The curse of The Linc has finally ended, and while it wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t dominating, it was a win, and a division win, nonetheless. The New York Giants now have about a two in three chance of winning the NFC East Division. That is probably their only avenue to the playoffs since most teams in the NFC North and NFC West are likely to finish with better records, but the Giants will take whatever they can get. Let’s take a look at Pro Football Focus grades and advanced stats to better understand
who played well and who didn’t against the Eagles.
PFF grades: Offense
Jameis Winston showed why he is the ideal NFL backup quarterback. Pressed into action after J.J. McCarthy’s hip pointer in a game that was hanging in the balance with the Giants behind 8-6, Winston coolly led the Giants to the go-ahead touchdown that turned the game around. He finished 6 of 8 for 71 yards and the TD to Isaiah Likely and was credited with one big-time throw. J.J. McCarthy didn’t play great early on when the Eagles’ defense seemed to be taking away his first reads and they were getting pressure on him, but he came back onto the field and gutted it out after his injury and overall played pretty well, with two big-time throws credited by PFF.
The flip side to the good quarterback play was the subpar offensive line play. The pass blocking was not bad. Bryan Hudson continues to play at least adequately at center, though he did surrender one sack. Jon Runyan gave up a hit and two hurries and Sisi Mauigoa a sack and a hurry, which are not terrible results against that tough Eagles interior defensive line. Andrew Thomas got an average pass block grade but only gave up one hurry, while Jermaine Eluemunor had a completely clean stat line and an excellent pass block grade. It’s in the run game that we see the offensive line’s shortcomings. Every starting lineman besides Hudson had a below average run block grade, and Mauigoa, Runyan, and Thomas all had terrible run block grades. If the Giants do manage to trade for Jonathan Taylor, don’t expect him to look like the JT that ran behind Quenton Nelson all those years in Indianapolis. Why was the line so bad Sunday when it looked good in Houston? Most likely because the Texans’ DL strength is on the edge, while the Eagles’ strength now is in the interior.
The other reason the Giants’ running game is in tatters is because their two best running backs are injured. Devin Singletary didn’t do much in a starting role. The biggest excitement was from Greg Desrosiers, who actually bounced one outside for 9 yards, a rare sight this season, and showed some giddyup the Giants might consider making more use of if Cam Skattebo isn’t back by Thursday.
As for the receivers, Malik Nabers was quiet yesterday (on the field, anyway) with only 43 yards and 5 receptions in 8 targets. That would have looked a lot better if he’d hauled in that beautiful end zone throw from McCarthy that was just a tad long but not impossible to catch for one of the NFL’s best receivers. The best news is that Darnell Mooney had his best game as Giant with three receptions in three targets for 54 yards; he got the best PFF grade of any Giants receiver. Isaiah Likely had a more quiet day than in some previous games but still caught the key TD pass that turned the game in the Giants’ favor, winding up with 53 yards. Malachi Fields didn’t have any spectacular plays like the one in Houston, but he had his usual day with three catches in five targets for 40 yards. Fields has had at least two receptions in every game this season.
PFF grades: Defense
You’ll probably be shocked to see that Arvell Reese was not the Giants’ most highly rated defensive player yesterday. That’s for one primary reason – pass coverage. It’s the one part of Reese’s game that is still under construction. Yesterday he gave up seven completions in eight targets for 55 yards including 26 YAC. Three of those completions were to wide receivers (Makai Lemon and Darius Cooper), and you can’t blame Reese for not making those plays; wide receiver on linebacker is always advantage, offense. When he was doing his day job, though, Reese excelled, getting an elite grade in pass rush because of his three sacks and his usual very good grade in run defense due to two run stops. Here’s a great angle on Reese’s obliteration of Eagles QB Joe Milton III with an interesting stat line from The Athletic’s Dane Brugler:
Defensive Rookie of the Year? How about Defensive Player of the Year? (The latter won’t happen but you can make the case.)
Elsewhere on the defense, Greg Newsome was the highest graded Giant with an elite 88.4 defense grade. Newsome’s game-by-grades as a Giant: 38.2, 51.9, 66.4, 63.7, 60.3, 71.5, 88.4. This is a reminder to us all not to judge players too quickly. Newsome seems to have progressively adjusted to Dennard Wilson’s defensive philosophy and is starting to play at a high level reminiscent of his early NFL career. No wonder the Giants extended him. Newsome made 6 tackles yesterday and gave up 2 receptions in 4 targets for only 13 yards.
The rest of the cornerback room was less successful. Dru Phillips played his usual great game in run defense but was only adequate in pass coverage. Deonte Banks had a subpar score, mostly the result of his 30-yard pass interference penalty on a pass to Darius Cooper that set the Eagles up on the 3-yard line and led to their only TD. At safety, Ar’Darius Washington has taken on an increased role in recent games. He made three tackles and was targeted once, unsuccessfully. Jason Pinnock played adequately but uneventfully, with nothing on his stat line (including targets). Jevon Holland had an average stat line, with 2 tackles (both stops) and 3 assists and one 10-yard reception in 2 targets. The missing name? Tyler Nubin, now apparently a special teams player only – zero defensive snaps yesterday after only one in Houston.
