Giants Coach Tom Coughlin was not happy after loss to Colts. He may have had a hand in handing the Colts a TD in the second quarter. Photo by Pete Lerro / contrastphotography.com

DETROIT – Football coaches always need to watch the tape to render a final judgment on their team’s performance in any game, but it’s hard to imagine Tom Coughlin’s instant analysis changing much after he reviews the Giants’ opening-night defeat to the Detroit Lions in Ford Field.

“We played very poorly, don’t have a lot to be proud of here,” Coughlin said. “We couldn’t move the ball, couldn’t stop them, turned the ball over, got into that business again, got a punt blocked. So you name it, it was a nightmare performance.”

Particularly since he hoped for and expected so much more. The Giants had significantly overhauled both their roster and their coaching staff after their disappointing 7-9 season in 2013. But in the first real test of the new year, the offense continued to sputter and the defense surrendered too many big plays. The result was a 35-14 defeat, the Giants fourth consecutive opening-game loss.

The Giants will try to reverse their fortunes on Sunday in their home opener against the Arizona Cardinals, who defeated San Diego, 18-17, in the late Monday night game.

“(It’s) so very disappointing and we expected better,” Coughlin said, “and in a short week, we are going to have to do an awful lot to improve.”

They might start with the new-look offense installed by new coordinator Ben McAdoo, which totaled only 197 yards, including 53 on the ground, and converted just three of 13 third-down opportunities. Eli Manning completed 18 of 33 passes for 163 yards, a one-yard, fourth-down touchdown to tight end Larry Donnell and two interceptions, which he took responsibility for at his postgame news conference. The Lions turned those picks into 10 points.

“I knew that we would have to get better as the season goes, but we could’ve definitely performed better than we did tonight,” Manning said. “There’s no reason for the turnovers, that’s not a part of the offense. There’s no reason to have those. But besides that, there were a couple of other opportunities to make some plays. We just didn’t make them.”

The defense cannot be exonerated. The Lions finished with 341 net passing yards, which enabled them to soar despite an anemic rushing attack (a 2.5-yard average on 30 carries). Matthew Stafford completed 22 of 36 passes, including seven for 164 yards and two touchdowns to Calvin Johnson, who provided ample evidence why he is widely regarded as the NFL’s best wide receiver.

“You try to get up there and disrupt him the best you could,” said cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, who shadowed Megatron all night. “He definitely had a big day. We can’t allow that.”

Detroit began taking charge on the game’s fourth play. DRC and safety Stevie Brown collided and fell down, allowing Johnson to catch a pass on the 30-yard line with the closest Giant well out of the television picture. That 67-yard TD made it 7-0 just 2:49 into the game.

“That hurt a lot, especially how it happened with guys colliding,” Rodgers-Cromartie said. “But at the end of the day, you’ve got to try to bounce back from that. That definitely put a fork in the defense.”

The secondary seemed out of sync most of the night.

“I am a bit surprised, because we don’t display that even in practice,” safety Antrel Rolle said. “I don’t know if it’s first game jitters or it’s guys trying to do too much. … We’ve just got to get guys right, get them squared away, understand that it takes all 11 to be in the right place to have a defense that executes correctly. And just get better; we’ve got to get better. You definitely have got to have more fight. There wasn’t enough fight out there. We didn’t lay down, but it definitely wasn’t enough fight. We need to pick that aspect up some.”

The Lions also scored on touchdown runs by Stafford (five yards) and running back Joique Bell (one), plus a pair of field goals by Nate Freese.

Rashad Jennings scored the Giants’ second touchdown on a one-yard run. Jennings rushed for 46 yards on 16 carries in his Giants debut.

“The receivers and everybody else were absolutely playing lights out and I give all of the credit to them and when it’s not going right, it’s because I’m not making enough plays – period,” Jennings said. “I’m the running back. You’ve got to take ownership on the field and take ownership in life like that so that’s what I’m going to do this whole year. I’ve got to get better.”

A lot of players shared similar thoughts. Although disappointed in the product they displayed against the Lions, they are convinced the offense will make plays, the defense will stop the opposition from making them and they will improve.

Manning, for example, pointed to the Giants’ 79 and 80-yard touchdown drives.

“I thought our communication was good,” Manning said. “I thought we had a good pace, we had some long drives with that, so I thought there is definitely something to build off that. We’ve just got to keep going. We’ve got to keep working and fine-tune some areas. There are definitely some things to build on but overall we can improve.”

So what is his level of concern?

“There’s no concern,” Manning said. “We have to get better and that’s the challenge and I know we’ll work hard in doing that. I thought there were some good things; we’ll look at that. We’ve just got to look at what’s going to be our exact identity, what’s going to be our best personnel and style of playing and that’s what we’re going to keep working on to get into the best plays and get our best personnel out there and find ways to make  completions to our playmakers.”

He had many like-minded teammates in the locker room.

“We just couldn’t get into a rhythm early on,” said wide receiver Victor Cruz (two catches for 24 yards). “We were struggling to get first downs and things like that. We kind of got into a little bit of a rhythm in the second half, but we’ve just got to build. We’ve just got to build on the things we did right and continue to work on those things.

“It was definitely frustrating. You want to come out and win your first one and put a good showing out there and something good for yourself and your team to uplift each other. But unfortunately we didn’t do that. Fortunately it’s just Week 1 for us. We can come back Week 2 and get things done.”

That certainly would be a good time to start.