MINNEAPOLIS _ For the second week in a row the Giants had too many penalties, too many turnovers and too many mistakes to have any realistic expectation of winning a football game. This time it resulted in a 24-10 loss to the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium on Monday night.
They were repeat offenders on just about all of the errors that Ben McAdoo had calmly called "correctable" after last week's loss to Washington.
Instead of correctable they're starting to look more like bad habits, including a second straight week in which Odell Beckham Jr.'s behavior was more noticeable than his production. The undisciplined Giants were flagged seven times for 64 yards and had two turnovers. They remain the only defense in the NFL without a takeaway. And their offense, which came into the game with a trio of receivers with more combined yards than any other in the league, could barely manage to move forward for most of the game. Beckham, Victor Cruz and Sterling Shepard totaled 12 catches for 103 yards and no play longer than 14 yards.
The loss dropped the Giants to 2-2 while the Vikings are 4-0.
After a miserable first three quarters, the Giants offense sprung to life on the first play of the fourth. Eli Manning (25-for-45, 261 yards, 1 INT) hit rookie Paul Perkins on a screen pass that he turned into a 67-yard gain to the 4, setting up a 1-yard TD run by Orleans Darkwa to cut the Vikings' lead to 17-10 with 13:38 remaining. Before that play, the longest pass of the game for Manning was an 18-yarder on the first play of that drive.
The Vikings responded, though, finally taking advantage of Giants backups in the secondary. Sam Bradford (26-for-36, 262 yards, 1 TD) hit a wide open Kyle Rudolph for 16 yards on third-and-4 with Leon Hall out of position, Charles Johnson beat Trevin Wade badly off the line for a 40-yard gain, and Jerick McKinnon (18 carries. 85 yards) ran in untouched from the 4 to put Minnesota back ahead by two touchdowns. The game essentially ended when the Giants turned the ball over on downs at the Vikings' 36 with 6:11 remaining. The Giants turned it over on downs for the final time with 1:51 left.
It took 22 minutes and 14 for the Giants to get Beckham involved in the game, and one minute, seven seconds after that for him to draw an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Two plays after Beckham was targeted for the first time on a 9-yard reception, he caught a 4-yarder and was ridden out of bounds by cornerback Xavier Rhodes. Beckham came up complaining about the late hit and shouldered his way past Rhodes and two officials on his way back to the huddle when a flag was thrown from the back judge some 40 yards away from the action.
Beckham never seemed to lose his cool to the extent that he did last week with a sideline tantrum against Washington, but it was still a glaring example of both the team's inability to harness Beckham's emotions as well as the league's determination to allow Beckham little leeway on the field.
That penalty, 15 yards for taunting, helped destroy another Giants first-half drive. The only possession in the half that resulted in any points was the final one, which ended with a field goal that made it 14-3. The Giants had a chance to at least take a few more shots at the end zone when Manning hit Victor Cruz for a first down at the 17 with about 17 seconds remaining, but instead of calling timeout they hustled to the line for a hurry-up snap and an incompletion. With only six seconds left, they were forced to kick the field goal.
The Vikings took advantage of Giants mistakes early. Dwayne Harris muffed his first attempt at a punt return and it was recovered by Minnesota's Marcus Sherels late in the first quarter to set up a touchdown drive. In the second quarter Jonathan Casillas missed a tackle on a second-and-18 play that resulted in a Vikings first down and helped spark another touchdown drive that made it 14-0.
Even when the Vikings looked shaky _ as on a missed 46-yard field-goal attempt early in the third quarter _ the Giants could not capitalize. Manning tried to change the play at the line of scrimmage but the communication never made it out to Beckham on his left, so when the pass went deep down the middle of the field, Beckham was running a post and Rhodes was there for the easy pick and a 29-yard return. That set up a 44-yard field goal that made it 17-3.
