Post-game quotebook: What the Giants were saying after Sunday’s loss

What were New York Giants players saying after Sunday’s lopsided 35-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys? Let’s find out.

Eli Manning summarizing what happened ...

“I thought we got off to a good start. Defense had a stop, we get the ball, drive down there, have a good drive and score a touchdown. Even the first, the next time we get the ball, we have another great drive, going down there. You know, have a third and short, tried a little (play) action, didn’t have anything. Unfortunately, we get called for grounding which I thought Saquon was in the area of that throw. Probably didn’t go for it on fourth down, instead we get no points you know, back us up and we get nothing, so just an unfortunate situation there. They played it well. That was just kind of the story, you know, a few times. Second half, (we) have a good drive going, and just had to settle for a field goal. So I think we moved the ball well. Did a lot of good things, just didn’t play well enough, and just keep up with what Dallas was doing. Then, kind of the second half, it got out of hand a little bit.”

Defensive back Michael Thomas on the poor defensive game ...

“We can’t make the mistakes we did out there, regardless if we are young or not. It wasn’t just young guys, myself included. We have to get better, and it starts with us getting back to work. We have to correct it, learn from it. This is game one. We have to get better though.”

Safety Antoine Bethea on the team’s young defense ...

“Some of it is inexperience, but you can’t have any excuses. We work, we practice, we watch film. We can’t hold that over our head and have that as our excuse, that we are young. We are young, yeah we are young. But we get paid to do a job, and we have to do our job.”

DeAndre Baker on his rough NFL debut ...

“It [is] just an opportunity to bounce back and show what I can do. Just fight through adversity. I didn’t have the best game that I wanted to have. Just to bounce back and show what I can do next week.”

Evan Engram on lessons learned ...

“There’s definitely a lesson to be learned today. This team is different from the past. We played a good team today. They had our number. But it’s only one game. We have fifteen left. The mentality of this locker room is where it needs to be. This is going to make us hungrier. We get to go home next week, get a full week of preparation, fix the mistakes and get back in front of our fans to play a good Buffalo team.”