The New York Giants improved their record to 2-5 on the season with a hard-fought 14-7 victory over their long-time divisional rivals, the Washington Commanders, on Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
Here are a few things we learned in Week 7.
Everyone has problems
The Giants have had a ton of issues this season, mainly injuries, but have played well under their talent level through seven weeks. Looking around the league — and at this Washington team — the Giants aren’t alone in their misery.
The Giants weren’t perfect by any stretch but the Commanders were absolutely terrible on Sunday. They committed 10 penalties, allowed the Giants to rack up a season-high six plays of over 20 yards, went 1-for-15 on third down on offense, and appeared to be completely incapable of protecting quarterback Sam Howell.
Everyone has problems. What separates the good teams from the bad is the manner in which they deal with them. From here, we’ll see which category the Giants are in.
This defense is actually pretty good
As stated, coordinator Wink Martindale’s unit held the Commanders to just 1-for-15 on third down and had more sacks in the first half this game than they had all season.
For the third week in a row, the defense had a turnover when rookie cornerback Deonte Banks recorded his first career interception.
Nose tackle Dexter Lawrence was inexplicably underestimated most of the game by the Washington offensive line and he had a monster game.
Dexter Lawrence generated a team-high 8 pressures against the Commanders, his most pressures in a game since Week 10, 2022.
Lawrence was double-teamed at his lowest rate this season (40.5%); 4 of 8 pressures came against center Nick Gates (on 29 matchups).#WASvsNYG | #NYGiants
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) October 22, 2023
The defense should have also scored a touchdown on Sunday, but linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux dropped a sure interception deep in Washington territory which would have essentially buried the Commanders.
The special teams are awful
The punt return operation is a mess. Eric Gray continues to have ball security issues and now so does Sterling Shepard as both lost punts in this game.
The coverage teams aren’t a whole lot better and kicker Graham Gano missed a 42-yard field goal.
The one bright spot was Leonard Williams’ block of Joey Slye’s 27-yard attempt that kept the score at 14-7.