Some interesting things are happening on the interior defensive line. Darius Alexander had his best game of the season, with a sack, a hit, and a hurry and adequate run defense. Likewise sixth-round rookie Bobby Jamison-Travis is now getting a consistent 20-ish snaps per game (63 in the past three games after not playing on defense at all before that). As advertised, he provides nothing in the pass rush but he’s had six tackles, three of them stops, in the run game and hasn’t missed a tackle yet. D.J. Reader, now the stalwart of the IDL, had a sack, a hit and two hurries in addition to a tackle and an assist. If BJT further develops Shelby Harris may be the odd man out. Yesterday he played 35 snaps, typical of previous games, but had his second consecutive poor game because of his run defense (or lack thereof). He had one pressure yesterday, but that’s only his third of the year from a player who at one time was considered one the league’s better pass rushing IDLs.
On the outside, Kayvon Thibodeaux was given only an average grade by PFF, but he had a good stat line, with two QB hits, two hurries and three tackles, two of them stops. Abdul Carter had one of his most quiet games, with no QB pressures and just one tackle (a stop). Shoutout to Dawuane Smoot in his first action as a Giant – he had a sack and a hurry in addition to one tackle (a stop), even though his overall grade was not great.
Finally, with all the attention on Arvell Reese, let’s mention Micah McFadden, who had a sack and a QB hit yesterday in addition to five tackles (two of them stops) and four assists. He only gave up two receptions for 13 yards in five targets, but his coverage grade was low, suggesting that the players he was covering were getting open more often than the number of balls coming his way would suggest.
Advanced stats
Here is an interesting way to understand why one team won and the other team lost. Yesterday’s matchups as seen by six advanced metrics:
From an absolute standpoint, the Giants did not play especially well yesterday compared to some other teams around the league (i.e., no deep green and very little green at all). Compare to the Bengals domination of the Falcons in Madrid, which is green almost across the board. Neither the Giants’ nor the Eagles’ offense was successful most of the game (i.e., good progress toward first downs on individual plays). What the Giants were was “less bad” than the Eagles (less negative EPA per play). They had a slightly positive special teams EPA/play (thank you Jordan Stout and Dominic Zvada) and a somewhat bigger explosive play rate. So nothing to get excited about except that it was a win at The Linc.
J.J. McCarthy was slightly lower than middle of the pack in his own performance:
McCarthy’s NFL passer rating of 82.6 was on the low side of the distribution as well. (For the record, since they only show one QB per team, Jameis Winston’s 141.1 passer rating would have been second best in the NFL yesterday, but he only passed 8 times.) The one thing that does stand out about J.J.‘s performance is that his aDOT of 10.51 in the face of significant pressure was up there with the league leaders – a dinker and dunker he is not. (Jameis’ 9.1 aDOT wasn’t bad either.) Most importantly, Winston’s 0.68 EPA/play was better than every other QB except Jordan Love, who torched the Patriots yesterday.
A while back I noted that despite the Giants’ quick start to the season, objective metrics still had them ranked as one of the worst teams in the NFL after three games. That has changed somewhat now that we are (mostly) through Week 9:
Taking offense and defense combined (i.e., tiers defined by the diagonal lines), the Giants are now a middle-of-the-pack team, clearly behind the elites of the NFL (SF, JAX, KC, CIN, BUF), somewhat behind LAR, CHI, and GB, and on par with a bunch of other teams that have Super Bowl aspirations (most surprisingly, SEA and DEN).
That changes dramatically when we filter out “garbage time” stats, i.e., stats that pad the performance when a game’s outcome is already decided. If we filter out garbage time defined as 30% or less win probability for the losing team, then the diagram looks like this:
Now the Giants are clearly behind only two teams, the 49ers and the Packers. In other words, the Giants are playing well when it counts. This only goes so far – they haven’t even played a really good team yet, and the one pretty good team they played (the Rams) obliterated them. It does say something, though, about how they have performed in crunch time this season.
This will surprise no one given that the Giants are coached by John Harbaugh, but the Giants are one of the least likely teams to pass in “neutral” game conditions (20-80% win probability, early downs only, outside the last two minutes of each half):
The Giants are second lowest in the NFL in neutral pass rate and one of only 10 teams that are more likely to run than pass in neutral game situations. You can imagine how the failure of the Giants’ running game is driving Harbaugh crazy.
Perhaps associated with the impotence of the run game, the Giants are among the more unlikely teams to go for it on 4th down when they should (when the win probability gain is at least 1%):
If you think Jordan Stout is an asset to the Giants, you’re not imagining it. Here are two plots that illustrate his value:
The plot on the left shows each Stout punt (dots) vs. the league average (curve) plotted as where the opponent starts vs. where Stout punted from. So far 24 of his punts have put the opponent farther back than the league average (red dots above the curve) and only 9 have allowed them to start from a better position than expected. The right plot shows an EPA-type metric, expected points saved, vs. the punt yards over expected per punt. Stout is on another planet compared to the rest of the league.
Finally, with the Giants and their fans now seriously thinking playoffs, the fear is that it’s all a mirage because they have played mostly bad to mediocre teams and their schedule is about to get much tougher, beginning with the Jacksonville game a week from Sunday (now flexed into the 4:30 time slot, i.e., the league is starting to get interested in them). It’s not quite as bad as you think, though:
The Giants’ upcoming opponents are basically middle-of-the-pack overall, even though they do have a few tough matchups such as JAX, SF, SEA, and DET. Better to be worrying about upcoming tough opponents in November, though, rather than checking Tankathon to see their 2027 draft position (No. 22 at the moment, in case you were wondering).
