Last season, the New York Giants were the only team to defeat the Dallas Cowboys twice, which gave them some confidence going into Sunday night’s game. However, New York was without their best offensive weapon in Odell Beckham Jr., and their offense struggled mightily, costing them the game.
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New York’s performance against Dallas showed just how valuable Beckham is to the team, which incidentally only helps to make his case for why he deserves to be the highest paid player in the league.
The Giants’ offense could only muster three points against the Cowboys because the Cowboys defense didn’t have to worry about covering Beckham, allowing them to focus on disrupting Eli Manning’s rhythm.
The last time Beckham missed a game was in 2015. That week, the Giants played the Minnesota Vikings and Manning finished with 234 yards in a 49-17 loss.
Despite their disappointing play, the Giant s are going to have to get used to life without Beckham for a while because there are reports that he could miss up to six weeks.
Washington Redskins:
Moving on to the Redskins, after losing Pierre Garcon and Desean Jackson in free agency, it was a forgone conclusion the offense will suffer because both receivers topped 1,000 receiving yards last season and that type of production is hard to replace.
The Redskins brought in Terrell Pryor, who had 1,000 receiving yards for the Cleveland Browns last season.
In the season opener, quarterback Kirk Cousins struggled against the Philadelphia Eagles, finishing with 240 yards on 40 attempts, 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Even though he didn’t point any fingers after the game, it was obvious he hasn’t developed the type of trust he had with his old receivers with his new ones.
Cousins’ situation is interesting because he could potentially ruin two franchises. The quarterback failed to come to an agreement on a long-term contract with the Redskins and is playing on a one-year franchise tag for the second consecutive season.
Since the San Francisco 49ers hired Kyle Shanahan as their head coach, there have been rumors that Cousins intends to sign with the 49ers after the season. However, if Cousins struggles this season, the 49ers won’t be interested in committing to a long-term contract with him, which means they have to start their quarterback search from the beginning.
If the 49ers aren’t interested in signing him, the Redskins likely will still try to sign him to a long-term contract so they don’t have to start looking for another franchise quarterback.
The bottom line is he has only played in one game so there’s still time for him to bounce back and have a great season. Besides, he struggled at the beginning of last year and still finished with 4,900 yards and 25 touchdowns.
Atlanta Falcons:
The Atlanta Falcons struggled with the Chicago Bears last week before putting them away in the 4th quarter. Their poor play in a game they were expected to win easily has led some to say the Falcons are suffering from a Super Bowl hangover.
However, that is just a myth because the Falcons have always been a shaky road team, and the fact that they were able to avoid an upset in their season opener means they will be just fine. We will get a better sense of how good the Falcons are this year when they host the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.
New Orleans Saints:
New Orleans looks like it is going to finish at the bottom of the NFC South this year if their defense keeps playing like they did on Monday night. The Saints allowed Sam Bradford complete 84.4 percent of his passes for 346 yards and 3 touchdowns. They also gave up 129 yards to a rookie running back in his first NFL game.
Even though the offense can still put up points, it will be hard for them to win games if their defense continues playing as soft as they did on Monday.
