The Giants took an important first step toward preventing a spiraling season from going off the rails Monday when Bobby Okereke blamed himself.
Even though Devin Singletary lost a fumble, Malik Nabers dropped a crucial pass, 10 other defensive starters shared culpability in allowing seven field goals on seven possessions and head coach Brian Daboll repeated his failure to manage the roster for the worst-case scenario, the workhorse middle linebacker thinks he could’ve changed the outcome of a 21-18 loss to the Commanders.
“My focus wasn’t 100 percent on doing my job,” Okereke said. “If it was, I think we would’ve had a better result.”
Why not?
“Talking about me specifically, three-quarters doing [my] job, one-quarter trying to do someone else’s job, trying to make a play,” said Okereke, who has played all 1,255 defensive snaps since he signed with the Giants in 2023. “And that trickles down. I think everybody should just focus on doing their job.”
The Giants are 0-2 for the ninth time since 2013, and Daboll’s third season feels like it has reached a teetering point.
The final records in those previous eight seasons were 7-9, 6-10, 6-10, 3-13, 5-11, 4-12, 6-10 and 4-13.
A new-look locker room minus Saquon Barkley — who, teammates believe, was largely responsible for salvaging last season by getting others to join him in rallying around undrafted rookie quarterback Tommy DeVito during desperate times — and fellow longtime voices Xavier McKinney and Sterling Shepard is about to get tested.
“Teams take on the personality of their coach, but I think the best teams police themselves,” left tackle Andrew Thomas. “Coaches put us in position to make plays, but it’s really up to us. They don’t cross the white lines. It’s up to us to have the mentality to be dominant, physical and execute.”
Dexter Lawrence — the Giants’ best defensive player — already picked a battle he can’t win with the home crowd by saying he doesn’t “respect” booing.
His tune changed by admitting after the second game that the defense “wasn’t going to look good on tape.”
In 2017, teammates Landon Collins and Eli Apple were in-fighting over Apple’s perceived lack of effort, and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was suspended for walking out on a team meeting.
In 2019, Janoris Jenkins was essentially thrown off the team for using disrespectful language toward fans.
Thomas — the best offensive player — understands why some fans might feel a Same Old Giants sentiment.
“I definitely understand the perspective of the fans, but for us as players, it’s a new team every year,” Thomas said. “Obviously, the personalities are different than what we had before, but I think we have a good group of leaders and what we’re working on now is just not being individuals as far as offense, defense and special teams.”
The Giants’ next six games are against teams that finished last season with winning records and all entered the season with legitimate playoff aspirations: The Browns, Seahawks and Steelers on the road, and the Cowboys, Bengals and Eagles at home.
It’s fair to wonder where the first win is coming from and whether these Giants will repeat or surpass the drought of the 2013 team that started 0-6 or the hopelessness of the 2017, 2018 and 2020 teams that were 1-7 at the midway point.
Before the season, the two most winnable games that the Giants had in September and October, based on betting lines, were the two games that are now finished with losses to the Vikings and Commanders.
“The mindset and attitude of the guys in the building is we’re pointing the thumb, not the finger,” Okereke said.
How bad of a death sentence is 0-2?
Since 2020 — the same year that the NFL expanded to a 14-team playoff format — 32 teams started a season 0-2.
Two of the 32 have reached the playoffs.
Then again, the playoffs were a preseason pipe dream for the Giants.
But playing meaningful games in December — owner John Mara’s old standard for judging a successful season — didn’t feel like too much to ask until now.
“The first thing Dabes said when we had meetings today was basically, ‘Look in the mirror and see what you could’ve done better as a player,’ ” Thomas said.
Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen need to do the same after their “collective” thinking left the Giants with no alternative to kicker Graham Gano, whose preexisting groin injury may or may not have contributed to his hamstring injury on the first play of the game.
An easy roster tweak would’ve given the Giants the insurance to attempt two more PATs and a tiebreaking 40-yard field goal just before the two-minute warning.
“2001 or 2020, none of that [0-2 history] really matters,” Daboll said. “What matters is doing the things we need to do internally to fix some of the things that we’re having issues with. There’s been some improvement.”
For now, the only blame game the Giants have falls under the title of “leadership and accountability.”
“Nah, we can’t make any excuses for that,” Singletary said of the mismanagement. “We had enough opportunities to win the game. We’re close to where we want to be. This is going to be a learning experience.”