The New York Giants were defeated by the Philadelphia Eagles, 48-22, in a divisional matchup on Sunday afternoon.
The defeat brings the Giants to 7-5-1 and fourth in the NFC East. This is the fourth straight game without a win for Big Blue and they will desperately need to get back in the win column against the Washington Commanders.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what we saw during the game and how we graded the Giants in this loss.
Offense: D
The offense once again fell short due to many of the same issues over the past few weeks.
The offensive line remains the biggest issue for Big Blue as they lose this matchup every week. The unit gave up 12 quarterback hits and seven sacks. The constant pressure that Daniel Jones and Tyrod Taylor were under made things very difficult for New York and resulted in a fumble for Taylor as well.
The offensive line was not any better in the run game as Giants’ running backs had another bad day on the ground. Specifically, Saquon Barkley only rushed for 28 yards as he has cooled off after his hot start to the season.
Nothing was going well for the offense on Sunday but the one silver lining is that Jones was efficient passing the ball as he finished with 169 yards and a touchdown with a 96.1 passer rating.
Defense: D
The defense was horrid on Sunday. The Eagles were able to score on 8-10 drives (not including one-play drives at the end of halves), six of them being touchdowns. The first three drives of the game for Philadelphia were touchdowns, which put New York in an awful situation.
Much of this failure came from a complete inability to stop Jalen Hurts. The third-year quarterback passed for 217 and two touchdowns while also adding 77 yards and a touchdown rushing. The Giants seemed to have no answer for anything that Hurts dialed up as he cut through the defense like it was butter. Miles Sanders also caused a lot of problems for Big Blue as he rushed for 144 yards and two touchdowns.
The only silver lining from this performance was that Giants’ pass rushers were able to generate some solid pressure at times as they recorded four sacks on the day.
Special Teams: D+
It was a roller coaster performance for the Giants’ special teams unit on Sunday.
To start things off in the punt game, Jamie Gillan had by far his worst game of the season as he muffed a snap and then drew a penalty, causing the Giants’ to cede amazing field position. The Eagles also returned four punts for 29 yards. Things were not much better in the kickoff coverage game as Boston Scott had 117 total return yards including a 66-yard return.
However, saving the day, Elerson Smith blocked one punt which would set up the Giants’ first touchdown. And Graham Gano did his job to the fullest as he made both of his extra-point attempts.
Coaching: D
While the Giants were seriously out-manned on Sunday, it was no excuse to have such an awful performance. Allowing 21 straight points is unacceptable and Brian Daboll needs to do a much better job than this. He has fallen off from a Coach of the Year candidate to someone who may not lead his team to the playoffs. The halftime adjustments need to improve and the overall game plans need to be better so that the Giants can compete in these games (especially rivalry games).
As for the coordinators, it seems like a broken record but Mike Kafka has simply not been cutting it over these past few weeks. The playcalling remains very vanilla and other than the designed quarterback runs, he lacks play calls that can get his playmakers in space (which is something that needs to be done when you have very little).
On the defensive side of things, this was one of Wink Martindale’s worst performances. The Giants came in knowing that Hurts was dangerous with his legs and helped spark the Eagles’ run offense. However, New York still allowed 253 yards on the ground in the game as they were bullied from start to finish.
In addition, the Eagles were 6-11 on third downs and 1-1 on fourth downs, which are two categories that Martindale was winning earlier in the season. Instead, the Giants failed drastically to get the Eagles off the field.
