Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com via USA TODAY Sports
2019 Week 17: Player by Player Review Plus a Look at the Strategy and the Play Calling
WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG IN 2019?
by Chris Pflum
The 2019 Giants season definitely went off the rails for the Giants.
It started poorly, getting embarrassed on the road by the Cowboys, and was underscored by a nine-game losing streak which tied the franchise record.
The Giants stumbled badly again and again throughout the season. And while there were flashes of future promise, the Giants were, frankly, all-too-often almost unwatchable.
So where did it all go wrong?
As much as we would all like there to be one simple answer, a single move the Giants could make in the coming off-season to make everything click and become a consistently competitive team, there really isn't.
Football is often cited as “The Ultimate Team Game” because a winning outcome is the result of the combined efforts of the 45 active players and the coaching staff.
The opposite of that is true as well – barring something truly dramatic, there are seldom only one or two reasons for a bad season. They too are team efforts.
Let's take a closer look at how everything went wrong for the Giants.
Offensive Breakdowns (No Pun Intended)
It all starts upfront for the Giants. When Dave Gettleman and Pat Shurmur took over the keys to the franchise, they started by “changing the transmission” for the offense – blowing up and completely rebuilding the offensive line.
Their job as shade-tree mechanics has, thus far, been a disappointment.
Patrick Omameh didn't last the entire 2018 season, while the Ereck Flowers at right tackle lasted all of two games (annoyingly, he has played well at guard for Washington).
On the inside, the platoon of centers Jon Halapio and Spencer Pulley has been a weak link between guards Will Hernandez and Kevin Zeitler.
But most disappointing has been the play of left tackle Nate Solder. The Giants made Solder the highest-paid offensive lineman in the NFL, but since then he has given up 20.5 sacks and more pressures than any other tackle this season.
That has played a role in the Giants' inconsistency on offense, but the Giants have also felt the absence of Odell Beckham Jr.
Make no mistake, the emergence of Darius Slayton has been a boon for the Giants. But while the rookie has been impressive, he doesn't have anything like the field-tilting effect on a defense that Beckham has.
The Giants' receivers (and receivers' coach Tyke Tolbert) have not received the attention they deserve, as they have made significant contributions to the Giants' offense, executing the route concepts, adjusting well to off-target passes, and making tough catches.
But even so, none of the Giants' receivers have commanded automatic double-teams, which gives defensive coordinators more flexibility in how they approach the rest of the Giants' offense.
Next, let’s turn to coaching. While Mike Shula was technically the Giants' offensive coordinator, he is really a glorified quarterback's coach and occasional play designer.
this was Pat Shurmur's offense – his scheme, his play designs, and his play-calls.
And if we are being fair—something we always try to be—this offense and scheme aren't all bad. It goes to great lengths to be very quarterback-friendly.
It includes many concepts (and combinations of concepts) designed to beat both man and zone coverage.
On many plays, all the quarterback has to do is identify the coverage and go to the side of the field with the appropriate concept called. The route combinations are designed to maximize passing windows and create separation for run-after-catch opportunities.
That's all good, and something many good offenses do.
However, this offense also had some serious flaws, both schematically and philosophically.
The largest is a tendency for the offense to go into a shell when things go poorly. It is already a short-range offense that largely operates roughly 5 or 7 yards downfield.
But we frequently saw the Giants throwing the ball to, or behind, the line of scrimmage, making it too easy for defenses to swarm to the ball. Those passes also limit the explosiveness of players like Saquon Barkley and Evan Engram.
The Giants have also frequently limited Barkley by calling plays against his strengths. He is at his best in an outside-zone running scheme. Those plays emphasize his ability to take advantage of gaps by picking a running lane, cutting back if necessary, and exploding through the hole.
Even when Barkley is healthy, the Giants have a tendency to try to run him between the guards, and generally into a lineman's rear end.
From a wider perspective have been consistent failures in preparation and in-game adjustments.
Now former head coach Pat Shurmur has frequently been out-coached by his opponents, from the Eagles switching to a Cover-3 look in the teams' second game in 2018 and the Giants failing to attack the seams to being embarrassed in the rain by Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray, to repeated questionable uses (or non-use) of timeouts at the end of games, Shurmur has not consistently put his players in position to win.
If there has been one saving grace for the Giants' offensive coaching staff this season, it is that the team has had to deal with a tremendous number of injuries.
Now, as the old saying goes: Injuries aren't an excuse; however, they can be a reason. The Giants' battle with the injury bug started early on the offensive side of the ball with Sterling Shepard fracturing his thumb and Corey Coleman being lost for the season to a torn ACL almost as soon as training camp opened.
Darius Slayton also missed quite a bit of time to a persistent hamstring injury.
Golden Tate missed the first quarter of the season to a suspension and then suffered a concussion during the season.
Shepard returned from his thumb injury in time for the start of the season only to miss a total of six games with two concussions.
Evan Engram had his season end early after suffering a dreaded mid-foot sprain, while Rhett Ellison lost the last six weeks of the season to a concussion.
