ARLINGTON, Texas — Ereck Flowers has some company.
The Giants’ right tackle had a brutal Week 1, but he wasn’t alone in his misery Sunday as the entire offensive line had another night to forget in a 20-13 loss to the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium.
The Cowboys mauled the line for six sacks, hitting Eli Manning eight times as they got to the quarterback with ease throughout the night.
“They blitzed, they ran stunts, they rushed four, they did a number of things and we didn’t pick up any of it well enough,” left tackle Nate Solder said.
Linebacker Damien Wilson even got to Manning for a strip-sack in the third quarter, which Taco Charlton recovered to set up an eventual Cowboys field goal.
To make matters worse, the Giants lost center Jon Halapio to a lower-leg injury late in the third quarter. The veteran, who won the job in training camp and allowed the Giants to trade center Brett Jones to the Vikings, stayed down after a Saquon Barkley run and had to be carted off with his right leg immobilized. He was replaced by John Greco, and coach Pat Shurmur did not have an update on his status after the game.
Somehow Manning remained upright in the first quarter, but Charlton got the sack party started early in the second. He fired off the left side past Solder, completely untouched, to bring down Manning on a third down.
Cowboys pass rusher DeMarcus Lawrence, who described himself as a “dog” during the week and was salivating over his matchup against Flowers, had one of the sacks. But he didn’t do it against Flowers, instead coming up the middle to get Manning.
Flowers was the one holdover on the line from last year, though he switched positions, while the rest of the group is new. It has yet to look like a cohesive unit in protecting its quarterback.
“It’s all about the guys coming together, it’s the offensive line coming together,” Manning said. “It’s all five guys working together, understanding what the defense is doing, passing things off. It’s probably going to take them the longest to jell, but we just need to keep working.”
The six sacks hardly did the mismatch in the trenches justice. Even when the Cowboys didn’t sack Manning, they got plenty of pressure to force a night of checkdowns from Manning to Barkley. Manning was hardly ever able to look deep because of all the defenders coming for him.
“We played far below what we’re capable of doing,” Solder said. “There’s only one way to get there and that’s through tough play, hard work, more preparation, all those things.”