MINNEAPOLIS _ It's getting late early for the Giants, whose 2-0 start under first-year coach Ben McAdoo and 13th-year quarterback Eli Manning quickly has become a fading memory of late summer.
Sure, there is a long, long way to go at 2-2, only a quarter of the way through the season, as bad as they looked in a 24-10 loss to the still-undefeated Vikings here Monday night.
But the next four weekends bring with them grave potential for season-defining trouble.
Beginning at Lambeau Field on Sunday night, the Giants' next four opponents _ the Packers, Ravens, Rams and Eagles _ presently are a combined 11-3.
Wait: Wasn't it the Jets who were supposed to have the impossibly difficult early-season schedule?
Well, it turns out both New York-area teams have their challenges, and if one or the other doesn't rise to the occasion soon, it will be another New York-free football January.
The Giants offense struggled early and often Monday night, discombobulated both by the Vikings' elite defense and by the din at gleaming new U.S. Bank Stadium. It might have been even worse, but on a lovely evening, the massive, 95-foot-high doors were left open behind one end zone.
Manning frequently sought to change plays at the line of scrimmage with wild, Peyton Manning-esque gyrations, but not much seemed to work. How could his teammates hear him, anyway?
On one such occasion midway through the third quarter, whatever he was trying to adjust to resulted only in a long pass intended for Odell Beckham Jr. that Xavier Rhodes easily intercepted and ran back 29 yards to set up a field goal that put the Vikings ahead, 17-3.
The Vikings' lead at the time seemed even larger because of the Giants' offensive woes in general, and in particular yet another long, strange night for Beckham, who struggled to break free of Rhodes' coverage.
After not being targeted at all in the first quarter, Beckham finally caught a pass in the second.
But on his second reception, he was called for unsportsmanlike conduct for running at Rhodes after what he thought was a late hit out of bounds. Strangely, the call came from an official many yards from the action.
On the very next play, Rhodes gave Beckham an extra shot, then had to be held back by teammates when he sought to rush back at Beckham.
Beckham had more chances later in the game, including on a bomb from Manning that he narrowly failed to haul in with one hand. Terence Newman, not Rhodes, was on Beckham that time, so the Giants went right after him.
The Giants stunned the Vikings to open the fourth quarter when Manning hit Paul Perkins with a short pass that he took down the field for a 67-yard completion to the Vikings' 4-yard line. Orleans Darkwa later ran it in from the 1, and suddenly it was 17-10 with 13:38 left.
That didn't last long. Jerick McKinnon ran it in from the 4-yard line with 9:20 left, and it was 24-10.
Early on, the Vikings offense was not much better than the Giants' against a defense with a depleted secondary. (Trevin Wade had a particularly difficult night at cornerback for the visitors.) The Vikings' only scoring drive was set up when Dwayne Harris fumbled a punt and the Vikings recovered at the Giants' 41.
Six plays later, Matt Asiata was running the ball in from the 1, and it was 7-0 with 6:28 left in the first quarter.
The Vikings began to put it all together early in the second, picking apart the Giants until Sam Bradford found tight end Kyle Rudolph from 7 yards out on a third-down play.
The Giants got on the board with a 40-yard field goal by Josh Brown with two seconds left in the first half to make it 14-3. But that drive might have done better if not for the Giants burning a timeout with the clock already stopped amid apparent confusion caused by the ongoing crowd noise, in keeping with a theme of the evening.
