00:00It was all good for the Giants in week 10 until it wasn't the G men had themselves another fourth quarter collapse as they allowed two touchdowns in the final four minutes falling to the Bears at Soldier Field 24 to 20. And joining me to talk some big blue football is a sports anchor and reporter for New York one. The one and only Stephanie Manicero joins me now. Steph, what's going on? How you doing? Good to see you. This is going to be a tough one to talk about. Yeah, it's going to be a tough one to talk about. I feel the last couple of times we've connected.
00:30Even some tough things to talk about. It's got to get better. We got to get a little more positivity into our conversations. But Steph, when we talk about the Giants here in week 10 against the Bears, they were playing well. They were leading by double digits until Jackson Dart exited the game and didn't return after being evaluated for a concussion. The team, they also had a chance to go up 14 with fourth and goal, had that opportunity inside the one yard line with 1019 to go in this game. But Brian Dayball elected to kick the field goal. What did you make of his decision? And do you think that choice hurt the G?
01:00Well, Dexter, I think it's always easy to scrutinize these decisions in hindsight, right? Especially if they don't work out in your favor and you know how the game ends, right? But at that point of the game, I actually am going to say the decision didn't bother me. Neither team was converting on fourth down. You know, 10 minutes ago in the game, your defense at that point had held them to just 10 points.
01:30At that moment, taking the points. Plus, you have your backup quarterback in who hadn't been able to do much. So to me, I know Giants fans are really upset about this. But to me, at that moment, I don't have such a problem with it.
01:45Oh, yeah. No, they're upset. I've seen the anger on social media. It's been spewing already. I do wonder how much of that was maybe Brian Dayball, particularly, maybe not trusting Russell Wilson. I know he just drove the team down there to the one yard line, but maybe he just didn't have the confidence there.
02:00However, all the blame cannot be on the coach. We have to also look at the defense, Steph. They've given up 75 points in the fourth quarter over their last four games. We remember what happened in Denver. I know Giants fans don't want to remember that, but we do. And the Giants are now on for this season in games in which they've led by 10 or more points on the road. So, Steph, we've seen this movie several times this season. How much of these close losses that we have seen by the Giants are on the shoulders of the defense?
02:27Obviously, you need your defense, right, to help you win games. And like you said, you're just going to add this to the list of games that you want back this season, right up there with that Broncos game, with the Saints game, with the Cowboys game.
02:40And now you add this Bears game to the list. But look, the Giants enter this game as the worst run defense in the league.
02:47And you're going up against a team that you know is going to run the ball a lot. Plus, you have a banged up secondary. And Caleb Williams, give it to him.
02:54Like, he's an elusive quarterback, and he looked good. And again, I don't know that Giants fans are going to necessarily agree with me on this one.
03:02But for three quarters and about eight minutes, your defense did well. Like, right, your defense held them to 10 points.
03:10And I kind of think that this was a case of the defense being fatigued at the end of the game. And who knows? I like to think that the Giants win this game if Jackson Dart doesn't go out with that injury.
03:23But I think this was a case of your defense being tired and your backup quarterback not being able to go score for score. And you get outscored.
03:31And sometimes that is what it is. Sometimes things are what they are. However, I think Giants fans, you talked about them not being happy.
03:38Steph, these are now multiple. You just mentioned all of them. Blown leads slash collapses, whatever you want to call them, by this Giants team this season.
03:47Should Brian Dayball, and I really don't like doing this, talking about other people's jobs, but should Brian Dayball or defensive coordinator Shane Bowen be held responsible for these collapses?
03:55Or in your eyes, does this simply come down to players not executing?
04:01I think it's a really hard conversation to have. Again, we know Giants fans have been calling for Dable's job since week one, right?
04:09In the preseason, his job, his seat was really hot. One of the hottest seats in the NFL. We talked about it week in and week out with him.
04:18They went to Jackson Dart earlier than I think a lot of people expected, and Jackson Dart turned out to be everything that you could have asked for in a rookie quarterback.
04:25So you add in some of the injuries to your star wide receiver, Malik Neighbors, and then the Cam Scadaboo gruesome injury, as sad as that was, right?
04:33I do think some of these injuries allot your coaching staff a bit of a pass. I certainly hope Jackson Dart is okay. We'll see what the word on his injury is.
04:45But yeah, four double-digit leads blown, three of them in the fourth quarter, of course that's not good.
04:51And I think close games, like all of them that the Giants have lost, come down to good coaching.
04:56Yeah, and it's been rough for them there. It feels like somebody is going to have to pay, sadly, because that's generally how these things go in professional sports.
05:04Now, you just mentioned Jackson Dart, Steph. He had two rushing touchdowns in his game, but he did fumble, left the game to be evaluated for a concussion.
05:12Dart, he's looked like a starting quarterback for the G-men this season. That's probably one of the bright spots here for the Giants.
05:17But does he have to stop constantly putting himself in physical distress and make sure that he can stay on the field for this Giants team?
05:25Short answer, yes, right? Like, we saw what this team was without him.
05:29They're two very different teams from when he left the game and then when Russell Wilson came in.
05:33And they were even talking about it on the broadcast today. It was like, I'm paraphrasing the quote here, but it was like, I know I should go down, but it's just not my style.
05:41I don't know if you said that to the Fox team, you know, before the game this week.
05:45But yeah, you got to learn how to get rid of the ball.
05:49Again, concussions are serious injuries and you never wish injury on anybody, especially a head injury like that.
05:55So we certainly hope he is OK. But I do think sooner or later, a young quarterback who thinks he's invincible
06:02is going to have to learn that I'm not invincible, just like everybody else in this injury in this league.
06:07I'm prone to injury and you got to protect yourself, especially when you are the quarterback of an NFL team.
06:13And so if there's any positives to take from from the dart injury, maybe he learns that he is human after all.
06:20Maybe he does learn that. We will see.
06:22Now, in terms of learning, it doesn't get any easier for the Giants next week.
06:26The two and eight Giants, they host the Packers.
06:29What positives, if any, Steph, can the Giants build on from this loss as they move on to week 11
06:34when they go and face the Pack and host them at home?
06:38I mean, look, it's really tough going right now just based on the schedule.
06:41But I think the positives are your defense looked OK for three and a half quarters of this game.
06:46You held, we talked about it, a good run offense.
06:49The Bears have a good run game.
06:51And for three and a half quarters, you held them to 10 points.
06:54You were up by three with three minutes to go and you had the ball.
06:57So you're just a few first downs away from closing this one out.
07:00And you look back at a lot of these games.
07:02And I guess the positive spin on it is that four of these games, you could have won.
07:08So you got to close.
07:09You got to close.
07:10But that's the positive is you're right there so many times.
07:13And your record very well could have been on the right side of 500.
07:18Yeah, see, that's the thing, Steph.
07:20All those positives you mentioned, they're all so close.
07:23And that's what makes the Giants fans so angry about this because they're like,
07:26we're so close.
07:28We just couldn't finish.
07:29You know, the Giants winner is nuts right now.
07:32Yeah, it is.
07:32It is nuts.
07:33But you got to finish.
07:34You have to close as best as you can.
07:36We'll see what the Giants can do next week against the Green Bay Packers
07:39when they come into town.
07:41That is Stephanie Manicero.
07:42Check her out on New York One, the great sports anchor, sports reporter for them.
07:46Steph, always a pleasure to talk some New York sports with you, particularly football.
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