Big Blue View
If there was one game I had chalked up as a loss for the 2025 New York Giants before the season even began, it was this road trip to play the Detroit Lions. The Lions are loaded and were a preseason favorite to contend for a Super Bowl berth. They’re a very physical team and bullied the Giants when they last played in 2022. The Lions lost both coordinators in the off-season, though, and they found themselves on the fringe of the playoff hunt at 6-4 entering the game. Still, with Jaxson Dart not yet cleared to return and a jayvee starting secondary and linebacking corps, the Giants figured to be raw meat for the Lions.
Well, surprise, surprise, this was anything but a blowout. But no surprise: Another blown 10-point fourth quarter lead and another loss. The Giants are nothing if not consistent. What did we learn from the Giants’ 34-27 overtime loss to the Lions?
The feeling is that Mike Kafka has little chance to be selected as the Giants’ next head coach once the season ends. One problem is, the other contenders are flunking the interview already. Last week Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley was supposed to strut his stuff against the Giants’ offense, and the Giants, without their starting quarterback and best wide receiver, moved the ball well despite a fierce wind and they almost won. Next!
This week, it was former Giant Kelvin Sheppard trying his luck as defensive coordinator against the Giants’ offense under more clement conditions, and the Giants racked up 399 passing yards and 122 rushing yards. Next!
I can quibble with some of Kafka’s tendencies as a play caller. In particular, the Giants’ offensive line is not great at run blocking overall, and Kafka, when deep in his own territory, seems to have this tendency to run the ball on first and second down and get the Giants’ offense into third-and-long situations. In his defense, the Giants do seem to eventually wear out opposing defenses and run a lot more effectively in the second half. Other than that, though, Kafka is a fairly aggressive play caller. In the absence of his best offensive players, he dialed up some creative plays today, including the never-before-seen Jameis Winston-handoff-to-Gunner Olszewski-pass-to-Jameis TD play. It made people forget about the earlier toss-to-Devin Singletary-toss-back-to-Jameis-39 yard TD pass to Wan’Dale Robinson.
You can disagree with his strategy late in the fourth quarter when the Giants had fourth-and-goal at the 6-yard line and chose to go for the TD to ice the game rather than kick the field goal to go up six points and force Detroit to score a TD to win outright. In fact, the right answer is not obvious. Here are two different analytics tools, one from Ben Baldwin of rbsdm.com and the other from ESPN Analytics. They come to different conclusions about the right call:
Of more importance for a head coach, Kafka seems...