And finally, we come to the injury to Saquon Barkley. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers clearly laid down the groundwork for how to defend the Giants' running game and offense in the first half of Week 3.
Over those two quarters, the Giants' offense was stifled and Barkley was held to 8 yards on 10 carries.
But Barkley's high ankle sprain— and lengthy recovery even after coming back—certainly held the offense back from executing the full playbook.
So where does the offense go from here?
The first step for fixing the Giants' offense over the 2020 off-season will be to figure out who will be coaching them.
As with the defense, the particulars of personnel will be influenced by the philosophies of whoever is designing the offense.
Of course, the best coaches will design their schemes to fit the strengths of the players available. That will include including RPO (run-pass option) plays for Daniel Jones as well as looking further down the field.
While analytics might not be popular in the Giants' front office, data has consistently shown that the most value—before risk begins to outweigh reward—in the NFL passing game lies somewhere between 10 and 15 yards downfield.
Under Pat Shurmur, both Eli Manning and Daniel Jones have typically attempted passes roughly 7 yards downfield and completed them roughly 5.5 yards downfield.
The Giants will need to continue to add pieces to their offensive line, particularly as Solder, Mike Remmers, and Kevin Zeitler age.
Likewise, finding a true number one receiver could really set the Giants' offense off.
For the players already in place, the Giants could absolutely do a better job of getting Barkley and Engram the ball in space.
They are two of the biggest match-up nightmares in the NFL and it should not be difficult to put them in position to be explosive.
Both Ben McAdoo and Pat Shurmur struggled to figure out how to use Engram in the passing game, and Barkley has been forced to catch the ball in front of the defense far too often.
D is For Disaster (Not Defense)
When attempting to answer what went wrong with the New York Giants' defense, it’s all too easy to offer a somewhat flippant response of “everything.”
The Giants' defense has struggled for two years under coordinator James Bettcher, never rounding into the form of the hyper-aggressive and productive defenses he fielded with the Arizona Cardinals.
As with pretty much everything “football,” there is no one reason why the Giants' defense played badly in 2019.
Their season went off the rails early and it quickly became apparent that despite all the resources poured into the defense over the last two off-seasons, they just couldn't overcome their mistakes, the mistakes on offense, or get a stop against an opposing offense when they needed to.
Let’s start with the personnel.
If we are going to be laying blame for the play of the defense this year, we would probably ball-park it at 45 percent to both personnel and coaching.
The Giants had glaring concerns with their defensive roster coming into this season, and each of them has reared their heads during the season.
The first of which is Antoine Bethea at free safety. After the Curtis Riley experiment of 2018, it seemed as though any player would be an upgrade there.
But while Bethea might have the knowledge and experience to man the position, he no longer has the range and athleticism to effectively act on it.
The Giants have been victimized time and again by big plays this year, and part of the reason has been Bethea's inability to get in position.
Moving closer to the line of scrimmage, the Giants have had to deal with a very young secondary, with DeAndre Baker, Sam Beal, Corey Ballentine, and Grant Haley all playing significant roles.
The cornerback position has one of the sharpest learning curves of any position on the field, and we have consistently seen mistakes and breakdowns in coverage hurt the Giants' defense this year.
Taking another step forward to the linebacking corps, Alec Ogletree proved to be a liability in key situations and never really built on his play at the end of 2018.
While he is certainly athletic and seems to be a leader for the defense, Ogletree seems to struggle processing information quickly and all too often winds up covering turf while offensive players make plays.
He hasn't been terrible, but he has been a part of the Giants' coverage breakdowns and he has not played up to the assets used to acquire him—or the contract to which he is signed.
And finally, there is the defensive front, and specifically the pass rush. There were concerns regarding the Giants' pass rush coming into the season, and despite Markus Golden returning to his 2016 form with 10 sacks, the pass rush is still an issue.
While Golden has been productive, he has been one of the least double-teamed EDGE players in the NFL, per ESPN, and still wins his rushes at a below-average rate.
In fact, only one Giants' defender wins his pass rushes at an above-average rate, and that has been defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson (who has also been the Giants' most double-teamed player).
And that has been at the crux of the Giants' defensive woes this year. They have had one of the worst pressure rates in the NFL on four-man rushes, but their secondary has struggled to hold up when they blitz.
There is certainly a schematic element to the Giants' defensive struggles (which we will get to in a moment) but despite all the resources poured into their defense, they still find themselves lacking at key positions.
Now let’s talk about coaching.
Coming into the 2019 season we believed that James Bettcher was the best coach on the Giants' staff and that their poor defensive performance had more to do with a lack of players than a poor scheme.
We’ll take that L and the big pile of you know what that comes with it.
We do still believe that Bettcher has, to a degree, still been hamstrung by the talent available. But we can't make excuses for how he has used them either.
The biggest offense this season has been his use of off and zone coverages in the secondary. At a macro level, tight man (and press-man) coverage is simply more effective than softer coverage schemes.
While softer schemes do allow the secondary to keep an eye on the offensive backfield to deal with running backs or quarterback runs, it gives up too many easy completions—and this is true at all levels of football, not just the NFL.
