Brian Burns Won't Take Consolation Prize After Another Giant-Sized Loss

The New York Giants added another quality loss to their tournament resume on Sunday night.

Alas for Big Blue, it's fighting for a spot in the NFL Playoffs—where numbers, not names, matter—not the NCAA Tournament, and reaching such a promised land took on another fatal blow in the form of a 22-9 defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night.

Sunday's score was a tad deceiving: New York (0-3) kept a respectable distance from the inspired Chiefs for most of the game before a late pull-away, but that hardly mattered to outside linebacker Brian Burns, who was in no mood to cherish results beyond the scoreboard in the somber aftermath.

"It was a high-powered offense," Burns noted. "[Chiefs quarterback Patrick] Mahomes is one of the best. Holding him to 16 points or whatever halfway into the fourth is a good thing, but I'm not really here for moral victories. So, it just wasn't good enough."

Forced to carry the load for a tepid offensive showing, one partly handicapped by an injury to kicker Graham Gano, the Giants' defense mostly stood its ground in the first half by limiting Kansas City to a trio of triples from Harrison Butker.

Mahomes and Co. finally resembled their usual selves when they came out of the halftime break, driving 74 yards in 11 plays to create a two-possession lead via a six-point toss to Tyquan Thornton.

A short field goal from an ailing Gano kept things close, but the Chiefs finally broke the Giants' will when Mahomes and Thornton situated themselves at the cusp of the goal line before Kareem Hunt punched in the sealing score.

If anything, the unit at least somewhat atoned for the prior weekend's defensive no-show in Dallas, which wasted a rare offensive metropolitan masterpiece: among the moral victories that Burns didn't want to dwell upon was the fact that the Giants (0-3) bottled up Mahomes to the tune of only two rushing yards after he had 123 (a league-best among quarterbacks) over the first two weeks of the year.

Mahomes also had a season-low 6.1 yards per attempt, while New York also forced two fumbles and two sacks (one for Burns) on the evening.

That, however, is of little consolation to Burns and other Giants, especially with the road getting no less difficult. Another AFC powerhouse comes to visit MetLife Stadium next week as the undefeated Los Angeles Chargers stop by on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, CBS).

Despite his denial of moral victories, Burns was willing to admit to one bittersweet switch from last year to this, noting that the team's "fight is different" after three consecutive heartbreakers.

"I'm not here for moral victories, but the fight is different," the defender said. "In all three losses, we really fought our behinds off. It just didn't fold our way.

“The cards didn't fold our way. But last year, there was a sense of like, ‘Oh, here we go again.’ And this year it really isn’t like that. I still see guys fighting and feeling like we still can win the game. So, I would say I guess that's different."

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