The post-mortem on a game the New York Giants should have won but didn’t is never fun. Let’s see what we can learn from the Pro Football Focus grades and advanced stats about who played well and who didn’t. Before looking at the offense and defense, let’s note that PFF gave Jordan Stout his lowest grade of the season because of that 12-yard shank in the fourth quarter that gave the Commanders decent field position to start their winning drive, and of course Dominic Zvada got a low grade for his field goal
miss from 32 yards out (though not as low as the first Washington and the Houston games in which he had multiple misses). That’s part of the story, but there was blame to go around on the offense and defense. And let’s not forget the coaching. In the old days we used to speak of a “prevent defense” that tried to hold a lead by playing soft coverage that stopped big plays. Well, last night John Harbaugh played what might be called a “prevent offense,” being scared off field goal attempts and punting in Commanders’ territory after Zvada’a early miss and trying to wind down the clock with running plays and quarterback keepers instead of calling easy pitch-and-catch plays to keep the ball out of Jayden Daniels’ hands.
PFF grades: Offense
PFF did not give a single elite (80 or higher) grade to anyone on the offense last night (part of that was due to the weather conditions, Washington only had one elite-graded offensive player themselves, Ben Sinnott). J.J. McCarthy received an overall very good offense grade, more because of his running (three scrambles for 29 yards) than his passing. However, his passing grade was brought down by his final offensive play, an interception deep downfield on which he was blitzed and on which Malik Nabers did not make much of an effort to help him out. Overall, J.J. handled the pressure well, doing about as well as when he was kept clean:
J.J. was blitzed on 45% of dropbacks: 2 of his 3 turnover-worthy plays came on blitzes, but 2 of his 3 big-time throws also came on blitzes. Overall, with 293 yards, a pretty good performance.
Of note is the performance of the offensive line. Even though McCarthy was pressured on 35% of his dropbacks, the OL performed pretty well overall. Jon Runyan and Sisi Mauigoa had great pass-blocking games, Runyan having a clean stat line and Mauigoa only giving up one hurry. The run block grades weren’t as good but not terrible either. Andrew Thomas and Jermaine Eluemunor both graded very good in pass coverage with 2 hurries charged to AT and one QB hit to Eluemunor. Bryan Hudson graded below average in pass blocking with 2 hurries and just barely below average in run blocking. Patrick Ricard had his best game as a Giant, especially in run blocking. Cam Skattebo fell just below the Very Good category with his 18 rushes for 78 yards; maybe he was graded down a bit for eating before the game and throwing up on the sideline 🙂
None of the receivers graded as high as Very Good, though Malachi Fields and Isaiah Likely came close. The reason Likely didn’t grade higher despite his 9 of 11, 127 yard, 1 TD performance was because of his fumble; PFF grades turnovers very severely. Malik Nabers only had 44 yards on 5 catches in 7 targets, but his very low grade reflects his fumble which cost the Giants a scoring opportunity.
PFF grades: Defense
The defense was a different story. There was one excellent defensive performance last night – the defense was not the main reason the Giants lost the game. Ar’Darius Washington has seen his playing time increase the past three weeks, and last night he graded an outstanding 89.9 overall, 91.4 in coverage. Washington was targeted 6 times and gave up 3 completions for a total of only 11 yards and a 16.7 passer rating. He made back-to-back great plays, a pass reception stop and then an interception, with the game on the line and the Commanders in scoring position. His only blemish was 3 missed tackles, but he did have 5 tackles and 2 assists.
The rest of the secondary did not perform as well. Deonte Banks received a barely below average coverage and overall defense grade; if he turns his head and tries to play the ball on the deep pass to Treylon Burks with less than two minutes left in the game, there’s no flag and the Giants may end up winning the game. Jevon Holland had the big interception, but he also gave up a TD and 40 yards total on pass plays. Dru Phillips graded 53.5 overall and 48.8 in coverage primarily because he gave up the game-losing TD to Stefon Diggs, but he also missed two tackles. Greg Newsome also graded below average, giving up 22 yards on 2 receptions in 3 targets and missing a tackle. Jason Pinnock graded low as well before leaving the game; he missed 2 tackles and graded low in coverage, primarily because he was covering on the Daniels TD pass to Ben Sinnott.
