PFF grades and snap counts from the Giants’ victory over the Raiders

There is a tendency to dismiss the New York Giants’ 34-10 win over the Las Vegas Raiders Sunday, not just because of its implications for the draft, but also because the Raiders are terrible and sat Maxx Crosby and Brock Bowers. That’s not unreasonable. Consider this, though:

• In their opener the Raiders beat the Patriots 20-13.
• In Game 4 they lost to the Bears by one point.
• In Game 9 they lost to the Jaguars by one point.
• They lost twice to the Broncos, once by 3 points and once by 7.
• Just last week they lost to the Texans by only 2 points.

All of those are playoff teams, some of them actual contenders for a ring. In that regard the Giants are a very similar team, having lost close games to many playoff teams this season, often when they had a fourth quarter lead. That’s not to say that either team is good, only that they’re not devoid of talent. How much of the Giants’ failures are due to poor coaching and how much to poor players is difficult to say, but it’s not out of the question to suggest that they are closer to being good than 3-13 makes them seem. In that light, let’s see who played well vs. poorly and how much yesterday.

Offense

PFF grades

First, let’s look at the offense overall:

For a change, the Giants had a number of players who graded at least very good on offense, and only one, Daniel Bellinger, was significantly below average.

Now let’s look at the passing:

Jaxson Dart played well overall. It was more a workmanlike than spectacular performance (no big-time throws, no TD passes), but neither did he put the ball up for grabs, with no INTs or even any turnover-worthy plays. He wasn’t great under pressure, but he did complete 3 of 5 against the fairly infrequent blitzes that the Raiders sent.

Now the pass blocking:

Overall this was one of the Giants’ best pass blocking games of the season. Of course, not facing Maxx Crosby might have affected that just a tiny bit. Marcus Mbow, subbing for Andrew Thomas at left tackle, had a rough time of it with a sack, a QB hit, and 3 pressures allowed, but overall his grade was only slightly below average in 36 pass blocking snaps. The rest of theline except for Austin Schlottman (1 hurry) had a clean game, with Jon Runyan, Jermaine Eluemunor, and Greg Van Roten all grading in the 80s.

Let’s move on to the receivers:

Wan’Dale Robinson unsurprisingly led the pack and had almost half the overall targets. The rest of the receivers were generally OK the few times the ball came their way except Bellinger, who caught two short passes but was unable to come down with his one contested target.

Now the running backs:

Dart was the Giants’ best rusher, as Mike Kafka loosened the reins a little bit. Dart rushed nine...