New York Giants Week 8 Report Card: Yuck!
Grading the New York Giants 13-10 loss to the New York Jets.
Offense: F
Not even running back Saquon Barkley, who finished with 128 rushing yards on 36 carries, could save the Giants offense's grade this week. New York's offense, which lost tight end Darren Waller (hamstring) and quarterback Tyrod Taylor (rib) in the first half to injuries, was turned into a one-dimensional shell that managed just minus-9 yards of passing. Let that sink in for a moment, will you? Minus nine yards of passing.
If that's not bad enough, the Giants only managed to convert two of 19 third-down attempts, both coming in the second half of the game. It was just an embarrassing performance by an offense outgained 251 to 194 on the day. And of their 17 drives, 11 were of the three-and-out variety. Granted, the conditions were bad, but they weren't that bad to where the offense couldn't have been more efficient.
Defense: D
The only saving grace for the Giants' defense was the three sacks recorded by outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux, you know, the one who was a topic of debate this week on sports radio for not having an impact on games (insert eye roll here). And you could make a case that the defense played well enough to win this game for three-plus quarters.
Unfortunately for the Giants, a football game is four quarters long, or in this case, five with the overtime period. And when it mattered most, the Giants defense couldn't get it done, not only blowing the lead but also allowing Zach Wilson, who otherwise finished 17 of 36 for 240 yards, to drive down the field for the tying score.
Throw in the blatant defensive pass interference penalty against cornerback Adoree' Jackson, who is supposedly the team's best cornerback (anyone else wondering if he's played his last game with this team), against a practice squad receiver which helped to set up the Jets' game-winning 33-yard field goal. It was just a major letdown by a unit that started out promising in this game.
Special Teams: D
When a team has to punt 13 times, you figure there's bound to be a clinker or two in the batch. Such was the case with JAie Gillan, who, by the way, came close to having a couple nearly blocked. But he survived thanks to the underrated but solid play of his coverage team led by gunners Nick McCloud and Darnay Holmes, who held the Jets to just 20 return yards on three returns.
The real clunker, though, was the performance by Graham Gano. To be fair, Gano is dealing with a left knee issue that's had him on the injury report for the last two weeks. This week, however, he didn't receive an injury designation. Still, Gano told NorthJersey.com that he would probably need off-season knee surgery to fix the issue, one that he would try to push through as best as possible.
Noble? Yes, Smart? Well, when your normally reliable kicker is compromised to the point where he shales left kicks of 47 and 35 yards--kicks he could otherwise make in his sleep--then no, that's not smart.
Coaching: F
There's no fault with the Giants trying to win the game using the running game, especially given the conditions, and to lean on its defense. But that said, there were some headscratcher decisions in which the Giants played it too conservatively, which came back to bite them,
The biggest issue is why, knowing they had a kicker on their second 4th-and-1 toward the end of the game, try to run the clock down so that if they didn't score, they wouldn't leave the Jets with any time to move down the field.
That question was put to head coach Brian Daboll, who said that when the Jets had 24 seconds left with no timeouts, the thought process was that if they made the field goal, that would force the Jets to drive the length of the field to score their confidence further boosted because the Giants defense had been playing so well up until that point.
Such was not the case, however, as Gano missed again. While the kicker didn't make any excuses after the game, his earlier miss should have been a red flag for the coaching staff to maybe play things a little differently at that point in the game.
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