The good news is that the game doesn’t count and nobody got injured.
The Giants lost 21-0 to the Bills on Saturday afternoon in a game which likely had some fans in the city changing the channel to watch the Mets take on the baseball Giants. The football Giants were held scoreless in the final three quarters of the preseason opener against Miami and were shutout for all four quarters on Saturday. When asked if he took any positives from the offense, head coach Ben McAdoo said “no”.
Eli Manning went 4-9 and threw for 44 yards. Manning was a sophomore at Ole Miss the last time the Giants were shutout in a preseason game. That 14-0 loss to New England in 2001 saw the Patriots trying Tom Brady and Damon Huard to see who would backup Drew Bledsoe. So it’s been awhile.
The starters did very little in four series on Saturday. “The first-string offense wasn’t very good, to put it politely,” McAdoo said.
The backup quarterbacks struggled as well. Ryan Nassib went 2-12 for 25 yards. In the last minute of the second quarter, Nassib was hit and fumbled leading to a subsequent Bills touchdown. Logan Thomas had two possessions to show what he had and threw two interceptions.
It looked like the Giants would at least get on the scoreboard but Tom Obarski missed a 27-yard field goal attempt as the Giants look for a week one kicker because of Josh Brown’s suspension.
The Giants only picked up seven first downs and went 1-11 on third-down conversions. The Giants defense was on the field for about two-thirds of the game.
Buffalo’ defense forced four turnovers and the Giants also committed 10 penalties. In the last seven quarters, the Giants have been outscored 48-0. “What we practice needs to show up on game days and it hasn’t,” McAdoo said. “We’ve been sloppy with penalties, haven’t been taking care of the ball very well, and we’ve had opportunities in practice to develop our physicality and from an offensive perspective, it wasn’t there tonight.”
It would be ridiculous to panic over an exhibition game but Manning admitted that they still have to play better than they have. “You can’t freak out but you have to understand there has to be some urgency, and we have to do some things better than what we did today,” Manning said.