The New York Giants crumbled in the fourth quarter against the Green Bay Packers in Week 13, allowing a very close game to get out of hand in a hurry, ultimately sending Big Blue to consecutive loss No. 8.
But forget all the negatives for a moment. In a season overloaded with pessimism, let us instead focus on some reasons for optimism.
Case in point: defensive back Julian Love.
Love was thrust into a larger role a week ago against the Chicago Bears and played quite well. He drew his first NFL start in place of the injured Jabrill Peppers in Week 13 and again, he played well.
In fact, Love was the highest-graded Giant on the day courtesy of Pro Football Focus.
What’s most impressive about Love’s play wasn’t necessarily the PFF grade, but the utility that led to his grade.
In PFF ReFocused, they offered more praise of Love, while taking aim at Janoris Jenkins and Sam Beal for poor performances, although we clearly did not see the same things they did when it came to Jenkins, who surrendered zero receptions to the players he was assigned to cover.
One of the bright spots for the Giants’ defense was the play of rookie Julian Love. Love was able to come up and make plays in coverage with his sure tackling, and he did his best to keep the Packers off schedule.
The Giants’ other cornerbacks did not make many positive plays. Sam Beal and Janoris Jenkins were both beaten deep this afternoon. Jenkins also really struggled to tackle and was run over on a couple of occasions. Beal was charged with giving up a touchdown as well as a pass interference penalty.
Despite his three-interception day, rookie quarterback Daniel Jones also graded out relatively well.
The grade of Jones is somewhat ironic given that we’ve seen PFF give Manning a “0” grade on a touchdown pass previously, so there may be some personal bias going into these grades, but that’s not exactly any sort of revelation.
Either way, Giants fans have a reason for optimism in Love, who could turn out to be one of the steals of the 2019 NFL Draft.