For the Giants, in particular, they are billed and built to be a man coverage defense. Janoris Jenkins (before being released), DeAndre Baker, Sam Beal, and Corey Ballentine are all best used in physical coverage.
But the Giants have generally called more zone and off coverages which not only plays against the corners' strengths but also allowed quarterbacks to quickly find open receivers and thwart what pass rush the Giants were able to mount.
There was also the trend of the Giants' corners showing confusion and breakdowns in communication when asked to play zone.
All too often it seemed as though nobody was quite sure of their assignments and responsibilities in zone or mixed coverage calls, and offenses frequently took advantage.
Both the poor preparation and the questions regarding usage fall at the feet of Bettcher.
Likewise, Bettcher's defense was billed as an aggressive blitz-happy scheme, but it has proved to be anything but.
The Giants only blitzed on 29.9 percent of pass rushes throughout 2019, a far cry from the (roughly) 45 percent we saw from Bettcher in Arizona.
As previously mentioned, the Giants were faced with a Catch-22 in that passers performed better when they blitzed, it still would have been better to see them field a more aggressive defense this year.
Now let’s talk about injuries. this is one area where the Giants don't have much to complain about. True they lost promising young linebacker Ryan Connelly soon after a good start to his rookie season, and they lost safety Jabrill Peppers to a painful back injury late in the season.
But David Mayo, Deone Bucannon, and Julian Love have all filled in well enough to minimize the effect of those losses compared to the other issues on the defense.
The Giants' defense has largely been healthy, which makes the issues with personnel and how those players have been used that much more glaring.
So where does this unit go from here?
The first step for the Giants will be to decide who will be coaching their defense in 2020. Until we know who will be coaching the Giants next year, it is difficult to say what, in particular, will need to be done to fix the Giants' defense.
While football is football and most schemes are more similar than they are different, there are still practical concerns that determine which players fit where.
The best coaching candidates will tailor their schemes and philosophies to fit the players they have.
And from that perspective, we can address the personnel issues. The first order of business will be to identify and acquire an ace pass rusher. Golden has earned himself a second contract, but he is best as a complementary rusher who can take advantage of one-on-one opportunities. The Giants need an “ace” (to borrow a term from baseball) to set up the rest of their defense and get the tough outs.
In years past, they had Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, or Jason Pierre-Paul to do that, and now they will need to find another one.
The next order of business will be to address the secondary. Perhaps they will need to add another cornerback to start opposite DeAndre Baker or a safety if the next coach decides that Jabrill Peppers could be best used to increase the Giants' speed at linebacker—or to replace Antoine Bethea at free safety if they want Julian Love playing closer to the line of scrimmage.
Regardless, there is definitely work to be done on the Giants' defense, and hopefully, they will find the right coach to make it all come together in 2020.
QUARTERBACK
Daniel Jones: This week—in fact, the rookie quarterback’s entire season—was a great learning experience, and we’re not saying that sarcastically.
We’re actually rather pleased that things never looked easy for him, especially this week when he finished the season on such a down note.
His numbers were representative for a very wet day in driving rain in late December: 28 of 47 for 301 yards, 1 touchdown, 1 interception. Those numbers were padded a bit by garbage time completions.
No doubt, the kid struggled this week not only with the elements—he underthrew at least three deep balls that had a decent-to-good chance of becoming big plays—but that’s going to happen when you’re not playing in a dome in the northeast wind and rain.
Hitting deep balls in these conditions is really hard. Jones made some big-time throws nevertheless, including the touchdown to Golden Tate in which he trusted his tightly-covered receiver to make a play on the ball with perfect placement.
Jones also made this play out of the pocket, which is something we need to see much more of out of him going forward. He made another great play to absorb an unblocked corner blitz right up in his grille with a great read and pass up the seam to tight end Kaden Smith for 25 yards.
He made another great read and throw on a 3rd down inside of two minutes of the first half to Smith for another big 15-yard completion and a first down.
There were other big plays, but alas there was that big play that went against him that needs to be fixed.
Jones needs to learn how to get his blocking set up to block the blitz. When it’s out-numbered, you have to have a better plan.
this week, he and his offensive line were overwhelmed by the Eagles’ second-half blitzes, which is the time of the game where the Giants coaches every week get out-coached (the second half).
So it happened again this week when Jones’ second-half protection acted as they had never seen a blitz before.
Ultimately, it’s up to the quarterback to set up his protection so, in that respect, he failed. It’s something from which Jones can and will learn, which is why all that blitzing is a good thing, at least in the long run.
He will learn; he’s no dummy. He will also have to learn when to give up on downfield routes, move off of them and take the shorter route.
He’s much too aggressive downfield, staring down a receiver that’s never going to free up while missing out on the smaller plays and risking incompletions, hits, and sacks.
We loved how the coaches finally called his number in the second half on the naked bootleg a couple of times. It was the only way of keeping the Eagles from crashing down on Saquon Barkley. Too bad it took the coaches all game long to figure out what to do.
