Another week, another blown fourth-quarter lead. That’s the story of the 2025 season for this New York Giants team. The Giants are the only team in the NFL to put 30+ points on the board against the 9-2
Broncos and the only team to do the same against the 8-2 Eagles. They didn’t do that yesterday, but without their three main offensive weapons (four if you include Darius Slayton), they still put 20 points up and were one Jalin Hyatt broken-off route from possibly beating the Green Bay Packers or at least taking them to overtime. Instead, for the fourth time this season, the Giants had the lead in the fourth quarter, and the defense could not make a stop when it needed to. Let’s see how Pro Football Focus saw the game, and who played a lot and who didn’t.
Offense
PFF grades
Count the names. Not to absolve them of any blame for the loss, but only 15 players played on offense for the Giants Sunday, and one of them was a defensive lineman who was out there for two snaps. That tells you how dire the Giants’ injury situation is on offense. Arguably their four best skill players (Dart, Nabers, Skattebo, Slayton) were out. That said, the other offensive players provided to Mike Kafka by the GM were deemed unworthy of playing time. For comparison, Green Bay played 20 offensive players yesterday; Philadelphia played 21 last night. Only one Giant graded excellent, but none graded out as terrible for the game as a whole.
Let’s look in more detail. First, the passing:
Jameis Winston was only 13 of 22, but for 201 yards. I thought he generally played well in difficult conditions, considering the receiver corps he had to work with. PFF graded him low, for a reason that should now be familiar. PFF hates, absolutely hates, it when a QB puts the ball up for grabs, and Jamies does that a lot. Sunday they gave him three turnover-worthy plays. I don’t know if the final intercepted pass was one of them. Most likely it was, because PFF can’t know if Jalin Hyatt mistakenly cut off the route, even though it looked that way. The fascinating thing about Jameis is that all of his TWPs were from a clean pocket, not the result of pressure. That’s just who he is.
Here are the offensive line grades, first for pass blocking:
While you were sleeping, John Michael Schmitz has started to become a decent pass blocker. Yesterday he graded 78.1 with a clean stat line. For the season, JMS’ pass block grade of 63.2 is mid-range among starting centers. “But he’s a second-round pick, he’s supposed to be good.“ OK, let’s compare season stats to Tyler Linderbaum, a first-round pick of the Ravens in 2022 that many Giants fans wanted:
Linderbaum is a much better run blocker than JMS at this stage of their careers, but this season the Giants’ two centers combined have given up one fewer sack and five fewer hurries than Linderbaum. The Carmen Bricillo effect?
Otherwise, Andrew Thomas played OK but below his standard, with a penalty and a sack given up. The rest of the OL had a rough day. Jermaine Eluemunor graded a bit below average with a sack, a hit, and a hurry, while Jon Runyan Jr. (1 QB hit) and especially Greg Van Roten (3 hurries) played poorly. (Remember, an OL can grade poorly even without any pressures, if he’s getting beaten often but the QB gets the ball out quick enough or rolls to the opposite side so that it doesn’t matter.)
Now, the run blocking, sorted by run block snaps to isolate the OL:
Thomas and Van Roten were OK in run blocking yesterday but not great, while Runyan and Van Roten were a bit below average and JMS was poor (only the second time this year he’s graded that low).
Now the receivers:
Tyrone Tracy, who had a great all-around game yesterday, caught all four balls that came his way for 51 yards. Isaiah Hodgins played like he’d never left, with a very good receiving grade and five catches in six targets for 57 yards. Theo Johnson has rebounded from three consecutive games with a drop to have two clean games; yesterday he caught three of four balls for 36 yards. You can tell why PFF grades receivers high or low overall by their breakdown into separate route-running (RECV), drop, and fumbling grades. Wan’Dale Robinson graded below average because of a drop, but also because of what they judged as below average route running. Jalin Hyatt graded below average solely because of a poor route-running grade; you can guess which play dominated that result.
Finally, the rushing performances:
Tracy had what I felt was his best game since last season. PFF thought so too, although they graded him almost as high in Philadelphia last month. His 88 yards was a season-high. Devin Singletary, forgotten until the Cam Skattebo injury, has also started to round into form. His 44 yards were also a season high.
Snap counts
- Winston and the entire offensive line played every snap.
