Chuck’s Corner: Week Seven New York Giants prediction
In this edition of ‘Chuck’s Corner’, site expert Charles ‘Chuck’ Vitolo gives you his week seven New York Giants as the team takes on the Arizona Cardinals.
When the 2019 NFL schedule came out, I – like many – New York Giants fans, circled this week seven contest with the Cardinals as a win for Big Blue. With the way the season has shaken out, though, this game is anything but a gimme’. Rookie Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury has the Cards in this mix through six weeks of action, as he’s dialed back his ‘air raid’ offense a tad.
Kyler Murray has bounced back from some early struggles to put together a decent body of work through six games, and the speedy QB has been hurting teams badly with his legs as of late. Kingsbury has surprised some in that he has ran the ball much more – and more effectively- than most outsiders thought. David Johnson – who is in the midst of a rebound season, and was a gametime decision all week long- is now expected to play, in what will be a huge boost to the top ten ranked Cardinal offense.
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The screen game as been a large part of the ‘Zona offense, and as I wrote about yesterday, defensive coordinator James Bettcher would be wise to employ some different defensive strategies than he normally does to deal with the strengths of Murray and Johnson. Johnson has looked like the ‘DJ’ of old as hes been a nuisance out of the backfield, totaling 310 receiving yards on 30 catches to go along with three touchdown receptions.
As previously mentioned, the Cardinals have ran the ball more effectively than most anticipated. It’s fair to argue that Murray has a lot to do with that, as he accounts for 6.1 yards-per-carry to raise the team average to 5.0 yards-per-carry, good for fifth best in the NFL. Jabrill Peppers and Alec Ogletree are going to be crucial towards the Giants’ chance of winning today, as Big Blue is going to need their athleticism as they attempt to slow down Murray.
While the Cardinals have been solid on offense, their defense has held them back in multiple games. The 30th-ranked unit is one of the worst defenses against the pass, and seem to employ a ‘bend but don’t break’ mentality, something you often see from overmatched defenses. Edge rushers Chandler Jones and Terrell Suggs have been lethal as bookend pass-rushers, as both of them come into his game with at least four sacks and three forced fumbles.
As is normally the case, plenty of pressure will be on Nate Solder and Mike Remmers to attempt to slow them down and maintain the outside. Hopefully Pat Shurmur will give each of them a little help at times, and will also look to get Saquon Barkley involved in the screen game to get them on their heels.
For Big Blue, everything they want is still right in front of them. The team comes into this game favored by three points (via the Action Network), while still only being a game out of first place in the NFC East. This is a game Shurmur simply has to win, as the calls for his firing will only grow louder if he drops a home game to the Cardinals to drop to 2-5 – there are no more excuses about not having enough weapons (which drives me crazy since we traded OBJ, anyway), as the offense will be pretty much at full strength today.
X-Factor
As my X-factor today I’m going with tight end Rhett Ellis — just kidding, I will never do that again (after being burned by him twice, now). Seriously, though, I’m expecting a big game out of Alec Ogletree today. Ogletree is someone that I’ve been extremely hard on, as he has not even come close to living up to his contract (or the assets we gave up to acquire said contract) in his time as a Giant.
This is an opportunity for the overpaid linebacker to begin to earn fans’ trust back. I’m expecting him to be somewhat of a Kyler Murray spy today, and his duties in that role, and watching David Johnson out of the backfield, will have an enormous effect on this game.
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Don’t be surprised to see Ogletree in the middle of a turnover, while I expect him to do a solid job of staying with Murray and Johnson in the open field. Hopefully his athleticism will shine through, for once.
Prediction
I expect this game to be a back and forth, somewhat high scoring affair. With that said, I think Daniel Jones has a big time game today to remind everyone what kind of future he has in front of him. Jones has had a tough go of it over the last few weeks, with not much talent around him while playing two upper echelon defenses – that’s not the case today.
It’ll be interesting to see if Saquon will be on any kind of snap count, as he could certainly gash this Arizona defense all day long. I don’t really see an answer for Evan Engram on this Arizona defense, either. All eyes will be on Pat Shurmur as he looks to match wits with another supposed ‘offensive genius’, and he’ll have plenty of tools to get that done.
If the Giant pass rush can continue to show up, I see no reason why Big Blue shouldn’t, and wont, win this game. 31-24, Giants.
YTD Prediction record: 5-1
YTD ATS record: 3-3