Jones thus rides off into the sunset of his rookie season with an awful lot on his mind. We’d love to hire Eli Manning as his coach and mentor, but that’s likely a pipe dream.
Jones will have to learn for himself, which will include more mistakes for sure. Nevertheless, the positives far outweighed the negatives.
People need to remember that the kid is a rookie. All rookies struggle. It goes with the terrain.
This week he didn’t mix in enough good plays with the bad. That’s going to happen against the better teams.
It’s time for him to take a step back, talk about how the season went down with a seasoned vet or coach, and prepare for next season having put together a largely positive rookie year.
RUNNING BACKS
Saquon Barkley: The coaches had Barkley’s offense playing scared out there to start the game, and they never quite figured out how to attack the Eagles defense until it was much too late.
Barkley once again didn’t have a whisper of a chance with the Eagles stacking the line of scrimmage to combat the Giants’ run formations.
The rookie quarterback seemed to be part of the problem, as he was unable to audible out of bad schemes into better ones.
Barkley only had 10 yards rushing the entire game till he busted out with that third-quarter 68-yard jaunt around right end for the touchdown that tied the game at 17 and should have turned this game into a barn burner.
Alas, it did not as the offense went into cower mode soon thereafter and Barkley once again became a non-factor. The tide of the game turned quickly in the fourth quarter, no blame going Barkley’s way on this one.
We love how he’s completely turned around his pass-blocking game. It’s become a big positive. Too bad the offense couldn’t capitalize on it with downfield playmaking, but this week was a tough game to win pretty.
Barkley’s big run, when he went through that hole on the right side like he was shot out of a cannon, was the day’s prettiest by far, but it was the only won that Barkley was involved in.
He touched the ball 20 times, had a total yardage game of 117 yards, and finished the season with 1,002 yards rushing.
Buck Allen: Getting Barkley’s snaps in garbage time, Allen had 1 rush for 4 yards and caught a pass for 9 yards, playing perhaps a dozen or so snaps to finish the game.
Elijhaa Penny: The fullback got a measly one snap, lining up in an off-set eye, and was on the field on a play-action pass that was completed. He left the game with a back injury.
TIGHT ENDS
Kaden Smith: The rookie “find” of the year at tight end, Smith had a couple of glitches in his blocking duties this week, but that’s because he was given greater responsibilities.
On the edge, he was tasked with blocking defensive end Brandon Graham on four separate passing-down snaps, with Saquon Barkley double-teaming on each one but Smith doing most of the heavy lifting.
The duo did a passable job on each of these snaps though it was really asking a lot to deal with the very physical Graham.
Smith, in fact, was called for a rare holding penalty on the first of these pass blocks when Graham overpowered him a bit.
Smith got manhandled on one other running down snap, but the rest of the game his blocking was as pristine as it’s been all year, and that’s saying a lot because the Giants haven’t had this level of blocking from the tight end position in quite some time.
It’s the part of Smith’s game that continues to impress us the most. Also, he just knows how to play every aspect of this game, where to sit down against zones, how to cut off his routes, how not to waste any steps in his movements, and surprisingly finding ways to get open downfield.
He finished with eight receptions for 98 yards, which is darn good production from any tight end, particularly one who blocks so well. He’s contributing on every single down in a significant way.
We don’t care that the “triangle folks” sneer at his slow 40 time—all this kid does is get open, make plays, move the chains, and block the heck out of his man.
People may not think he’s No. 1-tight end material, but we beg to differ. In our eyes, he’s this team’s starting tight end moving forward and he belongs on the field every single down.
Garrett Dickerson: Getting one snap in the IR absence of Scott Simonson, Dickerson blocked a little on a naked bootleg.
RECEIVERS
Darius Slayton: Slayton was shut out/limited in the Washington game in part due to a knee injury, but he came back in this one with a catch early on an in route.
Slayton made a catch on a quick hitch route early in the second quarter. this pass seemed to be there all afternoon, but really wasn’t used, yet another head-scratching decision by the coaching staff.
Finally, Jones was able to catch a deep route in the middle of the third quarter. He came across the field from left to right and beat all the defenders in coverage.
Golden Tate: On the first possession, Golden ran a slant route on Cre’Von LeBlanc and single coverage. Tate needed to get a step on LeBlanc. He did not and the pass was knocked away preventing a first down.
After an easy drop in the middle of the second quarter, Tate made a superb catch extending his body and holding onto the ball after a big hit.
Late in the second quarter, Tate came up with another short reception over the middle.
He made a brilliant catch early in the third quarter in the back of the end zone. Jones was under pressure and got behind Douglas. He had very little room in the back of the end zone but that is all he needed to come up with the catch and the touchdown.
Sterling Shepard: Shepard made his first catch on an out pattern late in the first quarter, running a nice route for the six-yard pick-up.
He closed out the first quarter with a catch on an in route against the zone for a nine-yard gain.
Shepard had Rasul Douglas beat off the line of scrimmage early in the second quarter. The pass was thrown short and a bit late and Douglas was able to close and make a play on the ball causing the incomplete pass.
