The New York Giants weren’t supposed to be in the playoffs. The first year of Brian Daboll’s tenure as head coach was supposed to be the start of a rebuild — 17 games to assess who goes and who stays from the failed Joe Judge/Dave Gettleman regimes.
Instead, the Giants went 9-7-1 and made it to the postseason anyway. They upset the Minnesota Vikings on the road in the Wild Card round. Then they looked like a team that wasn’t supposed to be in the playoffs seven days later.
Daniel Jones’ breakthrough season ended with a disheartening performance against an elite defense. He threw for 135 yards and more interceptions (one) than touchdowns while the Philadelphia Eagles sprinted out to a 28-0 halftime lead en route to a 38-7 Divisional Round win.
New York’s nightmare put all its worst tendencies on display. Daboll brought his team to the postseason despite some glaring flaws. He able to outrun those issues for one week in the playoffs, then got pantsed by a division rival to end the season.
So what went wrong? And how can the Giants fix it?
Daniel Jones needs a friend (to throw to)
Jones’ impressive season wasn’t the product of prolific passing numbers. It was never going to be with a depleted receiving corps that lost Wan’Dale Robinson to injury, traded away Kadarius Toney and never got much from $72 million man Kenny Golladay in the first place. The team’s top three wideouts were Darius Slayton, Richie James and Isaiah Hodgins.
This worked out fine in the regular season and against the Vikings’ 26th-ranked passing defense. Then came Philly and its top-ranked unit. Suddenly, the group we expected to be a problem all year became a problem. Jones did a good job protecting the ball and avoiding throws into traffic. But traffic was all he knew. No one could get open.
Here’s a second quarter third down throw away that highlighted the team’s struggles.
Jones had nearly seven seconds from snap to unloading that ball after creating extra room with his legs. But he had no choice but to throw the ball away because this was the coverage he was staring down.
Things only got worse when Philadelphia brought pressure. Not only did that overwhelming a growing, but still flawed, offensive line — but it forced Jones to look quickly for targets that weren’t there.
Getting Robinson back will help, but he’s one man mostly deployed near the line of scrimmage (which would immensely help in plays like the one above). If Jones is going to stick around — and it seems likely, whether by contract extension or franchise tag — he’ll need help to keep 2022’s efficiency afloat.
it's a great night to be a Giants fan pic.twitter.com/EW35xrgZsp
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) January 22, 2023
The run defense was a disaster
The other massive concern was a run defense that ranked dead last in DVOA through the regular season. New York had a Pro Bowl defensive tackle in Dexter Lawrence but little lane-clogging help around him. That unit gave up 5.1 yards per carry in the regular season. The Eagles took an early lead and, while gaining more than six yards per carry, used that leverage to grind down the clock (more than 35 minutes of possession!) en route to a 31-point win.
Lawrence, obviously, can stay. Leonard Williams, his running mate up front, remains a solid option. But the linebackers behind them — Jaylon Smith and Jarrad Davis, who came on in relief of Tae Crowder after he was released in December — each struggled mightily to shed blocks and stop the ball. The Giants ranked sixth in pressure rate this season but that 24.3 percent mark was significantly lower than their league-high (by a considerable amount) 39.7 percent blitz rate.
Essentially, the Giants’ defensive plan was to blind you with chaos at the line of scrimmage and clog lanes through quantity, not quality. It didn’t work — New York didn’t even finish with a top 12 sack total — and it failed to paper over the flaws of a run defense that wasn’t especially good at stopping the run.
How can the Giants fix this?
The first offseason decisions to smack this team in the face will be extensions for Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones. One of them can be retained with the franchise tag — at least for the short-term while working out a possible extension but possibly for all of 2023.
I talked up what a Jones contract would look like here. The Giants may be hesitant to give Barkley a big deal based on how Derrick Henry has aged in a similar high-usage role with fewer injury concerns in his early years, but there’s no denying the former No. 2 pick’s role in the team’s rise. Re-signing him, even at more than the team may like, will be a priority.
That will eat up a fair amount of the team’s projected $54 million in cap space. The good news is that number is still the third-highest in the league, so there’s going to be money left over to add new veteran talent. There aren’t a lot of great off-ball linebackers set to hit the open market, but prying someone like Tremaine Edmunds or Germaine Pratt could be the first step toward fixing that run defense.
As mentioned above, a healthy Wan’Dale Robinson will provide some help in the receiving corps. Slayton, James and Sterling Shepard are pending free agents and, in a down market for wideout help, could get more cash than the Giants may want to pay. Keeping Slayton as a deep burner and Robinson for the short range would create room to add a versatile every-down threat like Jaxon Smith-Njigba — who I have sliding to the late first round in my latest mock draft — Josh Downs or Zay Flowers with the 26th pick of this spring’s draft.
That’s not an unimpeachable receiving corps. Maybe this team kicks the tires on a DeAndre Hopkins trade or reunites with Odell Beckham Jr. in order to bring in a veteran WR1. Neither would be a long term option, but the only thing that matters right now is 2023.
Once the Jones and Barkley situations are set, Brian Daboll’s two biggest offseason problems to fix are his receiving corps and his run defense. Viable solutions remain at each level and, thanks to a third-place finish in the NFC East, 2023’s schedule will be forgiving.
There’s room for the Giants to return to the playoffs next winter. They wont get there without some significant fixes this spring.
