Pats Pulpit
After 12 weeks of football, the New England Patriots are close to their bye week. There is one hurdle left to clear: the New York Giants, who will visit them at Gillette Stadium on Monday night.
A lot has happened for both teams since they met in preseason in August. So, to find out more about the Patriots’ Week 13 opponent, we spoke with Ed Valentine of Pats Pulpit’s sister site Big Blue View, the SB Nation community for all things Giants.
Here is what he told us about the upcoming game and opponent.
1. Are you expecting to see Jameis Winston or Jaxson Dart on Monday night? How has the pass game adapted to each quarterback?
I would expect to see Dart. Concussions, though, are difficult to predict and I expected to see Dart last Sunday when the Giants played the Lions. He practiced all week and took the majority of first-team reps on Friday, then still did not clear the protocol.
Jameis Winston can still sling the rock. His Average Depth of Target of 10.3 yards per pass would lead the league if he had enough pass attempts. Dart’s is 9.4, and that is second in the league behind Sam Darnold among starting quarterbacks.
The Giants, even without Malik Nabers, want to go vertical. That isn’t going to change regardless of who is at quarterback.
FWIW, Dart is the future. He is the Giants’ engine. He is the guy for them. The team, though, loves to play for Winston. You should see the smiles that light up guy’s faces whenever they are asked about Winston. It’s pretty remarkable.
2. How has the ground game looked without Cam Skattebo?
Skattebo is a good, exciting player. Everybody forgets, though, that Tyrone Tracy had nearly 1,200 total yards of offense last year, entered this year as the Giants’ RB1, and is a really good player. In the last two weeks, Tracy had 139 yards from scrimmage vs. the Packers and 130 vs. the Lions.
The Giants are using Tracy as the primary back and Devin Singletary as more of the short-yardage or Red and Black zone back.
The offensive line is not a mauling, blow defenses off the ball line. Run blocking can be an issue. Mike Kafka, though, has continued to evolve the running game and has used different blocking and running schemes, more or less probing to find some way to be efficient running the ball. It’s been effective enough.
3. Which underrated player on offense and defense do Patriots fans need to know?
On offense, I already talked about Tyrone Tracy, so I will say second-year tight end Theo Johnson. He is a guy former head coach Brian Daboll used to show clips of Rob Gronkowski as a teaching tool. Johnson is 6-foot-6, 264 pounds and had been developing nicely. He has at least three catches in eight of the last nine games, and has become a guy Dart and Winston have been begun to look for to...
