The New York Giants were outmatched on Thursday Night Football by the San Francisco 49ers as they suffered their second loss of the season.
It feels like a broken record because the summary of every Giants game seems to be injuries and getting dominated in the trenches and this game was no different. The 49ers were just the better football team on Sunday and they came out with the 30-12 win.
Buy Giants TicketsHere’s a quick breakdown of what we saw during the game and how we graded the Giants in this loss.
Offense: C-
The offense was slightly underwhelming on Thursday night but expectations were low from the start.
There is not really too much to hope for when you are out two starting offensive linemen and a Pro Bowl running back facing one of the league’s most ferocious front sevens. While you hoped New York could score more than 12 points, San Francisco does have one of the best defenses in football.
However, that is not to say the offense is without blame. For starters, going 3-of-12 on third downs is almost never going to be conducive to playing winning football. Also, 150 total yards and 3.3 yards per play are just very bad numbers.
From a player standpoint, the loss of Saquon Barkley hurt a lot as Matt Breida and Gary Brightwell can not make up for Barkley’s high-end production. This forced the Giants to abandon the run, leaving Daniel Jones to have to make quick passes.
Jones was pretty decent passing on the day as he completed about 69 percent of his passes but only had 4.3 yards per attempt. You would have loved to see him push it down the field more but San Francisco’s pass rush is too strong for this offensive line to handle.
Jones also did not get much help from his receivers as Darren Waller underperformed, even dropping a pass that caused a nail-in-the-coffin interception.
Outside of Waller, no receiver really got too much separation and this is why Brightwell of all people was leading the team in receiving yards until late in the fourth quarter. Shoring up the offensive line needs to be a priority as the Giants can not run a creative offense without it.
Defense: D+
Once again the talent gap was simply too much.
The 49ers offensive line dominated the line of scrimmage, which helped allow the team to rush for 141 yards. The defensive line used to be a strong suit for the Giants last season but that seemed to have vanished as they have been bullied in three games straight.
As for coverage, the Giants dropped way too many interceptions (and still have not forced a turnover on the year) that could have shifted the course of the game. Instead, they allowed both Deebo Samuel (six catches for 129 yards and a touchdown) and George Kittle (seven catches for 90 yards) to have their best games of the season.
The one plus is that the Giants did get a little more pass rush this week than in previous weeks as they got their first two sacks of the season and hit Brock Purdy twice on the day. Overall, Purdy still had a lot of time to throw but this is a nice step in the right direction.
Special Teams: B+
The special teams unit played well in primetime.
Graham Gano netted both of his field goal attempts (and one extra point) with the longest coming from 57 yards out. Jamie Gillan also did a solid job punting as he averaged 52.7 yards per punt with one landing inside the 20 and no touchbacks.
Overall, there were no mistakes and a lot of positives so definitely a big improvement in this unit from the Week 1 disaster.
Coaching: D
A loss is a loss and Brian Daboll inevitably is the man that will receive the blame. It seemed like an almost impossible task to have come up with a game plan to beat San Francisco on a short week but it would have been nice for the game to be more competitive.
The Giants have just looked flat more often than not this year and that falls on Daboll’s head. The penalties also killed New York in this game as they lost 37 yards off of it and extended drives. Daboll needs to get his troops in check as the Giants have a rough three-game stretch coming up.
As for the coordinators, Mike Kafka needs to find a way to create big plays for this offense. No plays over 20 yards is not going to cut it especially when the talent is not there to sustain long drives. It would have also been nice to see Jones in more opportunities to run on the day as he only finished with two carries for five yards.
On the other side of the ball, Wink Martindale had another disappointing outing. The team needs to get off the field on third down and it seemed like too many times they were playing soft coverage behind the sticks. Allowing the 49ers to go 9-of-16 on third down and put up 441 yards is obviously not going to get Martindale a great grade despite the excuses that can be made.
This defense looked a lot better last year with arguably less talent and things need to change quickly in terms of scheme or the Giants may be in danger of having one of the worst defenses in football.
