Giants Nation
New York had a touchdown called back due to 1 of their 11 penalties. They gave up a punt return for a touchdown, thinking their punter had been run into during the same play. They benched their #1 cornerback after Steelers’ RB Najee Harris hurdled him —the crazy two-point conversion attempt.
And in the 4th quarter, with the game on the line twice, their QB suffered a strip sack fumble and threw a game-ending interception.
Despite the losing record, the Giants’ defense has looked good, and they are even dominant sometimes. The Giants lead the NFL in QB sacks with 35, 5 more than the Denver Broncos. They have three players in the top 14 sack leaders, with overall NFL leader Dexter Lawrence (9.0), Azeez Ojulari (6.0), and Brian Burns (5.0). The team defense is middle of the pack in pass defense but bottom five in rush defense.
Dexter Lawrence is having a year worthy of being the Defensive Player of the Year. He has been an unstoppable, unblockable force for this team. Overall, the defense is young yet very capable of imposing their will on the opponent.
WRs Malik Nabers, Darius Slayton, and Wan’Dale Robinson have all had good games this season. The Giants have found their RB1 in rookie Tyrone Tracey Jr., who ran for 145 yards on 20 carries last night (he had another 20-yard run called back for a penalty) before he left the game with a concussion. TEs Theo Johnson and Daniel Bellinger are solid at both blocking and receiving.
The clear and glaring holes remain the offensive line and quarterback. While the Giants are much better at giving up sacks this year (26 through 8 games) than in 2023 (an astounding 85 sacks), they are still third worst at giving up sacks in 2024. I’ll go on record that a few of the sacks given up cannot be attributed to the line itself. QB Daniel Jones has moved himself into sacks instead of maneuvering within the pocket. He has held onto the ball longer than necessary, too. Head Coach Brian Daboll will typically defend his QB in post-game and weekly media sessions. But for the first time last night, Daboll mentioned a couple of miscues by Jones, which led to the two fourth-quarter turnovers.
So, here the Giants are again at 2-6 for the second year in a row and seventh time in the last eight seasons. The team is essentially out of contention for the postseason before Halloween…again. The NFL trade deadline is next Tuesday, November 5th, at 4 pm EST. [You can consider the Giants to be sellers, but what do they have...
