After an amazing Wild Card Round win against the Minnesota Vikings, everything came crashing down for the NY Giants during their matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles. While not many people thought the Giants would pull through with the win, fans definitely didn’t expect the game to go this poorly, as New York lost 38-7.
There were so many reasons for this loss – too many to put into one article. However, we know for a fact that the game could have at least been closer had some of the players and coaches performed better. Obviously, this loss was a team effort, but there are no doubts that these NY Giants were the biggest causes for concern in the team’s disastrous season-ending loss to Philly.
4. QB Daniel Jones
It really sucks to say, but Jones really didn’t have it this week. This isn’t entirely on him, as the combination of a poor offensive gameplan, plus some rough play from the offensive line made it incredibly difficult for Jones to get anything going.
Regardless, Jones simply looked off the mark for the majority of this game. Whether it be his first interception since Christmas Eve, or his missed throw to Darius Slayton that could’ve created momentum when the team needed it most, Jones just didn’t have it.
For the game, Jones would complete 15 of his 27 pass attempts for 135 yards, zero touchdowns and one interception. Again, not all of this was on Jones, especially Richie James’ embarrassing drop in the fourth quarter, but we really would have liked to see a better game out of Jones.
Heading into an offseason with more than $50 million in cap space and 11 draft picks, there’s plenty of room for improvement around Jones. There are zero reasons for fans to lose hope over one mediocre game against arguably the best team in the NFL.
With that being said, Jones simply needed to be better against the Eagles on Saturday. Things might not have been perfect, but that’s no excuse for some of the missed opportunities he had this game. Hopefully Jones learns from this heading into next season (should he return) and grows alongside the team as improvements are most definitely needed.
3. LB Jaylon Smith
If there is one positive takeaway that we can get from this game, it’s that we no longer have to watch Jaylon Smith play linebacker for the NY Giants. With all due respect to the veteran LB, this season has just been awful to watch for the 27 year old.
Whether it be his awful read-and-react ability, complete lack of really anything in coverage, or just the fact that he simply isn’t good enough anymore, there is not a single reason for Smith to return next season.
While Smith somehow managed to rack up 13 combined tackles, this doesn’t come close to telling the story of how awful he was against the Eagles. Smith was all over the field this game, but in the worst way possible, missing tackles, making horrific reads against the run and more. Smith just didn’t serve much of a purpose this game.
The previous front offices have ignored the linebacker position for years and it has led to the team seeing some truly awful players man the position in recent seasons. Joe Schoen at least tried to fill in holes by signing Smith, Landon Collins and Jarrad Davis, which is more than previous regimes, but these players don’t really move the needle for an NFL defense anymore.
Smith was just not good all season and his talent, or lack thereof, was put on full display against Philadelphia, which led to a lot of fans finally coming to the realization that something needs to change at the position. Smith can’t return next fall.
2. OT Evan Neal
In similar fashion to Smith, the regular season was not too kind to Evan Neal and that resulted in an incredibly disappointing performance against the Eagles for the young right tackle. While we’re still incredibly excited for Neal’s future in this league, he was way too inconsistent during his rookie campaign.
Obviously, it’s difficult to find success when matched up against Haason Reddick, who racked up 16 sacks in his All-Pro season. However, Neal was just dominated by Reddick (1.5 sacks on the night), who was living in Jones’ face all night. The right side of the Giants offensive line couldn’t block to save their lives. Neal looked rough.
There wasn’t anything Neal could do all night long and it was incredibly painful to watch – he played a big role in a lot of the Giants failures offensively. When we mentioned the poor offensive line play when talking about Jones, we mostly meant Neal, as he was that bad.
The good thing about Neal, though, is that he still has a ridiculous amount of room for improvement as his career goes on. We have seen what Andrew Thomas has become after a rough rookie season and he had a lot less going for him physically. Neal has a lot to work on technique wise this offseason, but we’re incredibly hopeful for a breakout season in 2023.
1: The NY Giants coaching staff as a whole
We sure didn’t expect the coaching staff of the Giants to look this poor in such a big-time game, but low and behold, they did and deserve a pretty big portion of the blame for this loss. The players executed rather poorly, but the plan overall was just not the way to go this week.
Brian Daboll is still our clear cut choice for Coach of the Year, deservedly so, however this week was rather rough considering how elite of a coach he’s been all season. The biggest point of criticism for Daboll come from his decision to go for it on 4th and 8 on the Giants first possession of the game.
While we may not have liked this decision, the Giants were in “no man’s land” where they were too far down the field to want to punt, yet too far to go for a field goal, so we can understand Daboll’s thinking. However, where he lost us was on 4th and 6 in the fourth quarter down 21 points. It felt like he was waving the white towel there.
Outside of Daboll, both Mike Kafka and Wink Martindale were simply awful as play-callers on Saturday night. While we’ll give Martindale some slack since his players didn’t execute very well, Kafka couldn’t have ended the season on a worse note. The offense can only do so much considering how poor the receivers and offensive line played, but some of Kafka’s play calls, combined with his all around offensive game plan, just made no sense.
For starters, why on earth did Saquon Barkley only run the ball nine times? He may have had the majority of his yards come from his big 39-yard play in the second half, but why not at least even try to include him in the offensive focus?
Most of the Giants offensive success this campaign came from when Barkley got the ball, so it is incredibly baffling to see him only run the ball nine times. Even in the passing game, a lot of the play calls were doomed to fail from the start. Honestly, this was a Jason Garrett-esque game from Kafka and it came at the worth time possible.
4 takeaways from the NY Giants deflating season-ending loss to Eagles
The season has officially come to a close for the NY Giants, as the Eagles had no problems taking them down in the Divisional Round.