Against Minnesota Monday night, Eli Manning played in his 200th career game, including playoffs. Photo from giants.com

MINNEAPOLIS – Eli Manning played in his 200th NFL game, including playoff contests, Monday night. In his 13 seasons, the best quarterback in Giants history has learned to analyze and dissect a game as well as anyone. And his evaluation of the team’s performance against the Minnesota Vikings was spot on.

“Offensively, we have to be better and score more points,” Manning said. “Plain and simple. We’re doing some good things, but not good enough, efficient enough. We have to put it all together.”

They were unable to do that on Monday night, when they lost to the Minnesota Vikings, 24-10, in brand new and extremely loud U.S. Bank Stadium. A second consecutive loss dropped the Giants to 2-2, while Minnesota improved to 4-0.

The Giants had two turnovers, punted six times (five in the first half), and committed eight penalties. They were a combined two-for-14 on third and fourth-down conversion attempts. Manning completed only one pass longer than 20 yards, and though he lines up with dynamic wide receivers in Odell Beckham Jr. (who had a career-low 23 receiving yards), Victor Cruz and Sterling Shepard, his two longest completions were to running back Paul Perkins and tight end Will Tye. Most importantly, they scored just one touchdown, and that occurred early in the fourth quarter on Orleans Darkwa’s 1-yard run. Josh Brown added a 40-yard field goal.

“(We had trouble) just getting into a rhythm,” Cruz said. “We couldn’t get ourselves going until later in the game. We just have to figure out how to get into a rhythm a little bit quicker, that’s all.”

The Vikings’ defensive focus was to prevent the three wide receivers from hurting them with big plays, and it worked. Cruz, Beckham and Shepard combined to catch 12 passes for 103 yards, an average of just 8.6 yards.

“They played a lot of safety over the top, cover everything underneath,” Beckham said. “They covered the single side, safety rolling to the single side. All-in-all they are a great team. They have always been a great team. I guess they just came out and they played Minnesota Vikings defense. They made it difficult for us.”

“They played a lot of two-high man coverage,” coach Ben McAdoo said. “They played a lot of double teams. … We have to find the one-on-one coverage.” Asked if the Giants did that, McAdoo said, “I think we struggled finding the one-on-one. It reflects in our completion percentage (which was 55.6 percent as Manning hit 25 of a season-high 45 passes).”

Even the Giants’ big play of the night, a 67-yard completion to Perkins, was a screen pass on which the rookie back gained 69 yards after catching the ball.

“(The) corners weren’t going to give us anything easy and quick,” Manning said. “It’s tough. You had to buy some time. Had a few things where we bought some time and got some completions. They had a good game plan and played us a little different than what we anticipated. A lot more two-high than what they’ve been. It slowed us down a little bit.”

Three key sequences went a long way in helping the Vikings win.

The Vikings’ first offensive possession began at their 1-yard line, thanks to a perfectly-placed punt by Brad Wing that was downed by Dwayne Harris. Minnesota gained just seven yards in three plays, and the Giants were poised to get terrific field position when Jeff Locke punted out of his end zone.

But Harris mishandled the ball – officially a muff – which was recovered by Marcus Sherels at the Giants’ 41-yard line. That play shifted the momentum to Minnesota. Sam Bradford immediately threw a 21-yard pass to Cordarrelle Patterson. Moments later, cornerback Janoris Jenkins was penalized for interfering with Patterson in the end zone, which set up Matt Asiata’s 1-yard touchdown run.

The Vikings took a 14-3 lead into the halftime locker room thanks to Bradford’s 7-yard touchdown pass to tight end Kyle Rudolph. Josh Brown kicked a 40-yard field goal for the Giants.

Turning point No. 2 occurred early in the third quarter. Minnesota’s Blair Walsh missed a 46-yard field goal attempt on the first possession. That gave the Giants good field position at their 36. But on the third play of the series, one of Manning’s few downfield passes for Beckham was intercepted by Xavier Rhodes, who returned it 29 yards to the Giants’ 43. That led to Walsh’s 44-yard field goal, which extended the lead to 17-3.

“I had a chance to hit the post,” Manning said. “They had a pretty good blitz on. I didn’t know if I was going to be protected or not. I ended up being protected enough. I just threw up a shot to Odell. It looked like he had a little contact that took him off his angle. I had to throw before he made a stick on his route. I didn’t know what angle he would come out of. I threw it a little too high. I was looking to throw it towards the middle of the field. If I did that, he would’ve had a better shot.”

Critical sequence No. 3 began on the first play of the fourth quarter, when Perkins’ long catch-and-run gave the Giants a first down at the four. “Just going out there and trying to make plays for the team,” Perkins said. Two plays and a Trae Waynes’ pass interference penalty later, Darkwa took the ball up the middle for the Giants’ touchdown. After a long struggle since Harris’ miscue, the Giants were within a touchdown at 17-10.

But the good times ended quickly, because the Vikings needed only eight plays and 4:18 to travel 76 yards and extend their lead back to 14 points on Jerick McKinnon’s 1-yard run. Just before the touchdown, Bradford connected with Charles Johnson for a 40-yard gain.

The Giants twice went for it on fourth down in the final 6:14, but Manning threw incompletions each time.

“When we got to a two-score game, we wanted to cut that to one score,” McAdoo said. “We did that. Then they extended the lead.”

And that pretty much extinguished the Giants’ chance to win the game.