The New York Giants will be in California Monday night to face a Los Angeles Rams team that got off to a disappointing start with a 27-7 Week 1 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. To preview this game, Evan Craig of SB Nation’s Turf Show Times is our guest for this week’s ‘5 questions’ segment.
Ed: After all of the offseason hype, how shocking was the loss in Australia? How does the team seem to be handling it? How is the fan base handling it?
Evan: Truthfully, I didn’t think it was shocking at all. During my exchange with Niners Nation last week, I even predicted the 49ers to win it. I thought the Rams would stumble out of the gate and make it closer
towards the end; the latter obviously didn’t happen. They had some good moments early on, but failed to maintain that momentum the rest of the way. LA was doomed from the start since they had a ridiculously stupid travel plan, which was getting to Australia just over a day before kickoff. Yeah, they never stood a chance.
The team seems to be handling it the best they can by learning from their mistakes and living to see another day. That’s really all they can do. There’s some slight panic amongst the fanbase. The loss overseas certainly wasn’t how they expected to start a new season while hyped as a Super Bowl favorite. If things continue this way, especially with the schedule toughening up, the panic will only grow louder, but for now, it’s been fairly muted.
Ed: How much does the injury to Myles Garrett take the edge off the return of Aaron Donald? Is Donald expected to play this week? If so, what sort of impact do you expect him to have?
Evan: Quite a bit. Aaron Donald coming back after two seasons out of the league was already iffy enough, and now he’ll likely be asked to do more. Not ideal at all.
Donald should play this week, but how much is unknown. I expect the coaching staff will have him on a limited snap count in the first few games before gradually letting him see the field more. Rams fans shouldn’t expect him to have much impact early on, yet that can change quickly as the season progresses. The defense should be fine, though, as they held up for the most part last season without Myles Garrett or AD in the lineup.
[NOTE: These questions were asked, and answered, before we knew whether or not Donald would play].
Ed: Considering the hype, Matthew Stafford’s age, the Garrett trade, the return of Donald, the Rams’ “push all the chips to the center of the table” mentality, is anything other than a Super Bowl title an acceptable outcome this season?
Evan: That is an extremely fair statement to make … for the most part. This season got off on a bad note, but I don’t expect the negative vibes to last. All contenders have a rough game or two every season. Unfortunately, that bad game happened to the Rams in the opener. However, I don’t entirely believe that if LA fails to win the Super Bowl this season, it’ll be unacceptable. At most, the Rams have next season as well to make a run, assuming all their pieces return for another go.
Ed: If you could take one player off the Giants’ roster and put him into the Rams’ lineup, who would it be? Why?
Evan: Easy — Isaiah Likely. The Rams love their tight ends and use them a ton in various offensive packages. Likely is a solid tight end who is quite effective in the passing game. He would be a fun target for Matthew Stafford, that’s for sure.
Ed: Let’s skip the prediction thing. I will ask you this. If there is a path to the Giants winning on Monday, what does it look like? What weaknesses can they exploit? What, if anything, worries you about the Giants?
Evan: For the Giants to win on Monday, they have to steal a page out of the 49ers’ Week 1 playbook. New York has to play physical football and work to disrupt the timing of the Rams’ offense. San Francisco’s gameplan worked to perfection. The Giants aren’t exactly at the 49ers’ talent level to make that happen, but they’re a young, scrappy team and one that will get better as the season goes on.
NY must attack the offensive line and LA’s new corners. The secondary is working to gel through these first few games with all the new pieces, so lapses and coverage breakdowns are going to happen as they figure things out. What worries me most about the Giants is their running game. San Francisco rushed for 174 yards on them, and now they’re about to face a team that dominated the Cowboys on the ground. Their physicality in that department really stood out to me when watching Sunday’s game, and certainly gave me plenty of “well, crap” moments thinking ahead to this one.
