In John Harbaugh’s first season as head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, he lost a road game to Tony Dungy’s Indianapolis Colts 31-3 in Week 6 to drop the Ravens to 2-3 on the season. A few weeks later his team was manhandled by the Giants 30-10, dropping them to 6-4. That team wound up making it to the AFC Championship Game before being eliminated by eventual Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh.
Stinkers happen, and Sunday night was certainly one of them for the Giants. The issue is how you react to them.
Harbaugh’s 2008 team reeled off four wins in a row in between those losses to the Colts and the Giants. His Giants team now has the chance to do something similar, with the most navigable part of their schedule coming up. For the moment, though, they have to own this stinker of a loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Jaxson Dart’s injury makes it all the more difficult, but that’s why they’re paying Harbaugh the big bucks.
As Ed mentioned in The Feed on Tuesday, we’re going to start trying something new after games. We’ll continue to show you Pro Football Focus grades, but say less about them than in the past. In their place, we’ll try to show a number of other advanced stats from various sources to give you a better feel for the team as a whole, and specifically how the quarterback is doing.
PFF grades
You might guess that few Giants scored well in PFF’s eyes in Monday night’s game. You would be correct. Here are the grades for the offense:
Andrew Thomas was the only Giants offensive player to play well, grading 74.5 overall. Thomas gave up a hit and a hurry, but from an “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” perspective, that one QB hit was the one that injured Jaxson Dart’s knee. Similarly, Jermaine Eluemunor was charged with one sack (on the same play) and a hit, the only sack of the night on a Giants QB among 11 total pressures, which is not terrible. Still, we can see the entire Giants interior OL with grades in the 40s and Sisi Mauigoa in particular with an awful 23.3 pass block grade. John Michael Schmitz is down there too, in part because sometimes he decides to block air rather than a pass rusher:
Other than that, there isn’t much positive to say about anyone on the offense. A couple of the receivers (Isaiah Likely, Darnell Mooney) played fairly well, while Theo Johnson (38.0) continues to be a liability.
Here are the defensive grades:
It’s a very similar story, with one player performing well, a few more in the average category, and a bunch being well below par, even terrible. The most notable was Jevon Holland, who had a spectacular game – an interception (for the second game in a row), 2 forced fumbles, 7 tackles and an assist, no missed tackles, and only one completion for 9 yards. This is reminiscent of his rookie and Year 3 play, which is what got him his big contract. Among starting safeties, Holland is ranked No. 1 after two games, just ahead of the Rams’ Quentin Lake (who also had a great game last night), Julian Love, and Kyle Hamilton. Let’s hope that continues, because his backfield mate Tyler Nubin (29.3 last night) is ranked 64th of 69 safeties.
A few other Giants played at least fairly well on defense last night: Dru Phillips (69.5), who only played 30 snaps and wasn’t targeted at all; Brian Burns (67.2), who had a QB hit, a hurry, and a run stop before leaving with an ankle injury; Abdul Carter (67.0), who had the Giants’ only sack of Matthew Stafford; and D.J. Reader (63.8), though both Carter and Reader had two missed tackles. On the other hand, Tremaine Edmunds had an awful game (28.5), with a missed tackle and 3 receptions in 3 targets including a TD. Shelby Harris (40.7) and Josh Tupou (40.2) played poorly as well, and Arvell Reese (50.5) did not distinguish himself either.
Advanced metrics
Jameis Winston did not have an auspicious season debut, to say the least:
Winston was dead last among starting quarterbacks in both expected points added/play and completion % over expected…and it wasn’t particularly close except for the aged Aaron Rodgers being almost as bad in EPA/play. Matthew Stafford was in the upper right quadrant and second overall in EPA/play, which tells you about how effective the Giants’ pass defense was.
Not to be outdone, the Giants’ defense said, hold my beer:
The Giants were on par overall with the wretched Atlanta Falcons for worst performance of the week, but somewhat surprisingly, six teams were as bad or even worse on defense, including two who actually won their games (Kansas City and Buffalo).
Here’s a different perspective on team offense and defense in Week 2, using defense-adjusted value over average (DVOA) as the metric:
The results are not identical but fairly similar for most teams. The Giants are still in the lower left (bad on both offense and defense) quadrant, but if you’re looking for solace, they have more company than EPA/play gives them, including next week’s opponent Tennessee, which almost beat the Eagles but apparently played poorly while doing so. EPA/play says otherwise. However you slice it, the Giants were bad.
In Winston’s defense, his teammates didn’t give him much help. Here is how he ranks in a few Next Gen Stats that are not about him but about the guys he was throwing to and the guys blocking for him:
Winston’s receivers had the lowest average separation of any other quarterbacks (2.3 yards). His tight window percentage (TW%) of 33.3% was thus the largest of any QB (the next three – Jared Goff, Daniel Jones, Jordan Love – all lost their games). Winston’s pressure rate of 58.6% (QBP%) also led the NFL, and four of the top five in that category lost their game:
If you’re looking for a silver lining, the Giants’ special teams are performing well (the plot below is for two games, not just Week 2):
Fortunately for the Giants, their next three games are against Tennessee, Arizona, and Washington, collectively with one win among them. Last year, when Dart went down with a concussion, Winston kept the Giants competitive against both Detroit and Green Bay. Despite his poor outing Monday night, he’s one of the best backups in the NFL. All three opponents have their own questions at QB, the Commanders being in the same boat as the Giants with their star starting quarterback out due to injury. If John Harbaugh and his staff are as good as the buzz around them was when they were hired, the Giants should still be able to win some games. Let’s see whether the juice was worth the squeeze.
