Brian Daboll’s Giants lived and died by the coach’s aggressiveness and desperation in Sunday night’s 17-7 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals at MetLife Stadium. The third-year head coach put his foot on the gas as the offensive playcaller after the Giants were shut out in the first half, converting multiple fourth downs on a third-quarter touchdown drive to tie the game. But then Daboll turned down a long field goal in the fourth quarter and rolled the dice one too many times. Bengals corner DJ Turner II batted down Daniel Jones‘ pass intended for Darius Slayton with 3:01 remaining on fourth and three at Cincinnati’s 36-yard line, and Joe Burrow and the Bengals’ offense engineered a touchdown drive to ice the double-digit Giant defeat. “I felt good about the call, still feel good about the call,” Daboll said. “I would do it again.” Kicker Greg Joseph had missed a 47-yard field goal with 10:27 remaining in the fourth quarter, which factored somewhat into Daboll’s decision to go for it rather than trying a 54 yarder. Joseph later missed a 45-yard try with 51 seconds remaining during garbage time, as well. But the real issue was that Daboll’s Giants (2-4) couldn’t score. “It’s hard to win games when you only score seven points,” Daboll said. They fell to 0-3 at home this season. They have now scored only one touchdown in three games at MetLife. And their postgame frustration was palpable. “We’re not gonna win any games if we just keep relying on kicking field goals,” left guard Jon Runyan Jr. said. “When we get down there [in the red zone], we’ve got to put the ball in the end zone. I know this home crowd wants to watch us win a game. And they’re tired of watching us on TV when we go away and winning there. We’ve got to score points at home.” To add insult to injury, left tackle Andrew Thomas hurt his foot in the second half, underwent a postgame X-ray and requires additional imaging on Monday to fully diagnose the ailment. “They said they need the MRI to see exactly what’s going on,” Thomas said. The loss squandered a strong performance from pass rushers Brian Burns (eight tackles, one sack) and Azeez Ojulari (four tackles, two sacks), who took advantage of his opportunity with Kayvon Thibodeaux (wrist) having surgery and going on injured reserve. Daboll said, in fact, that Shane Bowen’s defense “played winning football.” The offense just couldn’t hold up its end. Sunday was especially disappointing given that the Giants lost to the Bengals (2-4), a bad and undisciplined team whose defense was allowing 29 points per game coming in, good for 30th in the 32-team NFL. “Very disappointing,” Jones said. “We couldn’t sustain drives, execute or get into a rhythm.” Giants rookie running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. (107 yards and a touchdown) encouragingly had a strong game for a second straight week in place of injured veteran Devin Singletary. But the Giants fell to 1-1 without star rookie receiver Malik Nabers, who missed a second consecutive game with a concussion — although NBC’s Mike Tirico said the Giants “look to have him back next week” against Saquon Barkley and the division rival Philadelphia Eagles (3-2). Jones completed 22-of-41 passes for only 205 yards and an interception, and he added 11 carries for 56 yards. His home-road splits are concerning to say the least: Jones has thrown six touchdown passes and no interceptions in three road games, and he’s thrown no TD passes and four interceptions in three games at home. The players seemed out of answers for the difference in their home and road production. “I’ve got no idea. I don’t know why it’s going like that,” Runyan said. “The crowd’s been really good, you can feel the energy from them, how much they’re supporting us. It means a lot. We’ve got to give them something to cheer for. It’s tough like that, when you score pretty much seven points in an NFL game, you’re not gonna do anything all season like that.” The Giants as a team are averaging 22.6 points per game on the road and 9.3 points per game at home. They looked like they were putting it all together in their 29-20 Week 5 road win in Seattle. Now they’re back to the drawing board. “It sucks,” Runyan said. “We felt like we’ve been building something over these last couple weeks, regardless of the result, especially last week. we thought we played really well last week offense and defense. to come here and not play up to the standard that we want, and we’re home on Sunday Night Football. It’s really disappointing.” The Giants trailed 7-0 at halftime Sunday. They were held scoreless in the first half for the second time in their last 13 games, including last season’s Week 10 loss at Dallas. And they were fortunate to be down only one score. Daboll’s offense managed only 119 yards of offense through two quarters. Jones threw an ugly red zone interception to Bengals linebacker Germaine Pratt on the Giants’ second drive of the game, late in the first quarter, while attempting a throwback to tight end Theo Johnson. When Jones finally hit a huge 56-yard completion to Slayton late in the second quarter, it was negated by an illegal man downfield penalty on left tackle Thomas – the second infraction of the half on Daboll’s offense. Bowen’s defense kept the Giants in the game by forcing five straight Cincinnati punts going into halftime. But they only did that after letting the Bengals into the end zone on the game’s opening drive. Cincinnati won the coin toss and elected to receive the opening kickoff, and it only took the Bengals three and a half minutes to drive downfield for a touchdown. Burrow sprinted for a 47-yard rushing TD on third and 18, diving for the front right pylon and doubling his previous career-high rush of 23 yards. The 47-yard run also matched Burrow’s career high for rushing yards in an entire game. The Bengals quarterback recognized an overloaded formation and immediately took off through a gap to his right, beating Jason Pinnock and Isaiah Simmons to pay dirt. Ojulari, Burns and the Giants defense flustered Burrow with an impressive pass rush the rest of the half, though, keeping the 7-0 deficit steady into the half. Ojulari sacked Burrow twice in the first half. Burns sacked him once. And Ja’Marr Chase dropped a pass wide-open on another third down. The strong defense helped the Giants enter the locker room with their heads held high despite the shutout deficit and some boos from the home crowd as Jones knelt on the ball to run out the clock.