NY Giants: The good, bad, and ugly vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers

The NY Giants kicked off the 2020 campaign with a 26-16 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night. Let’s take a look at some of the positive and negative takeaways from the season opener.

The Joe Judge era officially began last night for the NY Giants. After one of the strangest off-seasons in NFL history, the young, rebuilding G-Men were thrown into the fire as they opened the season with one of the most experienced teams in the NFL.

Not many were counting on the Giants to actually win this game, although miracles do happen from time-to-time. Winning is hard enough in the NFL, but when you add an entirely new coaching staff, new offensive and defensive schemes, one of the youngest rosters in the league, and go through an almost entirely virtual off-season the up-hill battle only gets steeper.

But enough with the excuses – if Joe Judge was reading this he’d make me take a lap. Last night’s performance served as a benchmark for where this team is both physically and mentally.

Over the last few years, we’ve watched the NY Giants check-out of games, stop competing, make entirely too many costly mental mistakes, and get physically out-matched.

These are all areas that Joe Judge vowed to change.

Last night we got to see the first product of this culture shift and it was surprisingly encouraging. And while I understand moral victories aren’t going to win you a Super Bowl, the whole point of this season was to see a move in the right direction – through one game signs that this ship is being steered in the right direction were apparent.

Of course, it wasn’t all good and positive. Big Blue is still a year or two from being competitive and that was very evident last night.

With all that said, let’s dive into the good, bad, and ugly from last night from the NY Giants’ Week One opener.

The Good

Daniel Jones: If you are skeptical about Daniel Jones after last night’s game then you weren’t watching.

Jones was a bright spot for a young NY Giants offense that had the task of playing arguably the best defense in the NFL. He looked confident, was accurate, showed his athleticism using his legs, and most importantly he didn’t fumble.

Jones’ deep TD pass to Darius Slayton in the second quarter was a beautifully thrown ball and his ability to find holes in Pittsburgh’s zones was widely encouraging after last season’s struggles vs zone defenses.

His two interceptions were the only negatives from Jones last night. A freaky athletic play by TJ Watt and the red zone blunder where his arm was hit by Bud Dupree, both bad plays but not the end of the world. Jones is a baller that looked the part last night and fans should be encouraged by what they saw.

Andrew Thomas: It has been quite some time since we’ve seen a Big Blue quarterback not face constant blindside pressure for an entire game. Andrew Thomas more than held his own vs some of the best pass rushers in the NFL last night. This was a huge game not only for his confidence, but to validate choosing him as the franchise tackle to protect Daniel Jones. Thomas’ performance was extremely encouraging.

Via KSIXI on Twitter:

Darius Slayton: ‘Big Play Slay’ was at it again last night. After the off-season discussions questioning if he had the talent to be a true No. 1 wideout, Slayton picked up right where he left off in 2019. He recorded 6 catches for 102 yards and 2 scores and looks to be Daniel Jones’ favorite target by a mile. The Jones to Slayton hookup is going to be a problem for a lot of defenses for the foreseeable future.

James Bradberry: One of the main free-agent signings from this off-season was the NY Giants’ best player in the secondary last night. James Bradberry notched 5 solo tackles, 2 pass breakups, and forced a Benny Snell fumble on a great hustle play. He was all over the field and is going to be a key contributor to this year’s secondary.

Blake Martinez: The other main acquisition from this year’s free-agent class also showed up last night. The tackling machine better known as Blake Martinez unsurprisingly led the team in tackles with 12 including one tackle for loss. He was a true sideline-to-sideline player and had a nice tackle on a screen play that was read perfectly. Martinez is the NY Giants’ best linebacker in years and looked the part last night.

Dexter Lawrence & Leonard Williams: The duo that anchors the defensive line proved that they are going to be a lot to handle this season. With Dexter Lawrence coming off a great rookie year and Leonard Williams playing under a new contract, the two combined for 7 solo tackles, 2 sacks, 3 tackles for loss, and 3 QB hits. That type of production from your interior guys is impressive and should help improve the pass rush off the edge as more attention is put on them moving forward.

Special Teams: This shouldn’t be too much of a shocker as Joe Judge is the former Special Teams Coach for New England. It was refreshing to have competent special teams play for an entire game. No dumb penalties, Gano was perfect on his one field goal and extra point attempt, they were able to recover a muffed punt deep in the red zone on the first punt of the game/season, and Jabrill Peppers had 3 punt returns for 39 yards.

The only negative was Ray-Ray McCloud’s 33-yard kick return. Special teams have been such a problem in the last few years. If it continues to look how it did last night, it will undoubtedly help Big Blue win games.

Discipline: All those laps at practice might be paying off after all. Same with special teams, the lack of discipline has been a major problem in recent seasons. Whether it’s a false start on 3rd & 1, a roughing the passer extending opposing team’s drives, personal fouls, you name it, the NY Giants have done it. A lot.

