The New York Giants had their two-game winning streak snapped in a 28-10 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.

Now on a short week, the Giants face their toughest task all season, heading up to Foxborough to take on the undefeated New England Patriots on Thursday night without top target Sterling Shepard (concussion) and Wayne Gallman (concussion). They will also be without running back Saquon Barkley (ankle) and tight end Evan Engram (sprained MCL).

Let’s look at five possible scenarios that would help the Giants pull out the incomparable upset this week.

Daniel Jones

It all starts with rookie quarterback Daniel Jones, who will be facing the biggest challenge of his young career thus far without his top four offensive weapons. To add insult to injury, he is also taking on the best team in the NFL on the road, against the greatest quarterback-coach duo of all time in Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

The Patriots defense has been stellar, too, giving up the fewest total points (34) and points per game in the league (6.8). Through the first five games, their defense has only allowed two touchdowns.

Jones hasn’t necessarily lit up the box score in the last two weeks, but if you watch the film, he has still looked impressive. The rookie signal caller was 8-for-16 on third-down attempts on Sunday and drove the ball up and down the field, although the offense could not finish in the red zone.

Their lone touchdown of the game came on a beautiful 35-yard dime from Jones, who dropped the ball in the bucket to Darius Slayton for the score. Of course, there were also two missed touchdown throws to Shepard in this game, as well, that Jones wishes he had back. On a brighter note, Jones was under heavy pressure on one of these passes where he was blasted by Anthony Barr, causing a slight overthrow just out of the reach of Shepard.

Once Gallman exited with a concussion last week, Pat Shurmur completely abandoned the run game, opting to give his remaining backs only 12 more carries. This essentially made the Giant offense one-sided, creating a 7-on-7 matchup versus a very good Minnesota defense.

This blueprint is not a recipe for success and Shurmur needs to fix this despite missing several weapons in his personnel. This leads me to my next point of running the football.