Big Blue View
Can the Giants’ defense take care of business in Munich?
The New York Giants will travel to Munich, Germany to take on the Carolina Panthers in Week 10.
The Giants have been significantly better on the road than at home, and it’s tough to get much more “on the road” than traveling to another continent.
This is a game between 2-7 teams, but the Giants are strong favorites and this is widely regarded as the most winnable game on the Giants’ schedule. While the Giants’ record has been disappointing and there have been frustrating failures, mistakes, and miscues in every game, they’ve been competitive. The Panthers, meanwhile, have been largely bad on both sides of the ball and are one of the weakest teams in the NFL.
The Giants have (potentially) winnable games after their bye week, but this will be the Giants’ best chance to keep the flicker of hope alive into the second half of their season.
This game will also be a reunion between newly-acquired edge defender Brian Burns and the team that drafted him. Burns is already familiar with much of the Panthers’ offense, but what can the rest of the Giants’ defense expect when Carolina has the ball?
Panthers’ head coach Dave Canales engaged in some gamesmanship earlier this week and initially refused to say whether Bryce Young or Andy Dalton would start at quarterback.
There’s a case to be made for each quarterback to start — though neither case involves them being a great quarterback. But while they benched Young in favor of Dalton, it’s also pretty clear that Dalton isn’t in the Panthers’ long-term plans.
So it isn’t much of a surprise that Young Canales announced Wednesday that Young would be back in the starting lineup.
It also just so happens that Young is coming off what might be the best game of his career in an upset win over a division opponent. And it’s a game in which he showed the kind of growth the Panthers have been waiting to see from him.
Young is a very undersized quarterback, and lacks the kind of physical traits boasted by other undersized passers like Kyler Murray or Russell Wilson. However, Young was considered to be an elite processor with a sky-high football IQ coming out of college. He was drafted on his ability to understand and process the game, and put the ball where it needs to be.
There were certainly still hiccups in Young’s play against the Saints. There was a slight tendency toward indecision when he had to make extended progression reads, as well as force the ball when he made up his mind where he was going before the snap. That said, he also showed the anticipation, accuracy, and football IQ for which he was drafted.
We’ll start with the first play of the game, which is a quick bootleg rollout.
The play starts with rookie receiver Xavier Legette going...
