Giants drift further away from relevance with ugly loss to 49ers

Relevance.

This is all Giants co-owner John Mara has asked of his team.

Remain relevant into December.

It’s not a lot to ask.

Sunday’s game against the 49ers at MetLife Stadium, where the Giants had won their previous two games, represented a tipping point in that race to remain relevant.

And by day’s end, the Giants drifted further away from relevance, losing 34-24 to the 49ers and falling to 2-7, the second-worst record in the NFL.

The Giants, in front of a home crowd that was close to 50 percent vociferous 49ers fans, were seeking their third consecutive win at MetLife, where they went 1-8 last season.

The Giants defense remains an embarrassment. The Giants entered the game having allowed 71 points in the previous five quarters. And then they allowed 34 to the 49ers on Sunday, making for 105 points allowed in the past nine quarters.

Sure, the Giants were short-handed, with three quarters of their starting secondary out with injury, dynamic rookie running back Cam Skattebo out for the season and a mediocre receiving corps simply incapable of keeping a defense honest.

But the Giants had their chances.

Exhibit A: After a sack and forced fumble by edge rusher Brian Burns deep in San Francisco territory late in the first half, the Giants failed to convert merely a field goal out of the turnover and trudged into halftime trailing 17-7 instead of 17-14 or, at worst, 17-10 thanks to a Graham Gano missed field goal from 45-yards out.

The Giants looked so promising to start the game, marching down the field with the opening possession and taking a 7-0 lead on a 15-yard Jaxson Dart scoring pass to tight end Theo Johnson.

Everything looked sharp on the drive, with the running game working and Dart completing three of his four passes while keeping the 49ers defense off balance using the no-huddle on the entire series.

It was Johnson’s fifth TD reception of the season and for Dart, it was the fourth time in his six NFL starts that he’s led the team to a TD on its first offensive possession.

That, however, is where success began and ended for the Giants in the half.

They went 64 yards on 10 plays on that scoring series and proceeded to gain just 34 yards on 17 plays the rest of the half and trailed 17-7 at the intermission.

The 49ers answered that Giants score with a 5-yard TD pass from Mac Jones to running back Christian McCaffrey to tie the game at 7-7.

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The 49ers kept the drive alive when they converted a fourth-and-one from their own 41-yard line on a 2-yard keeper by Jones, who once played for Giants head coach Brian Daboll while the two were at Alabama.

The 49ers took a 14-7 lead on an 11-yard Jones scoring pass to receiver Jauan Jennings with 13:08 remaining in the half.

On the play, Jennings lost Giants cornerback Korie Black, who was filling in for injured starter Cor’Dale Flott.

The drive went 80 yards on eight plays and it looked far too easy.

At that point, Jones, throwing darts at the Giants injured-riddled secondary, which was missing three of its four starters, was 10-for-10 for 98 yards and two TDs on the first two possessions.

Jones, filling in admirably for injured starter Brock Purdy, finished 19-of-24 for 135 yards with two TDs.

San Francisco, now 6-3, took a 17-7 lead on a 54-yard field goal by Eddy Pineiro with 1:55 remaining in the half.

It was Pineiro’s 18th consecutive field goal for the season.

The worst — most insulting — moment of the first half came on the Giants’ final possession, which was created by that sack and forced fumble by Burns on Jones.

Giants rookie linebacker Abdul Carter recovered the ball in mid-air and the Giants had possession at the San Francisco 27-yard line with 31 seconds remaining in the half.

The Giants offense then went three plays without gaining a yard and then Gano pulled the 45-yard field goal attempt wide left with 15 seconds remaining.

When the field goal drifted to the left, Burns dropped to the Giants bench in disbelief.

It was Gano’s first miss of the season and it resulted in the Giants being booed off the field on their way to the locker room.

Relevance, as it has for eight of the past nine seasons, slipped from the Giants’ hands not long before Halloween, if not before.

Through nine games, the Giants have been 2-7 six times in the past nine years, 1-8 once and 3-6 once.

The only outlier — their 7-2 start en route to the playoffs in 2022 in Daboll’s first year.

That feels like generations ago.