The newest lesson in a season filled with remedial achievement is this: Forget this one. Leave it on the tarmac when the Giants’ team charter goes wheels-up out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Flush the residue from the collective memory somewhere over Nebraska or Iowa. Let it be gone by the time the plane touches down in Newark.
It is one loss. It is one misstep. There shouldn’t be a reason to read any deeper into this. The Seahawks beat the Giants Sunday, 27-13. The Giants lost to a surprisingly tough opponent in an all-but-impossible place to play, Lumen Field, 68,921 filling the joint with roars for three straight hours.
“Tough loss,” Giants coach Brian Daboll said. “They did everything a little better than we did today.”
It was tough, and it comes with a challenge: One loss needn’t become two — or three or five. That’s been the way so many Giants seasons of recent vintage have seemed to go. Lose a tough one to Dallas/Washington/Philly, and it carries over to the next one against San Francisco/LA/Arizona. And then on to the next. And the next.
Now, these Giants are still 6-2. That remains (alongside the Cowboys) the third-best record in the NFC behind only the Eagles and the Vikings. So, unlike their recent predecessors, they have a foundation of success to build on. They have a bye next week; it always stings to sit on a loss for 14 days, but it’s not a terrible time to rest aching bodies.
“Get your body to rest, regroup, do whatever you need to get ready for the second half,” said Adoree’ Jackson, whose fumble force-and-recovery set up the Giants’ lone touchdown. “We’ll be ready to go.”
Daboll’s message to his players was a simple one.
“Keep your head up, get a good week at practice,” he told them. “Things happened this game we have to eliminate from happening. Come Monday, we’ll make corrections, we’ll have the bye week, come back ready to go.”
And the 1-5-1 Texans will be waiting for the Giants back at MetLife Stadium, on the other side of the bye, with the Lions on deck a week later. There is no reason 6-2 shouldn’t be 8-2 by the time the Giants head to Arlington, Texas for a Thanksgiving Day matchup with the Cowboys.
From there, the schedule gets significantly stiffer, with five of the Giants’ six NFC East showdowns still to come, plus a trip to the 6-1 Vikings on Christmas Eve. But that’s so far in the future, it’s like another season. This season is still a feel-good success story, with a chance to become something more.
And the truth is, even this loss shouldn’t weigh heavy on the Giants’ minds. Yes, the offense took a few steps backwards. Yes, the score might’ve been even more one-sided if not for Jackson jarring the ball loose from Tyler Lockett and recovering the fumble at the Seattle 2-yard-line midway through the second quarter.
Still, it is impossible not to wonder how differently things could have gone if not for two killer fumbles by Richie James on punts. It is impossible not to wonder if the mystical fourth-quarter mojo that has carried the Giants would’ve been different without the 10 points they essentially gifted the Seahawks.
Wonder about that. But don’t obsess.
There’s no need. These Giants have been different from their forebears in every conceivable way. After the only other loss this season, in Week 3 at home to the Cowboys — another perfectly winnable game that got away — the Giants took advantage of the schedule and piled up four straight wins, all over the globe.
“We can’t let this be like ‘tank the rest of the season.’ ” Giants receiver Darius Slayton said. “It’s not going to kill our vibe. We’re going to learn from it, watch the film and be better from it.’’
Said Daboll: “We’ve got a long season to go. We were 3-1 in the first quarter [of the season] and 3-1 in the second quarter. We don’t like the results today, Seattle earned those results, and we didn’t. You always do some self-scouting and fix some of the things we need to fix like we do every week.”
Daboll’s tone and his mood were exactly the same as it was last week in Jacksonville, and the week before that back in Jersey, and the week before that over in London. The Giants won all of those games. They lost this one. You wouldn’t know it looking, or listening, to Daboll.
That’s a good place to start. No highs. No lows. A week off, and let it go. No reason at all to believe they won’t.
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