Giants Report Card | New Ways to Lose

For 30 very real football minutes, the Giants had the Eagles.

They really did. During that period, the Giants were making the plays needed to win, scoring 17 points while holding an Eagles offense that couldn't get out of its own way to just three points.

And for 30 minutes, Giants quarterback Eli Manning looked like the Manning of his prime, demonstrating a quick release, his smart decisions, and his ability to march the offense up and down the field.

Then the second half came, and the bottom dropped out. Suddenly the Giants couldn't put together a drive lasting more than four plays, and the defense went back to giving up ridiculous chunk plays. They allowed the Eagles 20 unanswered points from quarters three right through to the overtime period to hand the Giants their ninth straight loss and the sixth consecutive loss in the regular-season series between the two teams.

Horrible. Ugly. Depressing. Whatever word you want to use, this is yet another lost Giants season in what's been nearly a decade of lousy and uninspired football. And the grades reflect it.

Offense: F

The optimist will point to the strong first half of football in which the Giants scored 17 points to celebrate the return of quarterback Eli Manning. However, it's not how you start, it's how you finish, and the Giants offense didn't get the job done.

The Giants were shut out in the second half and overtime period and only managed two first downs. Darius Slayton, who had a huge first half, disappeared from the scene in the second, head coach Pat Shurmur's excuse being that they didn't have enough plays (huh?)

And how about the fact that despite doubling Vinny Curry with two guys--left tackle Nate Solder and a tight end--Curry still came up with two quarterback sacks? How does that happen?

If this was indeed Manning's final game as a Giant, what a way for him to go out.

Defense: C-

There were some positive performances on this unit. Edge rushers Markus Golden and Oshane Ximines had solid games. And even defensive tackle Leonard Williams made his presence known, though his roughing the passer penalty was a foolish and costly infraction.

But as far as the defensive secondary, well, the band played on. There were chunk plays allowed, and rookie cornerback Sam Beal's two penalties on the Eagles' final scoring drive in regulation were costly. The biggest takeaway is that there are still miscommunications occurring--see the two big pass plays in the second half where tight end Zach Ertz was wide open--that SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING at this point in the season.

Special Teams: B+

It's hard to believe, but for most of this season, the special teams unit has been the lone bright spot on this team. Newly extended Riley Dixon punted nine times, grossing 46.1 but netting 43.6 yards thanks to some fine gunner play by Cody Core.

And speaking of Core, he tossed Greg Ward for a loss of 3 yards on a punt return. Aldrick Rosas made all his kicks stress free and booted four out of his five kickoffs for touchbacks (the Giants didn't have any kickoff returns as all of the Eagles kickoffs were touchbacks.

The only blip on the special teams' record this week was the Devante Downs block-in-the-back penalty.

Coaching: F

Every week this coaching staff gets outfoxed by the opposing staff. Every. Single. Week. And this week, Doug Pederson and the Eagles outfoxed Giants head coach Pat Shurmur not once, but twice.

The first instance came with 1:56 left in the first half on 4th-and-3 from the Eagles' 48-yard line. The Eagles sent their punting unit onto the field, but then Pederson quickly ran his offense onto the field instead.

As was the case two weeks ago against the Bears when the Giants failed to substitute and were burned, the Giants didn't run their defense onto the field, instead of having their punt return unit form some sort of pseudo defense.

The concern by the Giants was that the Eagles might quick snap the ball with the Giants engaged mid-stream in substitution. Ultimately the Giants called a timeout, which Shurmur was looking to save, but it ended up not mattering as the Giants scored on a 55-yard touchdown pass from Manning to Slayton with 27 seconds left in the half.

Then with 49 seconds left, Eagles tight end Joshua Perkins caught a pass one yard short of the first down marker to bring up a fourth down. All the Giants had to do was use one of their three timeouts to stop the clock, but instead, the Giants let roughly 20 seconds tick off the clock when Pederson kept the offense on the field to make Shurmur think he was going for it from his 45-yard line.

When Shurmur did call the time out, the Giants were left with 17 seconds. Now, this isn't to say the Giants would have marched down the field and scored on that drive had they had an extra 20 seconds, but if the coaching staff's job is to put the players in the best position to succeed, Shurmur failed his players miserably.

I've said it before that I think Shurmur is too overwhelmed calling the plays and managing the sideline. Week after week, there is at least one incident that further solidifies my theory and which continually earns this staff a failing grade.

The coaching this season has been an absolute mess and desperately needs a change.

Add us as a preferred source on Google