Giants’ performance against Cowboys will be message to John Mara

ARLINGTON, Texas — There is nothing the Giants can do to salvage their season, but there is plenty they can do to stop, momentarily, the most important person in the franchise from dwelling on all those bad thoughts that must be swirling around his head.

For all concerned, especially head coach Brian Daboll, the best advice for this Thanksgiving is to make sure co-owner John Mara is able to muster some sort of holiday spirit at a time when there is nothing to feel good about with a team in free fall.

There are certain games that resonate differently. Losing to a bad Panthers team on an international stage in Munich was one of those games. Coming off the bye week, returning home and putting on an embarrassing — yes, soft — display Sunday against the Buccaneers was another one of those games.

That was an anomaly, not that the Giants lost, but that they looked as if they were not interested in competing at a respectable level.

That 30-7 defeat turned a dismal season into a dangerous one, as far as repercussions that might await Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen after the Daniel Jones saga left a bitter aftertaste for all concerned.

Now comes this: Of all the teams in the league Mara wants to beat more than any other, the Cowboys are near or at the top of that list.

His father, franchise patriarch Wellington Mara, once said, “It’s nice to see arrogance humbled’’ after a Giants upset victory in 1996 over the Cowboys — then the defending Super Bowl champions — after Dallas owner Jerry Jones irritated Mara by parading across the end zone during the game at old Giants Stadium.

Wellington Mara was not exactly a trash-talker so this was quite a public expression of animus, a sentiment about the Dallas owner handed down from father to son.

John Mara’s Giants are in bad, bad shape and this is a vulnerable, reeling and possibly unraveling team that arrives in AT&T Stadium on Thursday to face Jones’ Cowboys.

This is an unusual spot for the home team, pretty much out of contention at 4-7. This is a familiar spot for the Giants, 2-9 and lugging in a six-game losing streak that must be taxing the patience of Mara and co-owner Steve Tisch.

Mara wants to keep Daboll and Schoen in 2025 — he said back when the Giants were 2-5 that he “anticipated’’ not making any major changes with those two for next season — but if the downward spiral continues, it is going to be exceedingly difficult for Mara to come to any other conclusion than to clean house.

The hits keep on coming.

Quarterback Tommy DeVito is dealing with an injury to his right forearm and did not travel with the team as he underwent further evaluation. That makes him unlikely to play, meaning Drew Lock is expected to make his first start for the Giants.

You have to look long and hard to find a more turbulent week than what the Giants just left behind.

They have been bad for most of the past 12 years, but they were reduced to laughingstock status for the way they handled the Jones situation, the elevating of DeVito over Lock, the alarmingly inept showing against the Bucs to fall to 0-6 at MetLife Stadium and the immediate fallout from the blowout loss to a Bucs team that came in riding a four-game losing streak.

Claims that the Giants were “ass” (Brian Burns) and “soft’’ (Dexter Lawrence) and “soft as f–k” (Malik Nabers) and “I personally don’t think everyone is giving 100 percent’’ (Jermaine Eluemunor) were all out there for Daboll to deal with.

He offered fairly unconvincing denials that he has lost the locker room, giving too much reason to believe he is in charge of a team in turmoil.

“Well, nobody’s happy with where we’re at,’’ Daboll said. “But look, we’ve got a positive mindset. We’ve got to get ready. You control the things you can control, which is this week. But I’ve said this before, I got a good appreciation for the people in the building.”

It is vitally important that Mara, the most powerful person in the building, sees something down the stretch that makes him think, “I want to move forward with this coach and this general manager.’’

What has been on display for far too long makes it difficult to believe continuity is the way to go.