Giants 23-10 victory in Denver could make things worse for Ben McAdoo

Rarely does a victory leave a team asking more questions of itself than a loss. Winning should mean things are going well and the team is coming together.

Of course, that’s way too simple an outcome for a team like the New York Giants this season, even after defeating the Denver Broncos 23-10 to pick up their first win of the year.

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Without Odell Beckham Jr., with Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie suspended and with head coach Ben McAdoo handing off play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan, the Giants looked better on Sunday Night Football than they have all season.

Eli Manning threw for 128 yards with one touchdown, tight end Evan Engram broke out for 82 yards and a touchdown and tailback Orleans Darkwa topped 100 rushing yards for the first time in his career. All of which must make the Giants’ brass wonder even more about why they need McAdoo running the team at all.

If the head coach with nothing but offensive experience on his resume can’t get the team functioning with all of his star players on the field — and his deputy with nearly none of those players can — there’s going to be some simple questions asked that will be difficult for McAdoo to answer.

At least none of those questions will be as bad as the one asked of Broncos head coach Vance Joseph: how did you lose at home to this team?

The optimistic viewpoint here is that McAdoo easing up his control over the team allowed the Giants to play looser and allowed the head coach to focus on an overall game plan. And that may very well be true.

But it doesn’t answer for the trouble with Rodgers-Cromartie or the expectations shifting from a potential Super Bowl trip when the year started to rooting for the No. 1 pick in the draft after five weeks.

A five-game losing streak doesn’t have to be the end of the world for an NFL team. An utter lack of confidence throughout that streak usually is. In Denver, the Giants were poised and controlled the tempo all night.

McAdoo’s only hope to save his job coming into Sunday night was to scale back his responsibilities and prove that this team was doomed whether he was calling plays or not. Instead he scaled back his responsibilities and proved that he may have been an even larger problem than previously thought.

Either way, it still doesn’t look good for the head coach.

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Blake Schuster is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at blakeschuster@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Schustee