NY Giants Game Balls and Gassers: Big Blue Crumbles in Third Straight Defeat

 There can be no denying the harsh realities of losing, especially at home.

Rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart directed the New York Giants to a touchdown on their opening drive, just as he had done in three of his first five NFL starts.

However, that's where the San Francisco 49ers turned the tables and marched their way to a 34-24 victory at MetLife Stadium, dealing Dart his first home loss in three tries as a starter.

The Giants squandered two chances to alter the game flow in the final two minutes of the first half. But a dropped third-down conversion followed by a missed field goal is all the NIners needed to go into the intermission with a 17-7 lead and the confidence that the game was well in hand.

To his credit, Dart continued battling and directed the Giants on touchdown drives of 65 and 69 yards on their only two fourth-quarter possessions.

"It's not fun to lose," he said. "I have all the confidence in the world each and every week that we are going to win. ... I think we just need to play better football all around as a team, both sides of the ball, special teams.

"When you look at the whole spectrum, we just missed out on certain plays in all three phases. In this league, you can't do that. You have to be able to win at least two of them to win the game, and I think that they made more plays than we did in those three phases."

Dart remains a beacon of light during what's become a darkened season. He entered the NFL history books twice in this contest: Dart became the first-ever rookie to record both a passing and rushing touchdown in four consecutive games and joined Cam Newton (Carolina, 2011) as the only rookies to run for a TD in four straight contests.

The Giants dropped to 2-7 overall (2-4 with Dart as their starter) and will take an 0-5 road record into Chicago on Sunday.

Who deserves important plaudits and who needs to clean up their play after this performance against the 49ers?

Check out the latest edition of the Big Blue Breakdown podcast for this week's “Gameballs and Gassers” in the video above.