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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Even "the wave" was dreadful.

There was very little redeeming value to the Patriots' 19-14 loss Thursday night to the New York Giants - even the attempt by the few fans still distributed unevenly among the 80,842 seats at Giants Stadium to perform the stand-up, sit-down gimmick late in the third quarter of the preseason finale. Their execution was lacking, but they weren't alone in their ineptitude.

Not since 1990 - the 1-15 season under Rod Rust punctuated by the Lisa Olson sexual harassment scandal - have the Patriots gone through a full preseason without a victory. The games don't count, of course - and sure, Kevin O'Connell put a couple of scores on the board near the end of the game, at a time when he was just about the only person in the vicinity that didn't want to go home. But for the most part, there was very little to be learned about the 2008 Patriots that wasn't already known, primarily that the Patriots without Tom Brady as their quarterback are not as good a team as they should be with him there.

There are other areas of concern, as well - notably an apparent weakness in the run defense, an inability to get the opposition off the field on third downs, and a concurrent inability of the Patriots' offense to succeed in those areas. Maybe the Patriots are fooling us all and maybe they'll race out of the chute hell-bent for glory on Sept. 7 against the Kansas City Chiefs, but you'd think that after four practice games, some things would emerge to remind you that this is the same team that won three Super Bowls in the past seven seasons and should have won a fourth.

They just haven't. Patriots' coach Bill Belichick maintained afterward that evaluation took precedence over anything else.

"We certainly got a chance to see a lot of players tonight," Belichick said. "I'm anxious to see the film to see how all that turned out because it's hard to evaluate from the sideline.

"It was a lot different than the last time we played them here," he added, referring to the 38-35 win by the Patriots in the regular-season finale last Dec. 29, closing out a perfect 16-0 slate.

"Perfect" was a word Belichick had no reason to use after Thursday's game.

He departed from past practice and gave most of his first-stringers on both sides of the ball, save for a few notable exceptions, two series apiece in this final tuneup.

The first series for the Patriots' defense was, in a word, horrendous.

Giants' quarterback David Carr, who was made to look absolutely incompetent by the Patriots' defense when he was with the Houston Texans, looked more like vintage Dan Pastorini as he engineered a nine-play, 80-yard scoring drive on the Giants' first possession.

Carr completed three of four passes for 37 yards and Brandon Jacobs carried three times for 32 yards on the drive. The touchdown itself was particularly discouraging, as James Sanders missed a potential tackle of tight end Darcy Johnson early in a 26-yard scoring play, and Johnson bulled his way in along the right sideline, pushing Patriots' cornerback Fernando Bryant in full backpedal mode for the last 10 yards or so while rookie linebacker Jerod Mayo tried in vain to catch up to the play from behind.

The first-stringers were more successful on their second try against the Giants' makeshift offense, as Mayo and Pierre Woods (two newcomers to the No. 1 unit) sniffed out a sweep by Ahmad Bradshaw and dropped him for a yard loss, then a pass for 5 yards and another Bradshaw run of five more forced a Jeff Feagles punt.

"It's hard to evaluate," Belichick said, "because sometimes you've just got one guy breaking down and you've got some other people doing the right thing, and sometimes you get one or two guys doing the right thing and multiple people breaking down, but it doesn't really show up. "The results were better," he said.

Offensively, Matt Cassel took the first-string reins twice, with a total of two first downs to show for it. Cassel completed passes of 7 and 8 yards to Kelley Washington and David Thomas respectively in the first possession, which covered 21 yards before stalling at the Patriots' 49.

On the second, Cassel teamed with Randy Moss for an 18-yard gain on the first play, but Laurence Maroney (four carries, 5 yards) lost a yard and Cassel completed one of two throws to Washington (in for the injured Wes Welker) for 4 more yards. And that was it for the so-called No. 1 unit, which had Billy Yates manning the right guard spot of Stephen Neal (PUP list), Thomas in for the perpetually injured Benjamin Watson and Washington subbing for Welker.

Carr was behind center for the world champions for all but one series, in which third-stringer Andre Woodson fumbled twice and was yanked out - much as Belichick yanked Cassel from last year's game in Miami after he surrendered an interception for a touchdown by Jason Taylor.

"I thought that David Carr did a nice job tonight," said Giants' coach Tom Coughlin, who kept Eli Manning well out of harm's way. "I thought he managed the game well, made plays on third down we had some significant improvement there."

Carr (20-29, 192 yards, two TD, no interceptions, 110.1 passer rating), added a 9-yard touchdown pass to Sinorice Moss, who shed veteran safety John Lynch and left him on the turf in failed coverage, to put the Giants up 13-0 (Josh Huston missed the PAT) with 2:10 left in the first half.

Typical of the Patriots' frustrations in the first half was this unfortunate circumstance; on second-and-3 from the Giants' 44, Matt Gutierrez (5-9, 69 yards, one interception) dropped back and tried to find tight end Jonathan Stupar, who was in the process of illegally pushing off Giants' safety Michael Johnson. The push propelled Johnson right into the path of the throw and he seemingly picked it off while Stupar stood in a stupor, watching Johnson roll on the turf with the pick, then get up and run.

After a replay review, it was determined that Johnson caught the ball on a trap hop, negating the interception. But the Patriots were still pushed back 10 yards on the play. One way or another, Stupar's reactions weren't the sort that impress the coaches in the next day's film viewing.

Even more frustrating, the Patriots appeared to rally from the penalty when Gutierrez completed a 16-yarder to Chad Jackson and a 13-yarder to Ray Ventrone, then LaMont Jordan took a screen pass 23 yards down to the Giants' 2 with the clock ticking down.

After Jordan was dropped for no gain by Renaldo Wynn, Gutierrez tried to throw another "jump ball" pass in the left corner of the end zone to Jackson, who was single-covered by R.W. McQuarters. But Jackson had already fallen to the turf, leaving McQuarters alone to intercept the ball and run it back 34 yards to end the half with the Giants up by a couple of scores.

The Giants' first second-half possession also moved quickly down the field, but facing a first-and-goal at the 1, New England's defense stiffened. Lynch, a veteran of nine Pro Bowl selections, was in on big stops of running back Danny Ware on first and third downs, forcing the New Yorkers to settle for Huston's 20-yard field goal with 8:04 left in the third quarter.

Huston added a 30-yarder six plays into the final quarter for a 19-0 lead.

Perhaps the brightest moment for the Patriots came with 9:26 left to play, when O'Connell proved he has been paying attention in meetings. On second-and-7 from the Giants' 16, he saw the formation of an all-out blitz and checked off at the line of scrimmage, firing to a streaking Jackson - who had handily beaten the Giants' Darren Barnett - for an easy score in the left corner of the end zone.

"We had an option on the play based on a look that they gave us," Belichick said, "and Kevin did a nice job on that. He made a good throw and Chad ran a good route. He stacked the corner and Kevin threw it up there to give him a chance to get it.

"We could use a few more like that," he added.

O'Connell added a 5-yard, quarterback-draw touchdown run out of shotgun formation with 4:50 left to make his evaluation easier.

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.