MINNEAPOLIS — The Giants got a look at life without Odell Beckham Jr. Sunday night, and it wasn’t pretty.
The Big Blue offense sans its All-Pro wide receiver was as cold as the arctic temperatures at open-air TCF Stadium, producing one lucky play and a lot of boneheaded ones in a miserable, 49-17 loss to the playoff-bound Vikings.
Take away Rueben Randle’s 72-yard touchdown late in the third quarter that resulted from bad tackling more than anything and a garbage-time score by Myles White, and the Giants produced as many Eli Manning interceptions (three) as points when the game was even remotely competitive.
About the only people seemingly surprised by the Giants’ Beckham-less futility were the Giants themselves, as both coach Tom Coughlin and Manning claimed “they didn’t see this coming.”
“I thought we would be able to go out there and move the ball and put up some points and run our offense,” said Manning, who finished 15-for-29 for 234 yards before giving way to Ryan Nassib late in the fourth. “We had a couple of incompletions early on and just never got into a great rhythm.”
Added a visibly frustrated Randle: “I don’t think it would have mattered if [Beckham] had been out there or not.”
The Giants already knew their postseason fate at kickoff, thanks to the Redskins’ NFC East-clinching victory over the Eagles the night before, so at least playing without the suspended Beckham wasn’t costly.
But it sure was ugly.
Beckham’s replacements had talked bravely all last week of being able to carry on in his absence, but making up for 26 percent of your team’s catches, 36 percent of your team’s receiving yards and 41 percent of your team’s TD receptions is much more easily said than done.
Especially on a frigid night — the temperature was 13 degrees with a minus-2-degree wind chill at kickoff — against a 9-5 (now 10-5) team still fighting to get into the playoffs.
In what could only be seen as an indictment of general manager Jerry Reese’s roster-building skills, Beckham’s replacement crew — Randle, White, Dwayne Harris, Hakeem Nicks and Ben Edwards — mustered seven catches for 133 yards and the two late TDs between them.
In other words, a normal game just for Beckham alone had he not melted down against the Panthers’ Josh Norman the week before and gotten himself benched by the NFL.
It was obvious the Giants would be in for a long night without Beckham from the outset, as Harris and Nicks appeared to drop Manning’s first two passes.
Manning’s third pass of the evening didn’t attract a lot of effort from Nicks, either, and was picked off by Minnesota safety Andrew Sendejo.
That would become a depressingly familiar sight for the Giants as Manning threw three interceptions in a game for the second time this season (matching his total in a Week 12 loss to the Redskins).
One of those picks was returned 35 yards for a TD by Vikings safety Harrison Smith late in the second quarter on a pass route that Randle appeared to give up on, allowing Smith to make the play.
Randle atoned for that one quarter later with the 72-yard catch and run for a score, but that came with the Giants down 32-3 and was far too little and far too late.
“We made some bad decisions and some bad throws,” Manning said. “Obviously, when you lose one of your key players, it’s going to affect things. But I don’t think it had as big of an impact as we let it on to be. We just didn’t play well. They did a good job, and we didn’t respond well.”