Why New York Needs To Give Their Starting Quarterback a Second Chance In Week Two

There are plenty of questions after the first New York Football Giants game of the season. Big Blue fell to the Washington Commanders in a final of 21-6. However, many people are attributing much of the team's loss to their starting quarterback, Russell Wilson. He was the Giants' leader in the first game of the season, but the Giants struggled wherever they could to make a play on the field. He is also the Giants’ ninth starting quarterback in the last several seasons. It is not entirely his fault that the Giants were able to make things happen on the field. 

It starts with the coaching staff, who are the ones that are calling the plays. In the first game of the season, Mike Kafka was back in action, calling many of the plays that were made on the field. A lot of them resulted in the Giants running the ball and not passing it until the very end of the first game. Last season, the Giants' head coach Brian Daboll took the play-calling away from Kafka after the Giants had failed to make more than three wins for the entire 2024 season. However, it really showed in this first game. The Giants were running the ball on multiple plays. 

The area below that is the offensive line itself. The Giants struggled through and through to keep Wilson protected. Nobody was able to get open, except for wide receiver Malik Nabers. However, Nabers always landed on the left side and not the right, where Wilson was mostly facing when he should have had all eyes on the field. It would have been much easier to find someone if he had been able to see the whole field. The problem is that he simply can’t because the offensive line fails to protect him. He was knocked over on multiple occasions, which backfired on the Giants in the end, resulting in their loss the way that it did. 

Fans were absolutely frustrated watching this team play altogether. Despite it not only being the offensive coaching calls and the offensive line playing the way that they did, it was slightly how Wilson played in his first game. He passed the ball very little and ran the ball almost every other play. This was not on him; this was on the Giants altogether. The only reason he couldn’t pass it was that he could not trust the Giants not to get the ball where it needed to be. He only saw Nabers wide open towards the very end of the game. 

If the Giants are contemplating pulling him after Week One, the entire franchise should definitely think again. It was his first start with New York, and they have a lot of work that they need to do. He has been a great quarterback in the past when he was with the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers. It hasn’t always been easy, but he’s working with a brand new team this season. The Giants need to work on all sides of the offensive line and not just blame their Week One loss on one person, their starting quarterback.