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4 NY Giants who didn’t show up in brutal loss to the Eagles

By Desmond Novack

Evan Neal, NY Giants. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
Evan Neal, NY Giants. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images) /
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Jan 15, 2023; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll looks on from the sideline against the Minnesota Vikings during the first quarter of a wild card game at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 15, 2023; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll looks on from the sideline against the Minnesota Vikings during the first quarter of a wild card game at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports /

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.

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