New Data Indicates How Lack of Explosive Plays Hurt Giants Last Year

Sharp Football Analysis has released a new set of data that details the importance of creating explosive plays in the modern NFL, and the numbers speak volumes about why the New York Giants were one of the game’s least productive offenses on the scoreboard in the 2024 season.

how important is it to generate explosive plays in the current NFL?

last 5 years:

if a drive has ZERO plays of 15+ yds:

15% score rate
6% TD rate
0.7 points/drive

if a drive has JUST ONE play of 15+ yds:

60% score rate
34% TD rate
3.1 points/drive
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) July 16, 2025

With an inconsistency at the play caller and the quarterback position, among other things, last fall, the Giants experienced some of their worst offensive numbers in a long while.

They finished the year ranked 31st in the league in points scored and 30th in yards accumulated, netting a distasteful 14.6 in the former category and only five contests with over 20 points scored.

It also didn’t help that the Giants' offensive line started strong and then became a complete shell of itself as injuries started mounting.

The landslide started with the loss of Andrew Thomas to a Lisfranc injury, and continued throughout the unit as they landed in the bottom third of the NFL in pass block win rate (26th) and were one of the most pre-snap penalized fronts.

Still, all of the Giants’ offensive woes would turn back to the helm as none of the four players who started at least one game at the position for the franchise could get things going in the deep field and make the offense a more dangerous threat for opposing defenses.

That is exactly what Sharp Football indicates as one of the major problems that hurt the Giants in their forgettable 3-14 campaign: they simply didn’t generate close to enough explosive plays during their average offensive drives.

According to the outlet’s data spanning the past five seasons, a team creating zero explosive plays of at least 15 yards on a given drive would result in a measly score rate of 15% with 6% of those scores crossing the goalline for an average of 0.7 points per drive.

Meanwhile, for the better offenses in the league during this time, the more they had at least one play of 15+ yards on a given drive, their efficiency shot up to a 60% score rate, with 34% counting as touchdowns and an average of 3.1 points per possession.

This information helps explain perfectly why the Giants' offense, despite wanting to become a more potent system heading into the 2025 season, hasn’t been the apple of a football fan’s eye who enjoys watching volatile offenses.

Not one of their four arms finished in the top 25 quarterbacks in deep passing grade, and Tim Boyle, who played the least number of snaps of the group, held the best score with a 69.8 grade.

The Giants’ total deep range production included just 14 completions for 435 yards, four touchdowns, and four interceptions, with just 13 big-time throws combined.

In addition, they netted just 1.45 points per drive, which ranked second worst in the league, and only turned 19 of their 44 redzone visits into touchdowns, taking the crown for football’s worst rate. That simply isn’t sufficient for competing in the current game, as the Giants need to do this season.

The good news is they now have a quarterback in Russell Wilson who was among the best at authoring explosive plays last season. He held a 95 deep passing grade with the Steelers, excelling at quickly getting the ball out to his targets without turning it over to thwart their drives.

With his arsenal of receiving weapons that includes multiple deep range athletes like Malik Nabers and Darius Slayton who can stretch the field and create extra yardage in open space, Wilson and the Giants offense should start to create some upward growth in these statistics, and if the data holds, will see more success come their way on the scoreboards.

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