Shepard went deep down the sideline against Avonte Maddox in the middle of the second quarter but could not get separation on Maddox and although he made a good effort the pass fell incomplete.
Shepard has had a tough time separating on deep routes, as this really is not one of his strengths. However, he did get some separation late in the third quarter but Jones underthrew a pass.
OFFENSIVE LINE
Nate Solder: After last week’s positive effort, it was interesting to see Solder play even better ball this week, handling all of his blocking assignments without a single glitch that we could see.
As mentioned in other reviews, we are always skeptical of players raising their game at the end of lost seasons when the pressure is off.
Some will point to perhaps Solder’s injuries suddenly healing, but there was no doubt how good he was this week. All of the problems came through the inside gaps this week.
Solder graded out the best on his unit and it wasn’t even close. If the team got this level of play out of him throughout the season, we have no doubt a few more wins would be on the ledger.
If he was that bad throughout most of it, this week he was that good.
Nick Gates: Almost mirroring Solder’s performance, Gates was bullied on two pass rushes that we spotted, but otherwise he held his own and more at a tough position against a big-time opponent.
There’s absolutely no doubt in our mind that Gates will be one of the starters on next year’s squad. this team could do a lot worse than lining him up at right tackle, even if his best position is right guard.
His run blocking on the edge was often adequate-to-good this week, while the way he kept himself between his quarterback and his man was as consistent as the day was long.
That he lost his balance on a handful of these rushes, especially late in the game when the Eagles were pinning back their ears, did not entirely take him out of the equation.
He somehow stumbled and bumbled his way to maintain some level of contact and never stopped fighting.
We love his consistent fight level and his smart knowledge of angles. He looks and plays like a mauler at times, but he also plays a smart game with not-great feet, but good-enough footwork.
And he plays a physical style of game. Gates is very much a keeper.
Will Hernandez: If Gates was on the rise, Hernandez was very much on the decline. He had a terrible game, and if not for the worse play of Jon Halapio we would have graded Hernandez at the gutter level where his game belonged.
On the offense’s very first possession, Hernandez failed miserably picking up an inside stunt, the Eagles totally out-scheming the Giants offensive line on this one when Nate Solder correctly blocked down on his inside rusher, leaving Hernandez to protect the edge from the stunt coming from the other side, which Hernandez very much DID NOT.
It was through Hernandez’s gap that Malcolm Jenkins’ blitz came through on the game-turning fumble and turnover down near the Giants' goal line.
The Eagles seemed to be challenging Hernandez’s mental acuity and boy did they win most of those battles.
Most of his problems seem of the mental variety, the more plays the more he looks like he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Anyone suggesting that he be moved to center would be horribly mistaken, as that is as cerebral a position as there is in this game and Hernandez has not shown himself as of yet to be the cerebral type. Physically, he seems to have it all except the long arms.
Hernandez did make up somewhat for all his gaffes by blocking two Eagles well downfield on Barkley’s 68-yard touchdown run and blasting a number of Eagles defenders when he found himself in the right place.
But the mental gaffes were too numerous this week, and they helped blow up this week’s game in the Eagles, favor.
Kevin Zeitler: Zeitler completely whiffed on a first-quarter 2nd-and-1 run, the 3-yard loss becoming a 3rd-and-4, and the resulting incompletion becoming a punt.
Zeitler didn’t have a whole lot of success in the running game either. When you can’t trust your blockers to win one-on-one battles, you can’t expect your back to make two and three tacklers miss per snap.
Zeitler was one of several mismatched run blockers out there this week. His pass-blocking was usually sharp, but the veteran was also party to one of those many free-running blitzers when on one of those snaps his center-guard gap was overwhelmed with numbers, Zeitler allowing the inside man to shoot his gap for the pressure right up in his quarterback’s face.
It was an embarrassing play and embarrassing night for the offensive line, Zeitler and company having no answers for the way that they allowed the Eagles to dominate the line of scrimmage.
Jon Halapio: As bad as Will Hernandez’s mental game was this week, Halapio’s physical shortcomings dominated the pit play in a consistently negative way.
Time and again Halapio failed to get a piece of his man or was simply beaten while blocking air, allowing the Eagles to dominate the line of scrimmage through his completely unacceptable play.
Halapio’s mental game wasn’t much better as his line calls and decision-making contributed to even more of the chaos.
Too many times this season, including this week, he ended up double-teaming someone while allowing the player on his other shoulder to burst untouched through a gap.
Halapio even contributed to the huge game-turning quarterback fumble early in the 4th quarter when his snap was not only low, but he failed to get his blocking set up to prevent Malcolm Jenkins from running untouched into the backfield to knock the ball out of Daniel Jones’ hands.
If a center can have a worse game on an NFL playing field, we haven’t seen it. It was a terrible performance, capping off a poor year.
Halapio had to leave the game with 4:45 left with an Achilles injury for which he had surgery, but regardless if he’s ready for camp, we’d look to upgrade at this position.
