This mess all started with Dallas.
Opening night. At home. In the form of a shocking, embarrassing, 40-0 loss to the Cowboys.
The Giants haven’t recovered since.
Here we are nine weeks later, the Giants with a 2-7 record as they play the 5-3 Cowboys on Sunday at AT&T Stadium, and they’ll be doing so with their third-string quarterback, Tommy DeVito.
Now — as much as trying to win a game after two desultory defeats to the Jets and Raiders the past two weeks, during which they’ve produced two offensive touchdowns — the Giants travel to Arlington, Texas with the hopes of simply not being embarrassed.
After all, with their roster in at least some semblance of being whole, the Giants lost 40-0 at home. What might happen to them against this same Cowboys team that has scored 119 more points than the Giants in one fewer game played? On the road?
How much more embarrassing can — might — things get this time around?
“I really don’t remember much,’’ Giants receiver Darius Slayton told The Post of the nightmarish opening night. “It was a night to forget.’’
The Giants are 17-point underdogs to the Cowboys. For proper perspective on just how bad that looks: The Broncos, at Buffalo on Monday night, have the next-longest odds on this week’s NFL schedule as 7.5-point dogs. Vegas, more often than not, generally gets these things right when assigning these point spreads.
“No one thought the season could go like this,’’ Giants receiver Parris Campbell told The Post on Thursday.
Campbell, in his first season with the Giants, is one of the most positive souls residing in their locker room.
“But at the end of the day, we’ve got pride and we’ve got another opportunity, shoot, to shock the world — to go in there, to be in the situation we’re in, and beat a top team in the NFL,’’ he said.
Campbell then chose to look at perhaps the only flicker of positivity to come out of that opening night loss, which he acknowledged as “definitely a night to forget.’’
“Taking a positive away from it, though: Our first drive, you couldn’t have drawn it up any better,’’ Campbell said. “We were moving the ball, making plays, staying in front of the chains. It really felt like everything we’d just done in camp and preseason … it kind of felt like it was all coming together.’’
To review: The Giants’ offense — the one that’s currently last in the NFL in scoring with 11.2 points per game — was cutting through the Dallas defense like a knife through warm butter on its first possession of 2023. In 10 plays, the Giants moved to the Dallas 8-yard line with a third-and-2 when left tackle Andrew Thomas was called for a false start. On the next play, rookie center John Michael Schmitz Jr. rolled a snap, like he was playing a game of lawn bowling, past Daniel Jones for a 14-yard loss.
That left uber-dependable kicker Graham Gano with a 45-yard field goal attempt, which was blocked and returned for a touchdown. It’s not an overstatement to say the Giants haven’t recovered since that field goal was blocked.
“After significant play like that, you feel momentum shift,’’ Campbell said. “But it just never, ever shifted back. It was just one of those nights where we couldn’t get anything going on our side. We couldn’t get anything to go our way. We couldn’t get it right.’’
Campbell was talking about that Dallas game, but he might as well have been speaking about the entire season to date.
“It was definitely a perfect storm,’’ recalled linebacker Bobby Okereke — who like Campbell, was playing his first game as a Giant that night.
What it really was, was an imperfect storm for the Giants.
“I truly feel like the thing that’s the cure-all is winning,’’ Campbell said. “One game. Man, that would put the players’ confidence through the roof.’’
It seems the roof collapsed on the Giants in that season opener, and they haven’t been able to extricate themselves from the rubble since.
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