Giants takeaways from Sunday's 30-6 loss at Raiders, including the impact of Daniel Jones' knee injury

The Giants’ season continued to go from bad to worse, as they suffered an embarrassing 30-6 defeat to a Raiders team that just fired their head coach (Josh McDaniels) and replaced their starting quarterback (Jimmy Garoppolo).

The Giants were already down a touchdown when Daniel Jones, making his return from a neck injury, was knocked out of the game due to a knee injury. That left them in the same situation as last week, with undrafted rookie Tommy DeVito at the helm.

The Raiders increased their lead to 14-0 on a Josh Jacobs touchdown run, then Jacobs scored again after DeVito threw an interception to make it 21-0. Another DeVito interception led to a late field goal and the Giants were down 24 at the half.

In the second half, DeVito threw his first NFL touchdown pass to Wan’Dale Robinson, but the Raiders cruised to an easy win despite taking their foot off the gas.

Here are the takeaways...

- Right tackle Evan Neal’s struggles continued right from the start of this game, as the Giants opened up with yet another demoralizing three-and-out. Brian Daboll was visibly upset with Neal after his penalty on fourth-and-inches forced them to punt. He was later beaten for a sack on the play before Jones’ injury and was knocked out of the game with another injury in the fourth quarter.

- The Giants have seemed destined never to be fully healthy on offense this season. Andrew Thomas finally returned at left tackle, but Darren Waller went to injured reserve this week and now Jones looks certain to miss further time.

- Unlike last week, the Giants were prepared to let DeVito air it out, but it backfired immediately when his deep throw was intercepted at the goal line. As if to compound the matter, the Raiders’ own rookie quarterback Aidan O’Connell -- who was an efficient 9-for-10 passing in the first half -- immediately completed a deep ball on the very next snap to flip the field. DeVito then had terrible luck on the next series when his pass deflected off three players before also being picked off.

- Jones was perhaps a victim of his own toughness on the injury, which came one play after the Maxx Crosby sack. He dropped back and went down untouched having perhaps put himself at more risk of getting hurt by staying in the game.

- With the two rookies at the helm, each team needed to lean on their veteran running back and Saquon Barkley did his best to keep the Giants in the game with 74 yards on 11 touches in the first half. However, Jacobs had 85 yards and two scores on the ground and that, coupled with O’Connell’s mistake-free efficiency, was far too much for the slow-starting Giants to keep pace with. Jacobs ended up with 98 rushing yards as the Giants may already be seeing the downside of trading Leonard Williams.

- It’s rarely a good sign when one of your defensive backs is your leading tackler, but Xavier McKinney had nine tackles in the first half alone. No other Giant had more than four. While McKinney deserves credit for being around the football and racking up statistical production, this underlines how the Raiders (4-5) were routinely able to get to the second level or down the field.

- The Giants seemed determined to get rookie Jalin Hyatt some deep targets this week and he looked good in terms of getting behind the defense, but the Giants couldn’t connect on a big play to get their offense going. Hyatt caught one, but came down out of bounds, then got behind the defense only to be overthrown by Jones. His third deep target was on DeVito’s first interception.

- If Jones is going to miss extended action, the Giants may have no choice but to pivot into full rebuild mode over the remainder of the season. It’s going to be a challenge for Daboll to keep the locker room together and some may even start to question whether he deserves to stay in the job.

Highlights

What's next

The Giants (2-7) stay on the road as they travel to face the Dallas Cowboys next Sunday at 4:25 p.m.