Spencer Pulley: Pulley got two possessions worth of snaps in relief of Halapio and did a decent job with his snapping, line calls and help-blocking in the rain.
That he played second fiddle to the offensive line’s worst blocker says enough about the level that Pulley plays at.
DEFENSIVE LINE
Leonard Williams: Williams had a big early knockdown of a 3rd down pass at the line of scrimmage to force a 4th down that eventually turned the ball over to the Giants on downs.
His other big play was his first sniff of a sack as a NY Giant, getting half of it when an Eagles play-action backfired on them as the Giants blitzed two linebackers and Williams collapsed the pocket from the inside.
He had a couple of good hard pass rushes and was his typical tough physical self against the run, though he and his defensive linemates’ terrible short-yardage defense between the tackles
this week at the goal line—Williams and company allowed touchdown runs of 7, 2 and 2 yards on which the back was barely touched on any of them—has to be talked about and fixed.
Williams finished with five tackles and likely cemented his off-season contract, very likely with the Giants.
Dalvin Tomlinson: Tomlinson’s new-found penetration game off the snap affected a couple of snaps positively this week, but most of his game was spent patrolling his gaps at the line of scrimmage and doing all the dirty work that never gets seen or appreciated.
He finished with two assists, was a positive defending the run, but failed to get any legit pressure on the pocket and was too often on the field in those out-manned goal line situations where the defensive line looked completely lost.
Dexter Lawrence: Also doing the dirty work inside and doing it well, Lawrence’s power pass rush push collapsed the pocket from time to time but not often enough.
His one solo tackle did not reflect the level of his play which was good, but he did not flash as he seemed to be playing inside contain on the pocket rather than attacking it.
B.J. Hill: Hill’s strong finish to the season included a couple of heads-up run game tackles this week and one good push on the pocket that ended with a solid lick on the quarterback.
Hill got about 25-30 snaps and acquitted himself well.
EDGE RUSHERS
Markus Golden: Continuing the level of play that he put out there from Week 1 through Week 16, Golden finished with seven total tackles and somehow didn’t credit for a single hit on the quarterback despite buzzing around the pocket on a handful of snaps.
As for his big plays, they included making a big tackle in the backfield to force a 3rd-and-6 (which the Giants’ ridiculous pass coverage scheme handed right back to the Eagles on a platter), and drawing a huge holding penalty on a pass rush to negate another big pass play of 42 yards, again conceded by that terrible coverage group.
The only way to save this defense from itself is for players like Golden to make big plays on the pass rush, as he did on this one. Golden’s complete type of game impacted from start to finish, but there weren’t enough big plays to truly affect the outcome.
That’s no dig at Golden, who has been everything you want an outside linebacker in this defense to be.
Lorenzo Carter: We spotted one lone solid edge pass rush out of Carter this week, one failed contain on a wide run that went for ten too-easy yards, and a handful of alert, disciplined contain plays on his weak side edge that included a 7-yard tackle on an end-around and several naked bootleg pressures that he deftly defended, forcing incompletions.
That is Carter’s strength—his awareness, his discipline, and his ability to make plays in space.
Alas, Carter’s lack of physicality saw him fail numerous times on running downs right at him, being handled easily by a tight end block time and again, and on the Eagles 4th down quarterback sneak found himself lined up over the center of all places and getting predictably abused.
Carter got credit for a hit on the quarterback on one of those naked bootlegs and only two tackles.
He had a handful of positive pass coverages and rushed on passing downs from the inside once again, where he was completely ineffective but used mostly as middle contain to defend against the mobile quarterback.
Oshane Ximines: The rookie’s one play was a big one, coming up big on an early 4th down pass rush from the strongside to affect the play.
Ximines swatted away the offensive tackle’s block, closed down on the quarterback and hit Wentz as he was releasing his pass, affecting the throw into an incompletion and thus turning over the ball back to his offense on downs.
Ximines got about 20-25 snaps this week, mostly on passing downs, and was very active. We liked how he attacked the better of Philly’s Jason Peters and threatened him with hand play and happy feet.
Ximines did work his way into one tackle besides the quarterback hit and finished his rookie season on an up note.
Kareem Martin: Getting about 15 snaps at outside linebacker this week, Martin played with his hand in the ground and looked a bit more like his old self since coming back from his leg injury.
His lone tackle came on a disciplined pursuit vs. a wide run. His pass rushes were inconsequential.
OFF-BALL LINEBACKERS
David Mayo: We continue to be impressed with how sharp all of Mayo’s reads were this week, as they’ve been all year.
Mayo’s strength is his mental game. He knows where to go and when to be there on almost every down.
His coverages in the flat were consistently sharp and effective this week, while he may have missed a small handful of reads against the run but for the most part, was where he was supposed to be.
Mayo produced his best blitz of the year when he found himself running free unblocked through an inside gap right into the quarterback’s grille to share a sack.
He finished with a productive six tackles and lots of reliable positional play.
Deone Bucannon: One of Bucannon’s best plays this week was a lightning-quick read of Miles Sanders leaking out of the backfield and making the tackle in the backfield for a 6-yard loss, forcing a punt.
