. Kayvon Thibodeaux. First down Dallas.
Four missed tackles and a Cowboys field goal later, and it was clear the Giants (2-10) would not be able to get out of their own way.
The Giants’ dysfunction shows up in different forms from game to game, though.
Last Sunday, it was a questionable effort on defense, a neutered Tommy DeVito-led offense in the Giants’ first game without Daniel Jones and a furious postgame locker room.
Here on Thanksgiving, the Giants’ ineptitude primarily manifested itself in Daboll’s inability to run an NFL offense with Drew Lock — the byproduct of a poorly handled past two weeks.
Lock saved the Giants’ first 13-play, 70-yard drive with a 29-yard scramble to escape a sure sack.
His run to the 1-yard line set up a 1-yard Tyrone Tracy Jr. touchdown run, giving the Giants their first lead in any game since Oct. 6 in Seattle.
But then Daboll’s offense incredibly gained only 35 total yards on 27 plays during the Giants’ next eight drives.
That stretch included two turnovers, one DeMarvion Overshown interception returned 23 yards for a touchdown, four punts, a field goal and an end of half clock run-out.
Predictably, that lifeless output resulted in a 27-10 Cowboys lead with four minutes remaining in the third quarter. And the Giants only were able to make the score look better with a window-dressing Lock 8-yard touchdown run late in the fourth.
The Cowboys’ lead ballooned despite the defense battling and punter Jamie Gillan expertly keeping the ball away from explosive Cowboys returner KaVontae Turpin.
Daboll’s offense had no chance to succeed from the beginning, though.
Schoen and Daboll passed over Lock to start DeVito in last Sunday’s embarrassment after Jones requested his release. DeVito got hit so many times late in that blowout that he couldn’t play on Thanksgiving.
Still, Lock told FOX’s Tom Brady that he didn’t find out until Wednesday that he was starting the game.
That’s because the Giants didn’t list DeVito on Monday’s injury report at all after he got pummeled by the Bucs, only to magically list him as injured on Tuesday.
Then he couldn’t even fly with the team to Dallas. He had to meet them there. And so Lock had to start with only two days of some walkthrough reps, with the knowledge that his GM and coach didn’t really trust him to win anyway.
That’s the GM who signed Lock for $5 million in the offseason to back up Jones.
Lock’s pick six and lost fumble were killer mistakes, of course, but Daboll had no answers for how to protect his quarterback, either.
It’s the same story with every quarterback in this offense: Jones got battered, DeVito got shattered and then Lock took an absolute beating on Thursday. He was sacked six times and hit a lot more than that.
Micah Parsons on Evan Neal, Schoen’s No. 7 overall pick from 2022, was a scary mismatch.
Daboll’s team played with no discipline, committing 13 penalties. Their vaunted defensive line had no sacks on Cooper Rush, giving them only one as a defense in the last four games — an astounding statistic.
John Mara’s and Steve Tisch’s Giants are now 1-15 in their last 16 games against the Cowboys dating back to the start of the 2017 season. They are 0-8 in their last eight games in the rivalry.
And they are 0-6 against the Cowboys under Schoen and Daboll, getting outscored 187-88.
Their overall record in the NFC East in three seasons so far is 4-13-1, including a 1-11-0 mark against the Cowboys and Eagles.
This was the year to get the Cowboys. They entered Thursday a winless 0-5 inside AT&T Stadium. But now the Giants (0-6) stand as the NFL’s only winless team at home.
There should have been plenty of cover for the Giants on Thanksgiving Day.
All of America saw Eberflus’ gaffe in Chicago. Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy even got booed loudly by the home crowd for a poor play call on an unsuccessful fourth down.
There is nowhere for the Giants to hide, however. The whole nation saw it.
It’s time for a change.