Last night was the complete opposite, as the team only tallied 4 penalties for just 25 yards. It may not seem like a big deal, but again that is the difference between winning and losing games and it’s great to see that problem already improving.

The Bad

Cam Fleming: Just see the below tweet.

Cam Fleming was initially brought in this off-season to serve as a swing tackle if the situation called for it, as Andrew Thomas and Nate Solder were the penciled starters. After Solder opted out, we were left with Fleming and at the least, a serviceable right tackle.

Last night showed that we were very much not left with that. He was abused in the run game, looked lost in pass protection, and was just flat out bad. It’s hard to see him staying in the starting lineup much longer if last night’s play becomes normal. With Khalil Mack patiently waiting for him this weekend, the coaching staff needs to figure something out sooner rather than later.

Nick Gates: ‘The Gates Train’ was in full effect this off-season. After showing a lot of promise in his limited playing time in 2019, Nick Gates made the transition to center and made his first career start at the position last night and it definitely showed.

It’s not fair to be too critical of Gates in this position, especially facing that Steelers defense, but on multiple occasions, he looked awful. He got dominated in the run game, getting zero push all night long. Going forward the answer might be moving Gates back to RT in place of Fleming and playing Spencer Pulley or rookie Shane Lemieux at center.

Evan Engram: *Heavy sigh.* Coming into 2020 with high expectations (again), Evan Engram picked a very bad time to deliver probably his worst game as a NY Giant. It started off the bat with a drop on the second play of the game that would have been a first down, followed by two more plays where he whiffed on blocks that resulted in a tackle for loss and an almost sack/fumble on the goal line.

He was a non-factor the entire game, recording the same amount of catches (2) as penalties he committed. With an already thin receiving corps, this offense cannot afford Engram to disappear like he did last night.

Red Zone Offense: It’s hard to beat any team, especially the good ones when you can’t score points in the red zone. Following an absolute gift from the Steelers muffing the first punt of the season, the Giants were unable to capitalize from a 1st & goal at the 4-yard line.

Then there was the soul-crushing turnover by Daniel Jones following an 18-play drive that had eaten almost 9 minutes of game clock. It was 16-10 at that point and felt like the turning point of the game. The late touchdown by Slayton was the lone score of the night in the red zone, but coming away with 3 points total in the first two trips inside the 20 left the offense fighting from behind all night.

Corey Ballentine: It was a rough first game for Ballentine, who was picked on all night as the No. 2 cornerback. As the Steelers adjusted, they looked Ballentine’s way often, hitting comebacks and back-shoulder throws for easy chunks of yards. Much like Fleming, Ballentine is not the solution at his position moving forward.

Second Half Defense: The result of having a young roster with very little depth is last night’s second half. Although it started on the final drive of the first half when Pittsburgh marched down and scored with 7 seconds left, the defense was simply not able to keep up with the Steelers’ offense.

After making adjustments, Pittsburgh absolutely killed the NY Giants with back-shoulder throws, crossing and rub routes, and wore on them with the run game almost 100 second-half rushing yards. The Steelers slowly and methodically moved the ball down the field and completely controlled the pace of the game. And while the defense only allowed 10 second-half points, they all came in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.

The Ugly

The Run Game: YIKES was that bad, like, historically bad. From top to bottom, left to right, there was absolutely zero positive outcomes from last night’s run game

For starters, yes, an offensive line with three new faces and even less time than a normal off-season to practice as a unit got to open up the season with the best run defense in the NFL. Not a great mix obviously, but the opponent wasn’t a surprise.

Why a better game plan wasn’t put in place for this matchup is beyond me. There was absolutely zero creativity in the run game. Toss left, stretch right, run between the tackles. Basic play designs that let Pittsburgh pin their ears back and bully the offensive line with their speed, giving Saquon Barkley absolutely no chance all night long.

The Steelers had eleven and a half, yes – 11.5 –  tackles for loss. Just making it to the line of scrimmage was considered a win. It was brutal to watch and even worse that we kept sticking to the same run plays and putting the offense in awful positions to start drives.

Some sort of misdirection, reverses, read options – anything to force Pittsburgh to have to slow down and not be so aggressive would have been better than running straight into a brick wall for four quarters.

At halftime, the G-Men had -3 rushing yards and finished with 29 rushing yards on 20 rushing attempts. Saquon notched 15 of those carries for a total of 6 yards, the second-lowest output by any player in the NFL during the Super Bowl era to have at least 15 carries.

The only glimmer of hope from last night is understanding that the offensive line is a work in progress (as usual) and that is arguably going to be the hardest defense the NY Giants play all season.

Still, it was a completely one-sided affair in the trenches that was embarrassing to watch. Not much should be expected to change in the win column if the run game doesn’t improve drastically.

Big Ben’s 11-yard Scramble: If that run was calculated into a 40-yard dash it might have legitimately been 8 seconds. He made Eli Manning look like Barry Sanders.