Bucannon replaced starter Alec Ogletree on passing downs for the first time this year and was often quick to diagnose and react to the proper read.
He missed a handful of tackle opportunities, finished off two tackles of his own, and played a positive coverage game.
Bucannon was not as successful against running plays as he was consistently overwhelmed with size, not unexpectedly since he’s the farthest thing from a power player.
Alec Ogletree: Returning after missing last week’s game with a back injury, the coaches elected to remove Ogletree from the field on sure passing downs which they haven’t done since he took over the defensive captaincy.
His best play of the day was a heavy tackle that he laid on starting Miles Sanders at the sideline in coverage to temporarily knock him out of the game.
Eventually, Sanders had to leave the field and did not return, Ogletree’s hit effectively knocking Sanders out of the game.
Ogletree got caught in several difficult coverage no-win situations that he can only blame on his coaches, giving up a couple of too-easy completions.
Ogletree was bailed out by a bad quarterback throw on one of these match-ups against a much smaller, much quicker back in the slot.
Against the run, Ogletree was rarely to be found though he did finish with five total tackles.
When he found himself in the right place he finished his tackles with gusto we haven’t seen for much of the year, but he wasn’t too often in those right places as he continued to wander around and guess out there rather than diagnose and react.
DEFENSIVE BACKS
Julian Love: On second down on the first possession, Greg Ward made the catch in front of Love for an easy first down, with Love giving too much cushion.
In the middle of the first quarter, Love knifed in and made a tackle in the backfield on Miles Sanders. On this play, he showed really good anticipation.
In the middle of the third quarter, Ward made another easy catch on an out pattern in front of Love, who ended up with a mixed bag of a day.
Michael Thomas: On the first possession, Josh Perkins made the catch in front of Thomas, who—stop us if you’ve heard this before—was too loose with the coverage.
We weren’t sure why he did not lock onto the receiver in his zone, but then again we’re not sure what this defense is supposed to be doing as all too often there is no rhyme or reason to what it’s shown.
On the second offensive possession, Thomas let Dallas Goedert go right down the seam for an easy first down reception. Again, Thomas needed to lock onto the tight end but did not.
A couple of plays later in zone coverage, Thomas closed well and made a nice open-field tackle on Miles Sanders. this was a nice play.
In the middle of the third quarter, Thomas came up and made a nice tackle on Perkins. It was a good tackle, but he was called for a horse-collar on the play causing a 15-yard penalty.
Antoine Bethea: Early in the second quarter, Bethea did not pick up the seam route, and Ward got by him for an easy first down. We’re not sure why he did not move up and pick up the receiver, but again, this defense has confused us all season long.
Goedert went over the middle late in the second quarter, and Bethea was tight on coverage but Goedert was able to come up with the reception. Bethea might be a smart player, but his time has passed him by.
Antonio Hamilton: Starting for the inactive Sam Beal (shoulder), Hamilton drew a bad pass interference call early in the second quarter as he was all over the receiver. We had no problem with the call, but we had a big problem with Hamilton and his technique.
On a deep pass by Carson Wentz early in the third quarter, Hamilton got deep on the play and almost came down with the interception. We really liked this sequence, as Thomas was right there with the deep help.
The only problem was Hamilton did not complete the play with the interception. He came back with a really good play on a slant route. He used his free arm to bat the ball away. Slants are not easy to cover, so this was a very good job.
DeAndre Baker: The Eagles did not attack him until late in the second quarter.
Carson Wentz rolled right and left his zone on the left third of the field and Joshua Perkins came from right to left. Meanwhile, Baker was caught in between and couldn’t recover to make the play, showing poor discipline.
He has improved throughout this season and this is another learning experience for him.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Aldrick Rosas: The Giants placekicker had his most efficient game in quite a while.
His game-opening kickoff was a good, high mortar kick that was muffed by the returner and subsequently tackled at the 7-yard line.
Rosas then converted a chip shot 37-yard field goal, and both of his extra points were stress-free.
Rosas’ three other kickoffs resulted in touchbacks. He finished the season on a plus note, but we’d still bring in competition for him.
Riley Dixon: Three of Dixon’s six punts this week were either downed or fair-caught inside the 20.
He forced three fair catches in total, averaged a solid 42.3 yards in difficult conditions, and yielded only three return yards.
He also handled all of his snapping duties in the rain without incident.
Colin Holba: It was a tough day to deep-snap thanks to the driving rain but Holba was more than up to task, handling all ten of his snaps with accuracy.
Da’Mari Scott: Scott’s first punt return opportunity this week reinforced our impression that he’s just not made for this job when he fielded the punt but then made a bad decision to try and double-back instead of going north-south. He lost three yards on the play.
Scott further enforced his poor feel for the position by failing to come up on a short punt on the last play of the first half from the Eagles’ end zone, allowing the ball to bounce and the clock to click down to zero.
At that point, you’ve got to at least anticipate the short punt in this week’s rainy conditions, and then take the chance to come up hard and either fair catch (to give the offense a chance at least for a Hail Mary) or who knows, get a good return.
