Giants can’t fall victim to same Jets mini-bye failure

The lesson was there for all the Giants to see and it was free. 

The lesson: Don’t do as the Jets did in their sloppy and lackluster 10-9 loss to the Broncos on Sunday at home, where they turned MetLife Stadium into NoLife Stadium. 

Just as the Jets were on Sunday, the Giants, in this Sunday’s game against the Seahawks in Seattle, will be coming off their mini-bye following their Thursday home loss to the Cowboys. 

The Jets entered Sunday’s mini-bye following their complete and dominant victory over the Patriots the previous Thursday night and looked unprepared, undisciplined, disorganized and listless against an inferior Broncos team they should have defeated. 

There are pros and cons to the mini-bye that follows the Thursday night games. The most prominent of the pros is the much-needed rest for players after two games in four days — from Sunday to Thursday. 

For the players, particularly those who are nursing minor injuries and the older veterans, they need the added time for their bodies to recover. 

The worst of the cons is what looked to have taken place with the Jets against the Broncos. 

Despite coming off their best performance of the season, against New England, the Jets looked like they were still on their mini-bye against Denver, committing 13 penalties, including an inexcusable five false starts, and running in place offensively. 

The Giants, though coming off a 20-15 loss to the Cowboys last Thursday, have been playing better football — most particularly coming off their road win over the Browns. 

Quarterback Daniel Jones, after a poor performance in the season opener, has played three consecutive solid games, throwing four touchdowns to only one interception while completing 67.6 percent of his passes for an average of 232 yards per game. 

The Giants’ primary problem against the Cowboys was finishing drives, settling for field goals instead of scoring touchdowns. 

Their defense, after allowing 28 points to the Vikings in the season opener, has allowed 56 points in the past three games. 

Will the mini-bye extra time off translate into sharper play Sunday in Seattle or will the Giants take a step backward, as the Jets did? 

Pro or con? 

“I think the advantage is that it gives your body time to recover,” Giants receiver Darius Slayton said Monday as the players returned to work after the long weekend off. “Obviously, playing that Sunday-Thursday back-to-back is a very short window to play football in, so it’s nice to have the time for your body to recover. 

“It’s important to stay, if not fully physically locked in, mentally locked in. I wouldn’t say that it’s the time to go to Miami and kick your feet up on the sand. It helps to get treatment or watch extra film or stretch, do Pilates, whatever it is you like to do to keep your body right in this time to try to keep yourself mentally into it, keep your body into it. 

“But not fully relax.” 

Giants left tackle Jermaine Eluemunor offered a somewhat different take than Slayton on the time off. 

“The biggest thing is it gives you time to self-reflect and see the things that you’re doing better than other teams and things that you’re not doing better than other teams,” Eluemunor said Monday. “It gives you an opportunity to really dive into things you can do better and things you need to work on. A lot of times getting a little break like that can be good for teams that really need to hone in on certain things and really need to get better in certain areas of their team.” 

The Giants, at 1-3, are in last place in the NFC East behind the 3-1 Commanders and the 2-2 Eagles and Cowboys. If they’re going to remain relevant, the Giants cannot afford the kind of buzzkill letdown in Seattle that the Jets put on display on Sunday. 

Jets head coach Robert Saleh, who’s received criticism for not being hard enough on his players and holding them accountable, has deservedly been skewered over the performance of his team on Sunday. 

Giants head coach Brian Daboll, who runs a more disciplined ship than Saleh does, surely has taken note. 

“I can’t speak on how that went for the Jets,” Eluemunor said of the mini-bye. “But I definitely think that will be beneficial for us. It will help us really dive into those little things and get that corrected for Seattle.”