BiteyMax's Next Day "Non Emotional" Thoughts

My “Non-emotional” thoughts from yesterday’s game. As always feel free to post your own, argue with mine etc…


Giants 23, Jaguars 17 as we improve to 6-1 on the season. You can look at this game in one of 2 ways, we either won by 6pts or 6 inches depending on if you’re an optimist or pessimist. I prefer to look at it like this, the second the game is over you either win or lose, we won.

The Jaguars were an interesting opponent. 2-4 coming into the game yet favored by 3 points, the have a good coach (even though I hate the guy) and a very talented young QB. In addition to all that they’ve had a ton of draft capital over the past few years and have some exciting young defenders to boot. I wouldn’t be shocked to see this team go on a run towards the end of the year and at times, it really looked like they would win the game yesterday. Again though, we overcame some deficiencies, tightened up in the 2nd half and made plays when they were needed, all despite some horrid calls by the refs late in the game. This is an example of a game we lost over the past few years, our defense folded at the end, couldn’t overcome bad calls etc… This win is a good example of improvement.


Offense:

QB – Jones 19/30 for 202 and 1TD, no INTS (1 called back). In addition to this he added 107 yards rushing on 11 carries with an additional TD via the ground. Not only are his stats good but they become more impressive when you factor in the number of drops our WRs had yesterday. I haven’t seen the official numbers posted but I counted 5 legit drops with a few also coming in big spots where Jones made a good throw/read. As has been the theme, Jones has shown subtle improvements weekly. He was a touch faster getting the ball out and only took 1 sack climbing the pocket. I’ve dedicated to giving myself the whole season to give the yes or no on Jones, but yesterdays game is a big check in the positive column.

RB – To me this game was a great example of Saquon Barkley’s growth as a player. You look at his 24 for 110 stat line and immediately think he must have run wild. This wasn’t really the case. For the bulk of the game the Jaguars were really shutting Saquon down and our run game was netting us nothing. To Barkley’s credit, he didn’t revert to his old running style, stayed with it and wore out the defense. Once we got to the 4th quarter, more importantly under 4 minutes, he ran wild. Matt Brieda also added 4 carries for 19 yards and had a 15-yard reception on a well-drawn up play.

WR – I’m going to start with the bad and end on a positive note. 5 drops by my count… not acceptable in the NFL. I’d even say Slayton’s TD, which was a very good route and throw, wasn’t caught cleanly either. I’m not going to beat a dead horse on this as it’s the same every week, but we need better. To end on a positive note, I liked what I saw from Wan’Dale Robinson. While he is another that body catches, he’s acrobatic attacking the ball in the air, sudden in his movements and plays hard. The kid will never be a Justin Jefferson, but we talk about role players who have a job and can consistently do it, I’m hoping he can be that.

TE – Hoping Bellinger’s eye is okay; he’s played well this season and we’re thin at the position as is. Outside of him not much other than a couple receptions from Myarick who seems to define the term “serviceable” when put in. My disclaimer of this group is its always hard to tell their blocking without watching all 22, which I don’t have access to.

OL – We had to overcome some adversity in this one. Neal, who has been playing well went down with an injury as did Ben Bredeson who has also improved over the past few weeks. We played over half the game with Josh Ezedu and Tyree Phillips at LG and RT respectively. The net was us rushing for over 200 yards and only giving up 1 sack, which I actually can’t put on one of our OL via how the play went. By no means the dominate outing the stats would show, but they played well enough, specifically when you factor in losing 2 starters. We talk about signs of better coaching; this was a huge one.


Defense:

DT – This is a game where I’d really like to sit and study all 22 (I should subscribe honestly…). Watching how easily the Jaguars ran on us had me perplexed. While via the views we see on TV I saw a lot of our LBs getting caught up in the wash and unable to purse the outside runs, there is some responsibility on the DTs to keep the blockers off the LBs. While I saw Dex flash as a pass rusher (that wasn’t roughing the passer BTW…) I didn’t see much from Leo. Knowing Williams came back from an injury that has kept a couple of our other players out for longer durations, I’d question if he’s 100% healthy. I didn’t see or hear much from the 2 back ups in Ellis and Williams. I do believe I heard Ryder Anderson’s name called once.