Alas, Scott didn’t even try to make a play.
Scott then got a kickoff return chance but was only able to bring it out to his own 17-yard line.
That’s three return opportunities and three failures (of differing degrees) by Scott. That is no way to make an impression on the final chance of the season to make good impressions.
The coaches saw enough of Scott on both return groups and removed him completely from all returns, likely forever.
He did get several chances as a gunner and looked fast and strong, in fact making one of the two punt coverage tackles on the day.
Golden Tate: The veteran receiver with the open field running instincts returned three punts positively this week, with a long of 17.
When he didn’t have room on the outside to exploit Tate wisely took it north-south into the teeth of the coverage and bled all he could out of each.
He also fair-caught stress-free another punt and contributed positively on returns.
Cody Latimer: Latimer returned his first KO opportunity to the 26-yard line, his second one to the 24, his third to the 32, and his fourth to the 24.
He averaged 24.5 on his four returns and did an acceptable job of it.
Cody Core: Finishing his first season with the Giants as a gunner, Core continued to dominate his contain, downing two of Riley Dixon’s punts including the one that came to rest on the 1-yard line but was brought back by a holding penalty.
Michael Thomas: The special teams captain failed again as a punt fullback, called for a legit hold that negated a downed punt at the 1-yard line.
The re-do ten yards back was fair-caught at the 19. After Thomas’ penalty last week turned a re-do into an 82-yard differential, this week 18-yard differential doesn’t seem so bad by comparison.
Thomas got credit for a punt coverage tackle but his failures as a fullback on the punt team will be tough to forget.
Sean Chandler: Chandler was the first man down on the game-opening kickoff muff, his tackle pinning the Eagles’ returner at his own 7-yard line to start the game.
Corey Ballantine: Playing his only snaps as a gunner blocker this week, Ballantine (who was on the injury report with a back issue) was beaten badly on nearly every one of his alleged blocks and didn’t once give his return man a chance to make a play with the ball.
I ON STRATEGY
By Mike Iannaconi
The Giants have now lost seven in a row against the Eagles. In this game, the Eagles were missing a lot of key weapons but that didn’t seem to matter.
The Eagles defensive game plan was to put eight players in the box to stop Saquon Barkley. This plan basically worked as Barkley was held to 92 yards on the ground but if you take out the one run for 68 yards, Barkley was held in check for most of the evening.
Daniel Jones tried to take advantage of the eight men in the box by getting the ball deep down the field to the wide receivers.
The Giants had limited success here for a few reasons.
First, the Eagle cornerbacks, who were beaten down the field in the first outing, were playing a bit looser in coverage in this one.
Secondly, the Giants' receivers really were not able to get any separation from the Eagle defensive backs with any consistency.
Lastly, the Eagles were able to put pressure on Daniel Jones, especially in the second half as they finished the game with four sacks.
We would have liked to see Barkley being targeted in the flat more often and we also would have been liked to see him run more north and south.
The Giants have had a difficult time converting short-yardage situations all season and that continued to be an issue in this one.
As good as Barkley is on short-yardage plays, he needs to make sure that he gets up into the line of scrimmage and move the chains.
A drive that really put an end to the game occurred early in the fourth quarter.
On the first play, the Eagles defense was offsides which resulted in a 1st-and-5. this drive immediately followed the 68-yard touchdown run by Barkley.
In this instance, we would have expected a heavy dose of Barkley to keep the pressure on the Eagles.
Instead, Jones went back to pass and was sacked. This created a 2nd-and- 8 and the next play was a low snap and fumble that gave the Eagles the ball and, essentially, the game.
On defense, the problems that have persisted this season continued in this game.
First Boston Scott came in for the injured Miles Sanders and for the second time this season the Giants made Scott, who was a practice squad player earlier in the year, look like the second coming of Darren Sproles.
Scott had 136 combined yards as the Eagles dinked and dunked the whole game for big yardage down the field.
It was again an issue of the linebackers not getting over to cover the backs underneath. They continue to seem to not read their offensive keys thus not reacting to the play quickly enough.
Scott was open with no one around him which gave him time to build up speed and let his blocks play out in front of him. He made the most of it with another stellar afternoon.
The issue with the entire defense continued to be an inability to get off the field on third down. this was a result of a complete defensive breakdown.
First, the defensive front, other than Markus Golden, were not able to get any consistent rush on the quarterback.
Secondly, as we alluded to, the linebackers were poor in pass defense.
Lastly, the defensive backfield was not able to play zone coverage properly. As we have mentioned a defensive back needs to cover the receiver in their zone and when a receiver leaves his zone, he must pass the receiver to the next responsible defender. this just didn’t occur.
One defender would release from coverage but there would be no one there to take over.
Some members of the defensive backfield did get better this season but on almost every drive there was a key breakdown that sends the entire defense backward.
ADVISORY
This issue marks the end of our 2019 coverage and our weekly cycle. We will begin our monthly coverage in late January/early February.
PDF FORMAT
You can download the PDF of this issue here.
