4 huge disappointments from the Commanders loss at NY Giants in Week 7

What huge disappointments emerged from another embarrassingly woeful defeat for the Washington Commanders in Week 7 at the New York Giants?

I’m a lucky guy. I get to write the weekly disappointments article for the Washington Commanders.

Now, if I were writing this for a team like the Philadelphia Eagles or the Kansas City Chiefs, I’d be scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperately looking for things to complain about. But the Commanders - they seem to offer a never-ending torrent of ways to disappoint.

Tress Way punted seven times for 350 yards – IN THE FIRST HALF. The Commanders allowed the New York Giants to equal their season sack total – IN THE FIRST HALF. Brian Daboll's offense scored their first touchdown in a month - and then scored their second - IN THE FIRST HALF.

A play happened right at the end of the first half that tells you all you need to know about how wretched this performance was.

The Giants came up short on a Tyrod Taylor scramble on third down with about 30 seconds left on the clock. Under normal circumstances, they would punt and Washington would get the ball back with one final try at getting some points before half-time. But there was a holding call on the home team.

Ron Rivera took the penalty. Now, there was no way the Giants would have gone for it on fourth down. And with only about 30 seconds left, a lot of the remaining time would be taken up by allowing New York to run another play.

But still, Rivera took the penalty. And I believe he did it because he thought - rightfully so - that the Commanders, at that point, had a better chance of scoring on defense than they did on offense.

And it does not get much more disappointing that that.

This was always going to be a tough game. Although the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles have been better than the Giants over the past five years, the G-Men have played the Commanders tougher.

Some of Washington’s most bitter recent defeats, like game two against New York in 2022, have come in this rivalry.

Still, seeing a mostly healthy Commanders team look utterly helpless against a 1-5 Giants squad - playing without their starting quarterback - playing without three-fifths of their starting offensive line - is about as demoralizing as it gets.

I’m not going to dwell on players today. Some of them played well. Most didn’t. But they all played hard.

You can blame them if you want, but I am looking at a coaching staff that seems to have little ability to put together a consistent game plan that can put their team in a position to win games.