OLB – I’m separating this from MLB again. I have 2 views on this group. I felt like we lost the edge quite a few times yesterday, without knowing the assignments on the play its very hard to put this on them, but the number of times we lost it tells me it was the fault of the OLB at least once. This isn’t the only game this year where this has been an issue and I’d expect to see offenses attack this going forward. Not to have this all doom and gloom, I thought Thibs did a much better job rushing the passer than his stats would indicate. In addition to a few pressures, I counted 3 times where he was clearly held, and it wasn’t called. As he establishes himself as a player, he’ll start getting those calls, but I still think he has a big multi sack game coming. He’s so close…

MLB – I’m comfortable calling this the weak part of our defense at this portion of the season. I see both missed gaps and missed tackles from this group on a regular basis. I thought Tae Crowder was exploited specifically as he was continuously fooled by ball fakes, caught up in the wash and missed some important tackles. It was hard to tell where Collins lined up, but he did seem to play MLB in dime packages, interesting to see if this is a trend moving forward or just part of an individual game plan. Kudos to Jaylon Smith for good coverage on a wheel route that could have been a TD.

CB – Fabian Moreau should be on top of everyone’s “playing better than I thought he would” list. Not that the Jaguars are rolling out a WR core like the Dolphins or Vikings, but they have better WRs than we do… Moreau not only played a solid game but came up with big plays in big situations. Adoree Jackson had a solid but not spectacular game as well. Nick McCloud should get some credit for doing his job when Adoree went out for a few plays. Remember, Lawrence threw 43 times for 0 TDs yesterday…

S – I’m comfortable saying that the biggest plays of the game yesterday came from Xavier McKinney. First was early in the 3rd quarter when the Jaguars were marching down the field and very much looked like they were going to score a TD. Etienne broke through the line with only McKinney to beat who not only made the 1 on 1 tackle but got a good punch on the ball and caused a fumble, 7 points saved. Flash forward to the last play of the game, who is there driving the WR away from the end zone and making a game saving tackle? Xavier McKinney.


Coaching:

I go to our first drive of the game when we scored a first possession TD for the first time in way too long. Even though this offense runs through Barkley our coaching staff came out and threw the ball all over the field as we marched down the field for a TD that almost looked to easy. The reality is the coaching staff clearly realized and anticipated what Jacksonville was going to be doing and took advantage of it. Flash forward to the 2nd half, again we outscored our opponents after half time adjustments were made and won a game, we were trailing in. Why do I point these things out? They’re signs of good coaching. Our coaches plan well, adjust well and for every game outside of the Dallas game this season, have given us an advantage against our opponents.

I mentioned this in some of my positional comments but look at the number of players that were thrown in the game on the fly yesterday. Josh Ezedu, Tyree Phillips, Chris Myarick, Nick McCloud… How many times did those 4 hurt us yesterday? I counted 0. As an offense should do you watched the Jags attack Nick McCloud downfield on his first snap. Where was he? Right at the WRs hip to force an incompletion. I could go further back in the year and find examples of things like this all over the place because its even happening with starters elevating their play. While a lot of credit must go to the players themselves, what we’re seeing is good coaching at play. I’m very excited to see if we can add enough talent to this team prior to someone from the league poaching one of our coordinators to be a head coach…


Conclusion:

Very odd game to me. At times I said to myself “Okay, this is why Vegas had us as an underdog” while other times I honestly started thinking about watching our first playoff game. The reality is we’re a well-coached team with some good players at important positions, but we still have a lot of holes. Holes aside, our players have become very adapt at making a big play when needed. If you ask me what the difference in this game was, it was that. Our coaching staff has taught these players to win.

Looking at next week, the Seahawks are like us as they’re better than most thought they’d be. Personally, I think this is a tough game for us. They run the ball well which is something they struggle with, and they’re very adapt at creating big plays for their offense. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses, they match up well against us. As will be a theme over the next 10 games, lets see what gameplan our coaching staff comes up with to adjust.