The New York Giants weren’t given much of a chance to win on Thursday night against the New England Patriots, but Big Blue made it a lot closer than the 35-14 final score would indicate.
While some of the same old issues reared their ugly head, there were definite positives to take from what was one of the Giants’ best defensive showings of the 2019 season.
Here’s what we learned.
Giants D-line can ball
One of the biggest positives we keep seeing week in and week out is the defensive line.
The Pats were unable to get any inside runs going all game long, as Big Blue was getting great push up the middle. New England finished with just 2.8 yards per carry and could only get the ball moving on the ground with outside runs.
While Dalvin Tomlinson and B.J. Hill are both good in their own right, the most impressive of the bunch is Dexter Lawrence. The Giants look to have gotten themselves a real good player in the trenches, with Lawrence getting better every week.
Pat Shurmur’s play-calling can be atrocious
The worst thing that can happen to a young quarterback like Daniel Jones and an offense as a whole is bad play-calling, and we saw that with Shurmur against the Patriots. Two examples came in the first quarter.
On a third-and-1, Shurmur went with an empty set and made it too easy on the Pats defense, leading to a failed third-down attempt. Then, on a third-and-9, Shurmur called for a screen pass six yards behind the line of scrimmage that failed miserably.
People gave Eli Manning a lot of flak for short passes in the wrong situations, but it’s becoming more and more clear that this is a Shurmur problem.
Giants defense played well despite the score
Now, we can’t pretend that the Patriots’ sloppiness wasn’t a help, but the New York defense came to play on Thursday night. In fact, the Pats only mustered up two legit scoring drives, instead capitalized on turnovers and a special teams blunder by the Giants to score the majority of their points.
Not to mention, the Giants defense had to overcome the offense not being able to sustain drives throughout the game. Even with the deck stacked against it, the Giants faced a one-score deficit and had the ball with a little under nine minutes left in regulation.
As we already mentioned, the defensive line was a big bright spot, the Giants actually played well in zone coverage and limited Tom Brady and Co. for much of the game, and the pass rush was sufficient enough to be a difference-maker.
The biggest holes on defense? Grant Haley and David Mayo. Both were just awful in coverage. Are Corey Ballentine and Julian Love really that much worse than Haley?
Giants offense could be Golden at full strength
It’s hard to hold a less-than-stellar performance by Jones and the Giants offense against them when they’re facing off with Bill Belichick and the elite Pats defense. Jones certainly didn’t help himself with some poor decisions and throws either.
However, after seeing Golden Tate’s solid performance in his second game back, fans must be dreaming of what could be. Tate led the Giants with 102 receiving yards and had a 64-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter. Clearly the veteran still has plenty left in the tank.
Now add in Saquon Barkley, Evan Engram and Sterling Shepard to go with Tate, Jones and Darius Slayton, and you could see where this offense has the potential to go with a slew of weapons. That is, if Shurmur doesn’t botch it with bad play-calling.
