If you want to play the blame game for the New York Giants’ brutal loss to the Washington Commanders on Thursday Night Football, you can point your finger at a number of places. You can think of Dominic Zvada’s 33-yard field goal miss when they ended up losing by just 3 points. You can look at Malik Nabers’ red-zone fumble in the third quarter that cost the team at least 3 points.
But, in a gritty Thursday night divisional matchup like this one, mistakes and turnovers are bound to happen even to the best teams in the league.
Despite all of the miscues during the game, Big Blue still found themselves in possession of the lead and the ball late into the fourth quarter. So, the lion’s share of the blame should lie with the unit that was unable to close out the game: the offense.
Giants robbed themselves of a golden opportunity to beat Commanders
An incredible interception of Jayden Daniels by Ar'Darius Washington gave the New York offense the ball at the Washington 46-yard line, up four points with 2:19 left to play in the game. According to ESPN’s analytics, the Giants had above a 93% chance to win the game following this play.
The next two plays were inside runs to Cam Skattebo that gained a total of seven yards and forced the Commanders to burn a timeout. Facing 3rd-and-3 at the Washington 39, their next play call would be the most important one of the game.
Not only would getting the first down nearly guarantee a victory, but given the field position, they were also in a prime position to go for 4th down should the play call fail. They had multiple options: they could’ve run it twice with Skattebo, or they could’ve tried to ice the game with J.J. McCarthy’s arm.
What they could not afford was to lose yards or to throw an incompletion, either of which would’ve ruined the advantageous position they found themselves in. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.
Matt Nagy called a designed run from shotgun to get the first down with McCarthy’s legs. Sonny Styles read the play perfectly and tackled him 2 yards behind the line of scrimmage. With the G-Men now at 4th-and-5, they punted the ball away, having taken a total of 31 seconds off the clock with their 3-and-out drive.
The rest is history. Jayden Daniels quickly drove down the field against an exhausted New York defense and found the end zone with Stefon Diggs, sealing the Giants’ loss and breathing new life into the Commanders’ season.
You could argue that even after that 2-yard loss, Big Blue still should’ve gone for it on 4th down, especially given that Jordan Stout’s punt pushed the Commanders only 12 yards back. But that argument buries the bigger issue: the Giants do not have an offense that is capable of closing out games.
Giants' offense is still missing a killer instinct
This is hardly the first time this season that the G-Men failed to end the game in victory formation. Just last week, they were forced to close out the Eagles game on defense after the offense took just 14 seconds off the clock on a possession that could’ve been their final drive. Their victories against Tennessee and Arizona earlier in the season also depended on clutch final plays with their defense’s back against the wall.
It’s one thing to be a defense-first team. But forcing the defense to close out games for you week in and week out was bound to end poorly eventually. It falls on Nagy’s shoulders to engineer an offense that can help them out at the end of these games.
Isaiah Likely, who arguably had the best game of his career last night, clearly agrees. According to SNY Giants, when asked by reporters after the game about how difficult this loss was for the team, the tight end had this to say in the locker room:
"Very frustrating. When you want to be one of the best teams in the league, you've got to be able to ice the game when the game needs to be iced. …[N]ext time we get this opportunity, we’ve gotta be able to finish. "
Indeed they do. Otherwise, they’re going to lose a lot more games like this.
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