Big Blue View
The Internet at large has wanted to throw daggers at New York Giants’ defensive coordinator Shane Bowen for Sunday’s historic collapse against the Denver Broncos, letting the Broncos score all five times they had the ball in the fourth quarter and losing, 33-32.
Bowen, of course, deserves his share of the blame. It is his defensive scheme. As head coach Brian Daboll always says, though, losses are “collective.”
A review of the Giants’ defensive handiwork over the final five Denver possessions, covering the game’s final 17:41, shows a cumulatively catastrophic series of errors by the players on the field.
I went through all of this ugliness thanks to the All-22 film from NFL Pro. This comes a day later than I wanted to do it thanks to the Monday Amazon Web Services outage. I understand if you want to move on rather than take this blow-by-blow ride with me, but if you are willing to go through it with me let’s do it.
A reminder: I do not claim to be able to break down film in the intricate way Nick Falato and Chris Pflum can. I do have some context after listening to Carl Banks break things down on Monday’s ‘Bleav in Giants’ podcast. This, though, is more of a layman’s perspective than a deep dive into how each play should have worked.
We will pick up the action with the Giants leading 19-0 and Denver starting first-and-10 at their own 22-yard line with 2:41 left in the third quarter.
Much of this will be a Dru Phillips and Deonte Banks horror show, just to let you know.
I will highlight the key plays and the ones where there are what I see as mistakes or missed opportunities by the Giants. Here we go:
First-and-10, Denver 22-yard line, 2:41 in Q3: J.K Dobbins runs 9 yards. Tyler Nubin misses a tackle that gives Dobbins an extra 5 yards.
First-and-10, Denver 36, 1:25, Q3: Bo Nix hits Courtland Sutton for 16 yards. Banks is close, but not close enough to make a play.
First-and-10, Giants 48-yard line, :47, Q3: Dobbins runs 32 yards to the Giants’ 16-yard line. Carter misses a tackle in the backfield.
First-and-10, Giants 16-yard line, :07, Q3: Dobbins runs for 2 yards. I only highlight this play because Phillips shot into the backfield and missed a tackle that would have been roughly a 4-yard loss.
Now, we move to the fourth quarter with Denver at the Giants’ 2-yard line.
First-and-goal, Giants 2-yard line, 14:17: Not a bad play, but a missed opportunity at a game-changing one. Roy Robertson-Harris gets both hands on a Nix pass and can’t reel in the interception. On the next play, Denver scores and the 2-point conversion makes it 26-8 with 14:14 to play.
That touchdown by Denver was a 2-yard pass to Troy Franklin. Cor’Dale Flott made a fantastic play at the goal line to deflect the ball. Unfortunately, Banks, seeming to assume he was not involved in the play, was...
