Loud chants of “defense” rang out at MetLife Stadium on Sunday when Robert Saleh’s 49ers unit was on the field.
“Are we in San Francisco?” a Giants fan texted the Daily News, noting that he was “surrounded” by Niners fans in his 100-level seats.
It felt that way. And not just to the fans.
“That was interesting,” Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart said of the overwhelming 49ers fan presence. “I’ve never played at a home game where I felt like it was kind of lopsided in that department. But they have a good fan base, and they traveled well.”
The Giants made the Niners feel right at home for most of their third straight defeat, a disgusting 34-24 loss that wasn’t as close as the final score.
Mac Jones completed all 14 of his first half passes and threw two touchdown passes. Christian McCaffrey erupted for 173 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns.
The Niners’ Brian Robinson Jr. (five carries, 53 yards, one touchdown) became the second straight backup running back to gallop over the Giants defense — after the Eagles’ Tank Bigsby put up 104 rushing yards on nine carries last week in Philadelphia.
And the Giants (2-7) slipped deeper into the NFL’s basement.
“None of us did a good enough job,” head coach Brian Daboll said, repeating his weekly answer with no articulated plan to fix anything. “That starts with me. We’ll continue to work at it.”
Joe Schoen and Daboll now have a 5-21 record in their last 26 games as Giants GM and head coach and a 3-18 mark in their last 21.
In addition, Daboll settled with a field goal on 4th and goal from the 3 at 6:42 of the third quarter, making the game 20-10 when his team badly needed a touchdown. And the desperate coach unwisely left Dart in the game during garbage time.
The Giants quarterback then looked like he was in significant pain after getting tattooed in the open field by the Niners’ Tatum Bethune in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter.
“It’s not fun to lose,” said Dart, who took longer than usual to make it the post-game podium.
This is all why a fan paid to fly a plane over the stadium before the game with the message: “Mr. Mara, Enough is Enough, Clean House.”
That’s also how so many 49ers fans were able to score tickets to a ‘Legacy Game’ that is designed to pay homage to the Giants franchise’s proud and distant past.
People have had enough.
Dexter Lawrence, meanwhile, finished with only one assisted tackle and one tackle for a loss in response to Giants legend Carl Banks calling him out for his poor play.
“I don’t think there was a lack of effort,” Lawrence insisted. “Everybody played hard. We just didn’t make the plays.”
Both Lawrence and Kayvon Thibodeaux said they want to remain Giants through the NFL’s trade deadline.
Thibodeaux said: “I want to be here.” And Lawrence, when asked if he has any desire to play somewhere else, said: “I don’t.”
But it’s fair to wonder why.
The Giants now will travel to Chicago next week with a chance to set a new franchise record for consecutive road losses at 11. And Sunday was another example of the team folding like a cheap suit when adversity strikes.
“We’ve got to be able to not just let things collapse a little bit,” Dart said. “Good plays are gonna happen for the other team. That’s the league we play in. And we can’t let one lead to another.
“We have to have the intensity and the focus as a whole team to weather the adversity storms and always keep the belief that we’re gonna win,” he added. “I think at times we let things lead to another instead of shutting it down one play at a time.”
The Giants were booed off the field at halftime down, 17-7, after kicker Graham Gano missed a 45-yard field goal attempt with 15 seconds to play.
Rookie Abdul Carter recovered a Jones fumble forced by Brian Burns to give Dart’s offense the ball back at the 49ers’ 27 yard line with 33 seconds to play.
But Dart and the offense failed to execute, and Gano’s miss continued the Giants’ weekly, monthly and annual kicking problems that have become a microcosm of their broken operation.
The fans weren’t just booing Gano, though. They were booing the whole team’s performance.
Jones, the 49ers’ quarterback, was a perfect 14 of 14 passing for 143 yards and two touchdown passes in the first half.
Dart and the Giants, meanwhile, managed only 98 net yards of offense, the lowest first half total allowed by Saleh’s defense all season.
When asked how he played, Dart said: “It don’t matter, we lost.”
Dart had opened the game with a 10-play, 64-yard drive capped by a 15-yard touchdown pass to tight end Theo Johnson with 10:50 remaining in the first quarter.
But after that, the Giants offense sputtered to four straight punts and the missed field goal before trudging into the locker room.
“We got caught in situations that were hard to manage, quite honestly,” he said of the Niners rushing the passer well while taking away everything deep.
Jones and the Niners, meanwhile, answered Dart’s opening game touchdown immediately with a 12-play, 68-yard drive and a 5-yard Jones touchdown pass to McCaffrey.
That knotted the game 7-7 at the 4:16 mark of the first.
Then Shanahan’s offense marched right down the field again on their second drive after a Giant three and out.
Jauan Jennings made Giants seventh-round rookie corner Korie Black fall down and caught an 11-yard touchdown pass from Jones.
That capped an 8-play, 80-yard drive that lasted only four minutes and three seconds.
The Niners averaged 6.1 yards per play on offense in the half, and they added a 54-yard Pineiro field goal with 1:55 to play in the second quarter for the 17-7 halftime lead.
Shanahan got too cute on the pass play call that resulted in Burns’ strip sack at the end of the half, but the Giants aren’t good enough to make their opponents pay for mistakes.
They’re too busy making their own.
INJURIES KEEP PILING UP
Giants center John Michael Schmitz (shin) and special teams wide receiver Beaux Collins (neck) both left Sunday’s game with injuries. Running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. and tight end Theo Johnson both got hurt but returned to the game. Johnson then seemed like he received further examination after the game. Black, the rookie corner, also limped off after a late tackle of McCaffrey in the open field.
That’s a lot of ailments on top of the Giants’ injury-riddled inactive list. They played Sunday without three of their top four defensive backs: starting corners Paulson Adebo (knee) and Cor’Dale Flott (concussion) and safety Jevon Holland (knee). They also were missing starting right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor (pec) and starting tight end Daniel Bellinger (neck), as well as backup DL Chauncey Golston (neck).
That meant Deonte Banks and Black starting at outside corner, Dane Belton starting at safety, rookie Marcus Mbow starting at right tackle and three players dressing after being healthy scratches last week: wide receiver Jalin Hyatt and offensive linemen Evan Neal and James Hudson. Hyatt returned kickoffs for the first time in his career, probably in an audition for potential trades out of town before the NFL trade deadline.
New wide receiver Ray-Ray McCloud saw only one target for a five-yard catch. The Giants have until 4 p.m. ET to make a trade for more receiver depth and talent if they wish, but letting Schoen surrender significant assets to add a player to a 2-7 team with his job on the line is dangerous.