Still, whatever satisfaction he might have been able to take from his individual effort was overshadowed by the Cowboys’ disappointing performance in general.
“I mean, at the end of the day, in football it always just comes down to who does their job better,” Downs said. “We’ve got to do our jobs better as a defense and as a team. We get that fixed, and we’ll be good.”
Much like last season, there seemed to be confusion in the secondary on several plays, and Giants tight end Isaiah Likely had a field day, finishing with eight catches for a game-high 78 yards and two touchdowns. New York also converted 82% of its third-down attempts and was 4-for-4 in the red zone.
“That’s always frustrating as a defense when you don’t get off the field,” Downs said. “I mean, that’s part of the job, and we didn’t do it at a high level today.”
Which perhaps shouldn’t be a big surprise. In truth, he and the defense are still trying to find their footing under coordinator Christian Parker’s new scheme.
“We’ll watch the film, talk about it, then you watch the Commanders film and (this game) is over with,” Downs said. “I mean, we’ll see what we did wrong, execute what we need to fix, and then go back and do it better during the week so that we can perform better on Sunday.”