The Giants’ most high profile defensive players (with Brian Burns out for the season) are now Abdul Carter and Arvell Reese. Both were graded Very Good overall by PFF. Reese did nothing in the pass rush last night, but he did have 7 tackles and 5 assists, three of them stops, with no missed tackles. He also gave up four completions in four targets in pass coverage, but they only went for 21 yards total with only 9 YAC, warranting a Very Good coverage grade. Carter is the more difficult evaluation. He continues to be unable to get to the QB for sacks, but he did have a QB hit and 2 hurries plus 2 tackles and an assist, resulting in a Very Good overall defense grade. Micah McFadden had a QB hurry and 9 tackles plus an assist, but he only graded average overall because he surrendered 4 catches and 55 yards on pass defense.
The rest of the defensive line was a bunch of mediocre to poor performances. Kayvon Thibodeaux only had one QB hurry and graded fairly low on run defense despite 7 tackles and an assist, suggesting that he was just blocked out of some running plays. D.J. Reader had his worst game as a Giant, with only 1 hurry and 1 tackle. Shelby Harris got his first sack and had a hurry and 2 tackles, 2 assists. Bobby Jamison-Travis continues to get snaps but had only a tackle and an assist, but that was better than Darius Alexander, who only had one tackle.
Advanced stats
The Giants’ defense overall can be summed up as: Not bad, but not great either. Here is an overall ranking of NFL defenses in a number of categories:
Overall, the Giants rank No. 12 in the NFL in points per game given up. That sounds pretty good, although you would have to say that other than the Rams, they haven’t played any of the NFL’s powerhouse offenses. They are below average in sacks, slightly below average in takeaways, and among the league’s worst in tackles for loss. It could be a lot worse, but they don’t scare anyone either. Speaking of scaring, note that the Jaguars, next week’s opponent, are No. 2 in the league in points per game allowed despite not scoring high in any individual category, unlike the No. 1 Vikings, who rank highest in sacks. Somehow the Jags are keeping teams out of the end zone in most of their games. They have the second best red zone D in the NFL, while the Giants’ red zone D is near the bottom:
That matters, because as I have noted, John Harbaugh and his offensive coordinator Matt Nagy have mostly been very conservative in their play calling and fourth down decisions. That’s quantified below by Kevin Cole of Unexpected Points:
According to the plot above, the Giants go for it on 4th down only about 1 in 3 times when the situation indicates at least a one point win probability added by going for it, one of the lowest rates in the NFL. Here’s a related stat about the same philosophy:
At this time it seems appropriate to remind ourselves of the wisdom of Herm Edwards (even though he said this in a different context):
Related to this, here are the NFL rankings for the three-and-out offense rates just over the last three weeks, conveniently coinciding with the J.J. McCarthy as Giants starter era:
Perhaps related to this, here are the checkdown rates for NFL QBs for the past 4 weeks:
So is McCarthy a gunslinger who eschews taking the easy few yards in favor of taking a shot downfield? That might be one way to interpret the deep pass to Nabers that was intercepted on the Giants’ last drive, but the question is whether the Nagy offense is giving him an easy answer underneath and J.J. is ignoring or not seeing it vs. giving him no answer at all. On the Nabers INT the pressure up the middle came quickly, but Malachi Fields was right there for McCarthy to throw shallow to and pick up a few yards with plenty of time left for a few more plays:
All that said, in a matchup of one of the league’s most highly regarded young QBs against a QB drafted 8 spots lower and jettisoned for a 5th round pick, the performances of Jayden Daniels and J.J. McCarthy weren’t all that different last night, and where they were, the difference mostly favored McCarthy:
Daniels had a higher completion rate (69.7% to 63.9%), but J.J.’s CPOE was near zero while Daniels’ was -2.1%. McCarthy’s ddep throw rate was 11.1% vs. Daniels’ 3.0%. The two had almost identical times to throw (2.59 vs. 2.55 s), but McCarthy was pressured 38.5% of the time to Daniels’ 20.5%. McCarthy threw into tight windows 11.1% of the time vs. Daniels’ 6.1%.
The bottom line is that no one questions Jayden Daniels’ ability and status as one of the NFL’s best young QBs. McCarthy has traveled a more difficult road. To what extent that is his own fault vs. that of the team that drafted him is a matter for discussion and difficult to ascertain from the outside. But nothing he has shown as a Giant suggests that he cannot be a productive QB at the NFL level. It didn’t work out for him last night, but he gave the Giants a chance to win.
