The New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots, 10-7, in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Sunday afternoon in a rather ugly contest.
In a battle between two subpar offenses, the Giants came out victorious as they were able to control the game and take care of the ball. With this win, the Giants improved to 4-8 on the season and have now won back-to-back games.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what we saw during the game and how we graded the Giants in this win.
Offense: D
10 points is not anything to hang your hat on offensively.
The Giants offense was far from great on Sunday. They totaled 10 points and 220 total yards on 12 drives. In these 12 drives, they punted eight times. Most of the blame for this ineptitude falls on the shoulders of Tommy DeVito and the offensive line.
The former was a serviceable game manager on the day, passing for 191 yards and completing 68 percent of his passes. He also passed for one touchdown (his seventh on the season) and did not throw an interception. However, it is clear that DeVito is not a threat at the quarterback position at this juncture and his pocket presence and ball security need a lot of work.
The former Illinois quarterback committed a bad fumble in Patriots territory on the first drive of the game on what looked like it would be a statement-opening drive. After this turnover, the Giants punted on its next four drives and only totaled 57 yards combined over that span.
Gaining momentum and rhythm offensively is very important and the lack of consistent offensive line play makes this a very hard challenge for Big Blue. There was no push in the run game (Giants’ rushers totaled just 3.1 yards per carry) and Devito was sacked six times on the day. These problems do not look like they will change any time soon as it seems to be an every-week thing at this point.
The biggest positive on the day for this offense was the rookie receiver Jalin Hyatt who had a breakout game totaling 109 yards on five catches.
Defense: A
The Giants defense was the benefactor of terrible quarterback play from Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe on Sunday. Nevertheless, allowing just seven points on 68 plays is something that deserves praise.
The Giants’ defense has now forced nine turnovers (and six interceptions) in the last two games. When you win the turnover battle you normally win the game and that was the case against New England. Though no turnover was bigger than Bobby Okereke’s interception and 55-yard runback at the end of the first half to set up the only touchdown of the game for Big Blue.
The only real negative on the day from this unit was the rush defense could have been better as the Patriots were able to rush for 147 yards on 4.7 yards per attempt.
The poor tackling from earlier in the season also reappeared.
Special Teams: C
The special teams unit played well outside of one costly play.
Jamie Gillan nailed four of his eight punts inside of the 20 and averaged 45.4 yards per boot.
Randy Bullock converted on his sole extra-point attempt. The reserve kicker also made his only field goal attempt from 42 yards out.
However, bringing down this grade was Bullock sending the opening kickoff of the second half out of bounds allowing for a short field which resulted in the only touchdown that the Patriots scored.
Coaching: B
Brian Daboll was able to come away with a hard-fought win with his seat potentially poised to warm up.
After winning Coach of the Year last season, the wheels have fallen off for Daboll and his staff. Despite this, the head coach came into Week 12 with a solid game plan that led his team to victory. Daboll also called a crucial timeout to ice the Patriots’ kicker so the Giants were able to come away with the win in regulation.
As for the coordinators, Mike Kafka once again did not have the most impressive day. Ideally, you want to convert on more than four third-downs throughout the game and also average more than 4.4 yards per play. The lack of star personnel is a major hindrance but Kafa needs to run a less vanilla offense to help generate more big plays.
One big positive though is the increased involvement of Hyatt, who has shown he has high-level speed and the ability to take the top off of defenses. This will hopefully increase in the coming weeks.
On the other side of the ball, Wink Martindale had a great game plan to expose the lack of passing talent on New England’s sideline.
Martindale’s defense has looked a lot more like his defense in Baltimore these past few weeks with all of the turnovers, passes defensed (seven), and quarterback pressures.
Martindale will have the perfect opportunity to continue this in Week 14 as the Giants will have two weeks to prepare for a Green Bay Packers offense that has struggled at times this season.