- With the Giants thin at wide receiver with Darious Slayton out, Robinson played almost every snap, while right-off-the-couch (well, right off the Steelers’ practice squad) Hodgins not only played more than three-quarters of the game but also led the Giants in receiving yards. Jalin Hyatt played more than half the game, and no other wide receiver saw the field.
- Tracy and Singletary saw snaps almost evenly in what is becoming a nice rotation as both backs get their sea legs after not playing a lot when kattebo was healthy.
- At tight end, Johnson played almost every snap, while Daniel Bellinger played almost half the time and Chris Manhertz 21% of the time as the Giants continued their tendency to play 12 personnel. Elijah Chatman reprised his 2024 role as fullback on two plays hear the goal line.
Defense
Indeed, it’s not a surprise, and according to the chart above, the fourth quarter run defense is as bad as the fourth quarter pass defense. The Giants are the worst in the league in both categories. That’s how a team that should be 6-5 actually winds up 2-9.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Or in this case, the bad defensive coordinator or the bad players? As I was writing this, we found out that Shane Bowen was not relieved of his duties this morning. We might infer from this that Mike Kafka does not primarily blame Bowen for the fourth-quarter collapses. That would then point the finger exactly at Joe Schoen. Yes, there have been injuries, but so many of the backups have just been unplayable, and even some of the first-stringers have been disappointments. Let’s look at the details.
PFF grades
Only one player with a grade of very good and three players who played significant snaps with even an average grade. That’s an indictment of the quality of the players Joe Schoen has given Bowen, though it can be an indictment of Bowen’s coaching as well even though he wasn’t fired. (By comparison, Green Bay had two players grade elite, another three very good, and another five average. That’s half the defensive players who played Sunday.)
Here are the details. First, the pass rush:
Dexter Lawrence had perhaps his best game of the season, with two QB hits and two hurries. Sleepy Abdul Carter also played well, with a hit and a hurry. The rest of the defense was average to slightly below average, though no one was terrible. Brians Burns in particular had a sack, two hits, and two hurries. Overall the Giants had 16 pressures, which is good…but only that one sack, which is bad. Compare to the Packers, who pressured Winston only 12 times but sacked him three times.
Now the pass coverage:
Nic Jones graded very good, but only for the one (admittedly very nice) play in which he forced an incompletion on a 29-yard pass. Otherwise the defensive backs were all below average. Many of them were downright bad. Deonte Banks was only targeted once for a 1-yard gain…but it happened to be in the end zone for a touchdown, yet another play on which he did not get a hand up in time to successfully contest the play. Jevon Holland gave up two catches in two targets for only 12 yards….but also a TD. Jordan Love (who played great Sunday) picked on Cor’Dale Flott, eight times for four receptions and 72 yards. Korie Black gave up two receptions in two targets and a TD, but at least he made an attempt to play that ball in the end zone. Dru Phillips had another poor game in coverage, with two catches in two targets for 31 yards, 12 of them YAC. Dane Belton also played poorly, with two catches in three targets for 17 yards. Love had a 132.6 overall NFL passer rating.
Finally, the (supposed) run defense:
Bobby Okereke had a great game, with seven tackles, three of them stops, and no missed tackles. In fact as a team the Giants only had one missed tackle yesterday (by Belton). Compare to Green Bay: They had seven missed tackles, but they had 20 stops to the Giants’ nine. No one on the defensive line played any better than average; D.J. Davidson was poor, not making the stat sheet in 13 rushing plays. Roy Robertson-Harris was poor also but at least had two tackles.
Snap counts
- Jevon Holland, back from injury, and Belton, replacing injured Tyler Nubin, played every snap at safety, as did cornerbackFlott with Paulson Adebo still out. That left Banks to play 71% of snaps at the other corner, with KBlack getting the other 29%. Phillips played almost half the game at slot corner, while Jones got 8 snaps.
- Okereke played every snap at off-ball linebacker as usual, while Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles played almost every snap.
- On the edge, Carter and Burns played almost 90% of the snaps with Kayvon Thibodeaux injured. Tomon Fox, with 20% of the snaps, and briefly Victor Dimukeje, gave them breathers.
- In the interior, Lawrence played three-quarters of the defensive snaps and Elijah Chatman almost 50% when he wasn’t moonlighting as a fullback. Roy Robertson-Harris was in for almost two-thirds of the snaps, while D.J. Davidson and Darius Alexander played roughly one-third of the time.
