Biteymax's Next Day "Non-Emotional" Thoughts

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


Overview:

Giants 15, Dallas 20: I mentioned yesterday that this game was a “Giant Opportunity” for this team. Dallas was weak in the secondary, not playing well and haven’t been able to stop the run at all. Not that we’ve played perfect football for the past three games, but the team was coming off its best outing of the season while Dallas was beat up badly by The Ravens. Everything lined up well for a winnable game but again, this team fails to capitalize on an opportunity that’s sitting right in front of them. 5 field goals vs 0 TDs leads to us losing a winnable game and falling to 1-3. While part of me would like to call out that we lost the 2 Dallas games by a combined 72 points last season and refer to this as progress, I’m tired of the “feel good losses” that The Giants have picked up over the last 10 years. We need to start winning games like this. This loss was indicative of the stink of loosing that is stuck to this franchise. We had an opportunity, we didn’t capitalize.


Offense:

1 – It was the tale of two offensive lines last night. Starting with the pass blocking, I can’t remember a Giants QB having as much time to throw in a Dallas game as Jones did last night. It’s been a very long time since we’ve afforded a QB consistent clean pockets and only allowed one sack against this team. Typically, we look at the stat sheets the next day and see gaudy sack numbers and wake up to Demarcus Lawrence, Micah Parsons, Randy Gregory, etc… highlights on Twitter. The pass blocking wasn’t perfect last night, there was some pressure, but the line gave Jones more than enough time to operate the passing game. On the flip side, we should have gouged this team in the running game and just absolutely failed to do so. 24 rushes for 26 yards against this unit is horrible, we won’t win games running the ball like this.

I’m glad the bar has raised on what we view as good and bad with the offensive line. In the past the Dallas D-Line would physically wreck us, we went toe to toe with them last night, so take that as a positive for the future. With all that being said, the run blocking was putrid.

2 – We’ve heard the John Mara comments in the past regarding not being able to evaluate Daniel Jones because we have no receivers and no offensive line. Guess what? We do this season and we’re seeing exactly what Jones is and that’s a game manager. While I can watch him play and say he looks more like the QB that randomly took us to the playoffs in 2022, I still can’t say he’s the future of this franchise nor is he anything more than a low-level starter or high level back up. Last night is a great example, he was effective in moving the ball down the field but failed to connect on any big plays other than a 39-yard pitch and catch to Malik Nabers that featured 10+ yards of separation. Multiple deep shots were missed throughout the night and the offense seemed to fizzle out the closer we got to the redzone where passing windows shrink, and QB’s need to make decisions faster. This is what Jones is, it isn’t horrible, but he’s not making anyone on the offense better.

Something else to go with this that I couldn’t help but think when watching last night. Is Jones the only QB in the NFL that when breaking the pocket and buying time never finds an open WR? For years I’ve watched the better QB’s break the pocket on these plays, move out to a spot, reset, then find an open WR deep down the field. With Jones this always turns into a short scramble or throw away. I know I’m nitpicking but it’s just annoying.

3 – It’s been 4 games and I’m getting to the point where I almost don’t need to talk about Malik Nabers anymore. 12 receptions for 115 yards and it almost seemed quiet compared to his first three games. He’s not a good player, he’s already a great player. He’ll be in the conversation for the pro bowl and ROY at the end of the season barring health. Schoen hit on this one. While it’s great to see him playing so well, we need the people around him to step up and we need bigger plays from the other WRs. Outside from Nabers I think only Slayton brought in a reception of over 20 yards, we created none in the running game and Jones missed on a lot of deep shots. In the modern NFL you can’t score points moving the ball at 4 yards per clip. Part of this is Jones and part is the weapons, but the result is 5 field goals vs 0 touchdowns. Speaking of touchdowns, I always have felt that a good TE is your best weapon in the red zone, our TE’s saw a whopping 1 target, 1 catch and 6 yards last night.


Defense:

1 – One bad play from Deonte Banks was the difference in this game. When I look at the defense, he is now the number one guy who I’m banging the table to raise his game. He never gets completely burnt, as a matter of fact he’s usually right with the WR, but he fails to make plays on the ball and last night failed to make a tackle on Ceedee Lamb after the catch that led to a very long TD, which was the difference in the game. Other than that, Lamb had a very quiet game catching nothing but short stuff underneath. Banks has 3 extra days to watch film and work on his craft, the athletic ability is clearly there, its all technique stuff. If he improves this defense takes a big jump.

2 – Since I called out Banks, I’d like to call out Cor’dale Flott for having a good game. Flott has made strides since training camp in both his coverage and his tackling. While he wasn’t exactly lining up against a Ceedee Lamb quality player, his coverage was sticky, and he showed aggressiveness in his tackling. I was pleased with his game and if he could maintain this level of play, we have a CB2.

3 – Clearly the gameplan from last night was not to blitz. As a matter of fact, the one long TD we gave up was due to Dak burning us on an obviously telegraphed safety blitz from the edge. Sitting here the next day I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand I do think this defense plays much better when they’re attacking vs being in a read and react situation. We also seem to rarely get home with just 4 rushers despite the fact we’ve dedicated a lot of resources to our front 4. However, we also held Dallas to 20 points and put our offense in multiple positions to score a touchdown and win the game. The reality is that if you give up 20 points and lose the game, the defense did their job and the offense is to blame. NFL teams average over 20 points a game, we need an offense that consistently goes north of this number.


Coaching:

No major gaffs, no kickers injuring themselves on the opening kick-off, nothing that would make me yell and scream at Daboll. Still, I felt like this was a very boring gameplan on both sides of the ball. Specifically given how bad Dallas’s run defense has been, I was disappointed that we couldn’t come up with a way to take advantage of this. Daboll is very clearly trying to create big plays, Jones just isn’t that type of guy. Watching last night I couldn’t help to think that not only is Jones just not the answer for the future, he’s also not the right QB for the system Daboll wants to run. We’ll see if he gets to coach the replacement in a few months.

I said my piece on Bowen above. Overall, I can say the defense has shown improvement week to week but there are still things to clean up. If Banks learns to play the ball and the line starts getting home with 4 we can be good.


Conclusion:

I’m done with “feel good losses”, we had far too many of them during the Joe Judge era and continuously looking at the bright side is the trap our front office fell into which led to poor roster evaluation. We could have and should have won this game last night; the players should be pissed, and the coaches should be disappointed. Yes, there are building blocks, yes, the team didn’t quit, yes to all that rose colored glasses stuff we’ve said in the past, but this team is at the cusp of taking a step forward and just needs to grab the bull by the horns.

There are 10 days between now and our next game. The coaching staff has a lot of time to regroup, watch film and make some necessary tweaks. I’m hoping they can put together something to get us a win in Seattle.

Just a note: I’m unsure whether I’ll be able to do this thread after the next game. I have a family issue to attend to and will be traveling all day next Sunday, so I don’t know when I’m going to have the opportunity to watch the game. I am going to try and watch somehow and if I can, will do this thread the next day.