NEW JERSEY, EAST RUTHERFORD — It is not out of the usual for the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants to kick off their respective seasons on “Sunday Night Football” at the prime time slot.
At such times, neither the Cowboys nor the Giants are being manhandled by the other team.
Dallas was victorious by a score of 40-0 after marching into the MetLife Stadium and allowing New York to lose the game by beating themselves multiple times. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the stadium was filled with chanting of “Let’s Go Cowboys!” even though the rain and the play of the home team had driven away the majority of the audience.
It was the eighth time since 2007 that the two clubs had competed against one another in Week 1 of “Sunday Night Football.” At this point, Dallas has triumphed in four of those contests. The Cowboys have won the season opener for 11 out of the last 12 times that these two teams have faced off to begin the season. Dallas is undefeated against its NFC East opponent New York, having won five straight games and 12 of the last 13 meetings between the two teams.
On Sunday, the Giants simply could not get out of their way, and the Cowboys were delighted that the Giants were unable to do so because it helped them win.
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Dak Prescott, quarterback of the Cowboys, has thrown more touchdown passes versus the Giants (23) than he has against any other team in the league. However, he did not need to add to that total in the blowout victory because the Cowboys won by such a large margin. That was made possible by contributions and scores scored by the defense and special teams, in addition to a pair of short-yardage touchdowns scored by running back Tony Pollard (14 rushes for 70 yards). In addition, Kavontae Turpin scored a touchdown on the ground in the fourth quarter, bringing the final tally of points scored in this thrashing to forty.
The 143 passing yards that came from Prescott’s 13 completions out of 24 attempts came on a connection with CeeDee Lamb in the first quarter that helped set up a field goal.
Jones and Saquon Barkley, the Giants’ running back, both moved the chains with their legs during the Giants’ first drive of the game, which resulted in a downfield industry for the Giants. Inside the red zone, rookie center John Michael Schmitz made a poor snap, and Jones was able to recover the ball by falling on it. Graham Gano moved into position to attempt a field goal from 45 yards away, but Juanyeh Thomas broke through the line of scrimmage and blocked the kick. Noah Igbinoghene, who was acquired by the Cowboys during the offseason, dove for the lost ball and returned it 58 yards for the Cowboys’ first touchdown of 2023.
After two more drives, Trevon Diggs finally had his first turnover of the game after making contact with Saquon Barkley when the latter was receiving a short throw. It was already 16-0 when cornerback Daron Bland managed to get the ball into the end zone after it had fallen into his hands. Later on, Diggs was successful in causing a fumble on a reception by Isaiah Hodgins, which was the Giants’ most extended play from scrimmage; nonetheless, Dallas was able to recover the ball and take possession of it once more.
The Giants were never able to recover from the Cowboy’s pass pressure, which completely controlled their offensive line and forced Jones to spend the whole game chasing down passes. He finished the game with a completion percentage of 32.4, 134 passing yards, and 43 running yards on 13 attempts. Jones was sacked a total of seven times by the Cowboys, with Osa Odighizuwa and Dorance Armstrong each recording two of those sacks.
Since their loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the divisional round of the postseason in 2022, the Giants have been defeated by a combined score of 71-7 in their most recent pair of contests. Since the 8th of September in 1996, they hadn’t been held scoreless by the Cowboys.
