The Giants.com crew reacts to the team's 20-15 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday Night Football:

John Schmeelk: Dan and Matt will get into other aspects of the offense, but I'll talk about the line. On one hand, they protected their quarterback. Daniel Jones was sacked just once and was hit three times according to the official stats after the game. According to PFF, the Cowboys managed a pressure rate of only 29 percent on Thursday night. If the Giants protected at that rate for the entire season, they would be a top 10 team in the league in that metric.

But the fact remains that they also have to run block. In that aspect of the game, the Giants did not excel on Thursday night. It's important to remember that Dallas came into Thursday's night game as the worst rush defense in the NFL according to every standard or advanced metric. They had their worst defensive game against the run last week when they allowed the Ravens to run for 274 yards and average more than six yards per carry.

The Giants ran the ball 24 times on Thursday night but managed 26 yards. PFF tracked yards gained before contact in the run game, which can be useful to illustrate how much room an offensive line is giving their running back. They had three yards before contact the entire game against the Cowboys. Only 11 percent of the Giants' rush yards came before contact, which would place them third to last in the NFL.

There were certainly plays through the air that could have been made in Thursday's night's game but weren't. But if the running game was just a little more productive, those plays might have been the difference between a win and loss.

"I would say we've got to do a better job in the run game, and that starts with me," coach Brian Daboll said. "But we tried a variety of things. We couldn't really get much going. That's why the passing game, I thought that was the right way to go with it. But just not fully go into passing every play. Be able to stay on track a little bit, and we went backwards on a couple of these runs. They made some nice plays. Did a nice job at the line of scrimmage, and we went inside, went outside with the quarterback run. It just wasn't our night in the run game."

Dan Salomone: Malik Nabers has arrived. He's here to stay. And the Cowboys know that.

"I'm very impressed with him," Pro Bowl cornerback Trevon Diggs told NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo coming off the field on Thursday night. "He's a great young player. He's going to be really good in this league, and I'm looking forward to all the battles we're going to have."

That tells you all you need to know about the respect for Nabers, who is now the first player in the Super Bowl era with at least 30 receptions, 300 receiving yards, and three touchdown catches in his first four career games. The franchise's receiving records for a single season are 107 catches (Steve Smith in 2009), 1,536 yards (Victor Cruz in 2011), and 13 touchdowns (Odell Beckham Jr. in 2015). Nabers is on pace for 149 catches, 1,641 yards, and 13 touchdowns.

Furthermore, the 21-year-old has the full trust of his quarterback and play-caller. He has been targeted 12 times on third down and has 12 receptions for 188 yards, two touchdowns, nine first downs, and five gains of 25 yards. He was also at the center of two fourth downs in the fourth quarter of his primetime debut. He converted the first with an eight-yard catch when the Giants needed three. It extended a drive that led to Greg Joseph's fifth and final field goal to bring the Giants to within two points of the Cowboys with 11:11 to play.

The second one was unsuccessful and all but sealed the victory for the Cowboys, their seventh in a row in the series. Making matters worse, Nabers sustained a concussion while he fell out of bounds trying to make the catch.

On Friday, Daboll said they will take it "day by day" as Nabers progresses through the protocol. While he had no other injury updates, Daboll said Nabers was in the building and in good spirits. In fact, the rookie had just texted the head coach during his video conference with the media. What did it say? That will remain private. The Giants will have an extended break before making their third trip to Seattle in five seasons.

Matt Citak: The Giants converted just five of 16 third downs and were not able to capitalize on their two trips inside the red zone. The offense failed to reach the end zone for the second time in the first four games, instead having to settle for five Greg Joseph field goals.

"Very frustrating," quarterback Daniel Jones told the media after the game. "We're expected to score touchdowns and put points on the board. And in a game that I felt like we were able to do a lot and move the ball well and execute a lot of stuff well, we didn't execute the red zone stuff and didn't punch it in so that's frustrating."

Jones attempted six passes deep down the field (20+ yards) and connected on just one of those passes. The one completion came on his first deep attempt of the game, a play in which Malik Nabers used an incredible double move to get wide open for a 39-yard gain. The sixth-year quarterback was not able to connect on his following five deep pass attempts.

"I think [I've] just got to hit them and give the guy a chance to make a play," the quarterback said about not hitting on the deep throws. "I'll look at it and see where we can improve. I thought for the most part we moved the ball well in the pass game and maybe we didn't hit a 30-yarder, but we hit 15-, 20-yarders and moved it well, so I'll look at where I can improve on those down-the-field opportunities."

"I just thought he underthrew a couple," Brian Daboll added on Monday. "One was the snap. He threw it up there. Both of them, he didn't put enough into it. So, we'll just keep working on it.

Outside of the deep pass attempts, Jones was efficient. He began the game 19 for 22 over the unit's first five drives, four of which resulted in points. As Jones mentioned, on intermediate throws (10-19 yards), he completed six of seven attempts for 98 yards and a 118.8 passer rating. Jones has also looked significantly better against zone coverage. He completed 14 of 17 passes for 137 yards and a touchdown, earning a 119.9 passer rating against zone in Week 3. He followed that up by going 24 of 31 for 243 yards against Dallas' zone coverage. This was the fourth-most yards Jones has thrown for against zone coverage in his career, according to NGS. However, Jones made it clear after the game that despite some positives, the offense is not taking any solace from their performance.

"No, we don't feel good," Jones said. "We don't feel good about losing. We didn't do enough to win and we're frustrated. We're not discouraged. I think we're still confident in our team and what we can do, but no, we don't feel good about losing."