The New York Giants defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10, to leave a bad taste in their mouth as they head into the playoffs.
The Giants had a wire-to-wire win in Week 18 as they ended their five-game losing streak against the Eagles. Even at home, the Giants came into this game as pretty heavy underdogs but the team proved the doubters wrong going up 24-0 by the halftime break.
With the win the Giants end the season with a 6-11 record and 3-3 record in the division. New York now owns the sixth overall pick and has a lot to think about this offseason. For now, they are happy to spoil the end of Philadelphia’s season.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what we saw during the game and how we graded the Giants in this win.
Offense: B-
The offense did score 27 points but 24 of those points came in the first half.
The stats looked good as the Giants passed for 306 yards and one touchdown (297 passing yards and a passing touchdown from Tyrod Taylor to Darius Slayton) and rushed for 109 yards (46 yards and two touchdowns from Saquon Barkley).
Slayton has been on fire recently with three straight games with a touchdown and four straight games with at least 60 receiving yards. This will now be Slayton’s fourth year leading the Giants in receiving yards.
Another receiver who had a hot end of the season was Wan’Dale Robinson, who posted 85 yards and five receptions today. He was looking very promising in his rookie year and has come on strong lately.
Even with all of these positives, there are still some negatives. The defense gave the offense many opportunities and Big Blue did not capitalize enough. They only scored touchdowns on three of their six red zone opportunities.
Taylor also had a costly interception in the red zone in which they could have gone up 31 points at the half.
Defense: A
The defense played a near-perfect game on Sunday.
The majority of the Eagles starters were playing in the first half and Big Blue still held them to zero points. While they let up a little bit in the second half, they stood strong when they needed to and made the big plays allowing only 10 points in the game.
A lot of individuals made amazing plays throughout the game as there were three turnovers forced and five sacks. However, no player was better than Xavier McKinney, who made two amazing interceptions on back-to-back drives in the second quarter.
Sadly, none of these three turnovers led to points from Big Blue but they did help to change the tide and stop Philadelphia’s drives. The defense was the strength of the team last season and it looks like it returned over the back half of the season.
Special Teams: C
The special teams unit played up to par on Sunday.
Jamie Gillan had a pretty great day punting the football, having four of his five punts land inside of the 20.
Mason Crosby made his first two field goals and three extra points but the longest field goal was from 24 yards out. He did miss a 45-yard field goal at the end of the game but it was already over at that point.
Coaching: A
Brian Daboll & Co. had a great coaching outing which probably prolonged some of their careers in East Rutherford.
Daboll had a great game plan in which he completely neutralized the Super Bowl runner-ups, earning the first victory of his head coaching career against the Giants’ biggest rivals. The only criticism is that one would wish the team would have kept their foot on the gas for a little longer to not make the game just a two-score contest.
Mike Kafka had a solid outing as he used his playmakers wisely and even added in some plays for Sterling Shepard (the longest-tenured player on the team) in what was likely his last game as a Giant.
Kafka’s playcalling needs to be better in the red zone but it is clear that he had been handicapped by talent all season as the offensive line play and quarterback play were far below average for the majority of the year. For reference, the Giants’ offensive line allowed the second-most sacks of all-time this season.
Wink Martindale had an unbelievably great end to the season. The aggressive nature of a Martindale defense seemed to be lost on this team at the beginning of the year as they were not forcing any pressure and getting little to no sacks or turnovers. However, over the past few weeks, the pressure and sack numbers have been up and that was shown today as the team finished with five sacks and also forced three turnovers.
Martindale will continue to improve this defense next year, especially with the anticipated improvement in talent.
