EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.- Brian Daboll was the Giants' voice and face of calm and purpose after his players reacted with a torrent of emotions following Sunday's loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Several members of both the offense and defense vented their exasperations in the postgame locker room.

Daboll said the team played with good effort and was not "soft," as some players claimed after the 30-7 defeat, the Giants' sixth consecutive loss.

"Look, these guys put a lot of work into this, as does everybody involved, and certainly not something that we wanted yesterday," Daboll said on a Zoom meeting with reporters. "We work hard every week to not have that happen, and that was a tough one. So, there's frustration that comes with it, understandable. And we communicate, I think we have good leadership in our locker room. I think we communicate on a daily basis. But certainly, a frustrating game, no question about it.

"When you lose a game like that, there's frustration. Certainly, you'd like to keep it in house. But you understand them, and I've been doing this for a while. There's conversations that you have to have if comments like that are made. I respect the opinions of the players and of the coaches. We'll work as hard as we can to get this fixed."

Daboll rejected the notion that the players are not listening to him as closely as they should, and said their comments resulted from frustration.

"I feel good about our communication with the players, with the coaches," Daboll said. "Certainly not happy about the results but I expect a lot from those guys, and they should expect a lot from me. And again, there's a good communication process. But when you lose like that, it's a frustrating thing.

"I thought our guys played hard. Go back and evaluated the tape. There were certain plays that you want back. We talked about some of the missed tackles that happened. Offensively, some of the negative plays, particularly in the first half. … But the guys played hard, they played with effort. Just didn't do enough."

The Giants have a short week to make improvements; they play Thanksgiving Day in Dallas against a Cowboys team that broke a five-game losing streak with a victory in Washington.

The third-year coach was asked what he would say to people who believe, "the team kind of quit with the performance that they put out there." Daboll reiterated it was the quality of the team's play that was the issue, not the effort that went into it.

"We evaluated the tape this morning," Daboll said. "Look, we didn't play well enough. Some things, whether it's execution stuff, call stuff, that we just didn't get the job done. But in terms of running to the football, giving effort at the line of scrimmage, those didn't stand out. What stands out was three sacks early in the first half, 0-for-four on third down, a variety of missed tackles that caused some big plays. And the missed tackles weren't lack-of-effort missed tackles. Give Tampa Bay credit. They did a good job, and we didn't do a good enough job."

The game was decided in the first half, which ended with the Buccaneers holding a 23-0 lead. In those two quarters, Tampa Bay enjoyed sizeable advantages in total yards (290-45), first downs (17-3, and time of possession (19:57-10:03).

The Giants have not won, or even held a lead, since their 29-20 victory in Seattle on Oct. 6. So, it's not surprising that Daboll was asked if he must change something – anything – in a short week or stay the course because he is confident in his processes.

"It's a great question, he said. "Again, I believe in what we do. Obviously, the results have not shown themselves. I believe in the people, and we'll continue to work as hard as we can. But certainly, you think about things that you need to change or whether it's plays, whatever it may be, you're always thinking what can you do to do better. And obviously there's a lot of things we can do better."

The Giants are averaging an NFL-low 14.8 points-per-game and are last with a 38.7 red zone touchdown percentage (12 of 31; Dallas is 31^st at 42.9%). Following the game, Daboll cited red zone deficiencies as one of the reasons they faced an uphill climb yesterday. The Giants were one-for-three, though their last foray inside the 20-yard line occurred on the game's last two plays. On the first possession of the third quarter, running back Tyrone Tracy lost a fumble on the Bucs' 5-yard line.

Defensively, the Giants did not register a sack for the second time in three games, gave up 156 yards and four touchdowns on the ground, and couldn't prevent Baker Mayfield from completing 24 of 30 passes.

So, how do you avoid the frustration that Daboll spoke of?

"I think you go through the tape; you make the corrections," he said. "It's not all going to be perfect, no question about it. But you tag certain plays that you want improvement, whatever area that is, technique, chase the ball, whatever that may be. It wasn't up to our standard in terms of overall execution of play, but there wasn't a lot of guys that were not giving effort. We looked at that with a fine tooth comb this morning.

"You get ready to play another game, obviously on Thanksgiving. You go through the things you got to get better at, and you show confidence in your players and your staff, and you make adjustments that you need to make. I've got a lot of confidence in the guys in that locker room and would say we have good communication. We're going to work to do everything we can do to make it as good as we can."