New York Giants Week 14 Report Card: Not Nearly Good Enough

Coach Gene Clemmons hands out this week's grades after the Giants' 37-21 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.

Author:
Gene Clemons
Updated:
Dec 13, 2021 1:56 PM EST
Original:
Dec 13, 2021

The Giants went cross country to take on the Los Angeles Chargers with the hope of putting forth a better effort than they put on against the Dolphins. They were beaten soundly in the contest with more weapons on hand and, unfortunately, left California with more questions than they arrived with.

Let's take a look at this week's grades.

Rushing Offense: B

The Giants rushed well for the second week in a row. As a team, they rushed 26 times for 135 yards, led by Barkley and Booker. The duo rushed for 120 of the yards, but why was there not more of a concerted effort to run the ball more consistently earlier before the game got out of hand?

The Chargers came into the game with the 31st ranked rushing defense, and they were without safety Derwin James, one of the team's top tacklers. There were 18 passes in the first half compared to nine rushes, and five of those rushing attempts came in the first quarter.

Coach Judge was asked about abandoning the run so quickly.

"There are some things we left, some meat on the bone there," he said. "In terms of going specifically away from the run, we’ve talked about that in terms of running the ball. The screen and the short catch-and-runs are really an extension of the run game in terms of how we view it. Thought we had some opportunities there, just got to capitalize on them.

Players can only do what they are asked to do, and unfortunately, the game plan and score dictated a different set of opportunities for the backs.

Passing Offense: F

This passing offense was lackluster except for the one explosive 60-yard play from quarterback Mike Glennon to tight end Kyle Rudolph. Even as the Giants welcomed back Sterling Shepard (who didn't get his first target until the third quarter), their impact wasn't felt on the field.

Glennon finished 17 of 36 (47.2 percent), and he failed to amass over 200 yards even with the second half of garbage time and free yards to be had. There were a couple of drops in the mix, and the pass distribution was curious.

The Giants threw nine balls to their running backs (eight receptions), seven to the tight ends (three receptions), and 14 to the receivers (six catches). According to NextGen Stats, this was likely due to the receivers not getting open.

Average separation for Giantd receivers vs. Chargers — NextGen Stats

The league average for separation is 2.9, and only Rudolph exceeded that average. Shepard was the next closest receiver, averaging 2.29 yards of separation, but Evan Engram, Kenny Golladay, and Darius Slayton finished well under 2.0 average yards of separation.

Even with five passes that went for double digits, including a 60-yard pass, Glennon only averaged 5.3 yards per attempt. The targets to the backs and tight ends are a sign that Glennon was checking the ball down too often.

Rushing Defense: C-

The Giants rush defense was not at its peak. While the years per carry for the Chargers were not gaudy, the Giants could not keep them from amassing the total rushing numbers.

The Chargers had 37 carries for 152 yards by the end of the game. Austin Ekeler was the main ball carrier with 12 carries for 67 yards, and he might have had more had he not been injured.

Ekeler was able to have a good amount of success on the ground, but the other backs were not as fruitful running the ball. Ekeler's production matched the other two backs, Justin Jackson and Joshua Kelley.

Giants defensive linemen Austin Johnson and Dexter Lawrence handled business against the run. Still, the front line missed Leonard Williams, who left the game in the second quarter with an elbow injury and didn't return.

This week, the Giants' top two tacklers were defensive backs Aaron Robinson (9) and Logan Ryan (9). That's not a good sign for the run defense when a team's leading tacklers are their defensive backs.

Passing Defense: D

This was not a good showing for the Giants pass defense. The Chargers were without top receiver Keenan Allen, yet they could carve up the Giants pass coverage.

Quarterback Justin Herbert averaged 8.9 yards per attempt, and look at the average separation the primary receiving targets were able to manage, which pretty much says it all:

Los Angeles Chargers Week 14 receiver spearation — NextGen Stats

The Giants continue to have coverage issues, and nothing illustrated that more than the Chargers 59-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Guyton, where the safeties for the Giants messed up the deep coverage and allowed a receiver to run uncovered down the middle of the field, splitting safeties Logan Ryan and Xavier McKinney.

"We were in a cover two, two-high defense, pretty safe defense. I saw they had (Chargers Wide Receiver Jalen) Guyton in the slot, speedster. (Chargers Quarterback Justin) Herbert’s got one of the strongest arms in the league and the ability to roll to his right and throw it across field. It’s an opportunity there and we practiced it and you saw it in practice," Giants safety Logan Ryan explained.

"We prepared for it. If someone’s running down the middle, try to go steal it from the back side. We don’t want him to get out of the pocket there and I felt like I had a good shot at it at about 50 yards where I felt like the ball was going to go based on that play and that crow hop, got it an extra 10 and I felt like I just didn’t track the ball well. He kind of threw it down the middle of our defense between me and (Safety Xavier McKinney) Zay."

The Giants continued to allow a lot of completion underneath the Chargers receivers, resulting in first downs. Guyton, Palmer, and Williams were all able to get deep in the secondary.

Special Teams: C-

The fake punt was not executed well. Punter Riley Dixon, who had another awful day punting the ball, by the way, knew what he was supposed to do, but the gunner he was trying to throw it to seemed to hesitate, and the pass sailed over the intended receiver's head.

There were no punt return opportunities, and return man Pharoh Cooper could only gain 34 yards on two returns. The kickoff team allowed a 29 yards return on their only opportunity to cover a kick. This is one of the only games this season that Graham Gano, who sent a kickoff out of bounds, has not had a presence. Outside of the extra point, he never had a chance to kick a field goal.

Coaching: D

The run game did not seem to focus on the Giants' offensive game plan against the Chargers. There were only 26 rushes compared to 36 passes. As mentioned in the run offense grade, there were double the pass attempts (18) compared to rushes (9).

Putting the game in the hands of Mike Glennon after what we saw from him last week seems foolhardy at best, especially when you consider that the Chargers are one of the worst teams in the NFL against the run. That was the missed opportunity by the Giants that could have leveled the playing field.

Defensively, it is difficult to tell what the game plan was going into this contest. The "bend but don't break" philosophy seemed to be what Patrick Graham was going for, but the defense broke far too much in this game.

There were too many blown assignments, and players were beaten too often. Too many defensive backs lost one-on-one matchups. Pass rushers were able to get pressure, but they did not get the quarterback on the ground as they just did not close down rush lanes well enough.