Giants-Cowboys “Kudos & Wet Willies”: At least there are “kudos” this week.

The New York Giants suffered their seventh straight loss on Thursday, losing to the Dallas Cowboys 27-20. The Giants are now 2-10 and have gone 1-6 in one-score games.

But hey, it was a victory of sorts. At least this week, unlike after Sunday’s debacle against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the “Kudos & Wet Willies” will actually contain some “kudos.”

Let’s get down to business.

A big compliment to…

Cor’Dale Flott – Flott gave up a 36-yard reception in the third quarter but otherwise played well. He only allowed three completions on seven goals and defended two passes. Flott didn’t miss a tackle, which was notable since the Giants missed a total of ten tackles. Maybe now defensive coordinator Shane Bowen will stop taking Flott off the field in obvious third-down passing situations.

Tyler Nubin – The rookie safety had a team-leading 12 tackles and a pass defended. Nubin made a great play, helping the Giants stop a Dallas fourth-and-1 attempt from their own 44-yard line. Unfortunately, the Giants couldn’t capitalize on the points, but that didn’t take away from the game.

Art Green – The backup cornerback made two great special teams plays in the first half as a punt gunner. Green made a big hit on punt returner KaVontae Turpin. Green also hit a punt from Jamie Gillan inside the 1-yard line.

Graham Gano – The veteran kicker made both field goal attempts from 46 and 47 yards.

Theo Johnson – The rookie tight end had five catches on five scores, all in the second half. Johnson made tackles and delivered punishment as he finished with 54 yards.

Tyrone Tracy – The rookie running back didn’t start after fumbling in key situations in each of the last two games. However, he played well when he got his chance. Tracy had nine carries for 32 yards and a 14-yard run that was thwarted by a penalty. He had two catches for 33 yards and a 14-yard reception, which was negated by another penalty.

Jamie Gillan – The punter averaged 45.6 yards on five punts, two of which landed inside the 20-yard line. In fact, he averaged more net yards — 46.2 — than yards per punt, largely because of Green. I’m sure this has happened before, but it might be the first time I’m aware of it.

Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images

Wet willies too…

Kayvon Thibodeaux – Three penalties, two offside penalties and a rough passing penalty. He might have had a fourth goal if Elijah Chatman hadn’t been offside in front of Thibodeaux. Two quarterback hits and an assist on a tackle don’t make up for it.

Eric Gray – Another kickoff return, another fumble for Gray. This is his third fumble this season with just 28 touches. This is not acceptable. The Giants took away punt and kickoff returns from Gray a season ago due to ball security issues. But here we are again. It’s difficult to understand.

Run the defense — In bringing this up, it must be acknowledged that the Giants lost defensive linemen Dexter Lawrence, DJ Davidson and Rakeem Nunez-Roches during the game due to injury during the game. But Rico Dowdle had eight runs for 50 yards (6.3 per attempt) in the first half and finished the game with 22 carries for 112 yards, his first 100-yard rushing game of his career. As usual, the run defense wasn’t good enough.

Execution/technique/discipline…whatever you want to call it — The Giants had 13 accepted penalties. The Cowboys declined two more. Two of them came on third downs that should have resulted in punts. Four defensive penalties gave Dallas first downs. The Giants committed offensive penalties that negated two 14-yard gains from Tyrone Tracy and a 29-yard pass from Malik Nabers.

According to Pro Football Focus’ initial stats, the Giants missed 10 tackles. They had two turnovers. They dropped three passes.

The Giants played hard. But it’s hard to say they played well.

Pass protection — With Andrew Thomas somewhere recovering from Lisfranc surgery and Jermaine Eluemunor back in New Jersey because of his injured quad, the Giants had no chance of slowing Dallas’ pass rush.

Drew Lock has been sacked six times. He was hit 14 times and, according to Pro Football Focus, he was pressured on 47.6% of his dropbacks.

Left tackle Chris Hubbard gave up seven pressures. Right tackle Evan Neal allowed one sack and three pressures while usually playing alongside Micah Parsons. Left guard Jon Runyan Jr. gave up one sack and had the lowest pass-blocking grade of any Giant lineman in PFF’s preliminary grade (41.5).

The Giants offensive line has been adequate when healthy. Since this isn’t the case, the line is a mess.

Kwillies to…

Malik Nabers – A week after complaining about not getting involved in the game early enough, Nabers had eight catches on 13 targets for 69 yards. The numbers look OK, but there weren’t any big impact plays — although he did have a 29-yard reception thwarted by a penalty. This is borderline praise, but I decided to leave it here.

Drew Lock – I thought about making this a “kudos” but couldn’t justify it since Lock ended up with two turnovers – an unfortunate pick 6 and a lost fumble early in the third quarter.

I thought Lock did as well as he could, considering he only found out he would be starting on Wednesday and that he hasn’t had a proper training session with the first team offense in months. It was obvious that the timing between Lock and the receivers was not optimal.

However, Lock competed. He collected six sacks and was hit 14 times as pass protection failed, but he ran for a touchdown and nearly ran for a second. He finished 21 of 32 for 178 yards with one interception and ran four times for 57 yards (14.3 yards per carry).

Adoree’ Jackson – The veteran cornerback started in place of Deonte Banks and had an interesting game. He fought hard and ended up allowing six throws on ten targets. He finished the game with seven tackles and one pass defensed. However, Jackson had a missed tackle that led to a big gain, a defensive pass interference on third down that led to a first down, and a dropped interception that was the Giants’ first since Week 1.

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