Big Blue View
The New York Giants blew an 18-point lead in the final six minutes during their collapse in Denver against the Broncos on Sunday. New York continues to find frustrating ways to lose football games, while making history:
The Giants surrendered four straight touchdowns before Bo Nix drove Denver 56 yards on four plays in 37 seconds to set up Wil Lutz’s 39-yard field goal to win the game, 33-32. The amount that had to go wrong for the Giants to find themselves in that position – it’s astounding, but should it be at this point?
There were plenty of positive takeaways from the Giants, who dictated on both offense and defense for 75% of this game. Nevertheless, they leave Denver with another loss, as the seats for Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll continue to sizzle. Here are five plays, or sequences of plays, that were noteworthy.
The Brian Daboll regime just can’t figure out the kicker situation. Week 2 against Washington in 2024 was a catastrophic loss, where the Giants entered the game with an injured Graham Gano, then suffered another injury chasing down Austin Ekeler on the opening kickoff, so New York played the rest of the game with no kicker. The 38-year-old then injured himself this year in his Week 3 pregame warmups against Kansas City.
Since that injury, the Giants have signed Younghoe Koo to the practice squad, but they’ve opted to trot out international pathway player, Jude McAtamney, who missed an extra point last week. McAtamney has a big leg, but is inconsistent and unreliable. His longest field goal is 31 yards since he took over for the injured Gano. Gano’s inability to stay healthy, coupled with the Giants other kicking options, have lost this football team multiple games. It’s easy, and correct, to point at last week’s missed extra point and ask – why is Koo still on the practice squad?
Paulson Adebo exited the game with an injury, which forced Tae Banks into the lineup. The Giants defense gave up three consecutive touchdowns, including this go-ahead score with less than two minutes left in the game:
Banks is an incredible liability in run defense. He, AGAIN, chose to go inside of Garrett Bowles (72) on this QB boundary pin-pull concept. It’s inexcusable at this point. Banks also surrendered a few other plays and just should not see the football field defensively anymore. This play above could have been in Play(s) 3, but the play of Tae Banks deserved its own “Play.’
The Giants surrendered 33 fourth-quarter points – 33 POINTS in the final quarter of play, to blow their 18-point lead and render the subsequent points scored insufficient. It’s mind-boggling, frustrating, concerning…there’s a lot of words that could describe it, but it’s NOT GOOD!
The Giants also allowed two 2-point conversions and the Broncos drove 56 yards in 37 seconds with no timeouts to...
