Grading the Giants’ 28-3 loss to the Eagles at MetLife Stadium on Sunday.
Offense
How much time you got? There were football atrocities all over the field. Daniel Jones (14 of 21, 99 yards) got benched early in the fourth quarter. Before that, he got pummeled (seven sacks) because his protection was lousy and he often held onto the ball too long.
Longest play of the day was 14 yards — that ain’t gonna cut it. Running game was bad (76 yards). Return of Malik Nabers (4-41) was irrelevant. Andrew Thomas, get well soon! Josh Sweat beat Thomas’ replacement, Josh Ezeudu (and Daniel Bellinger) for a first-quarter sack.
An 11-yard completion to Darius Slayton was called back by an illegal man downfield penalty on center John Michael Schmitz, who had a rough game.
Third-down conversions (3 of 14) were dreadful. Sit down for this: Giants had 10 first downs and 119 total yards. Yikes.
Grade: F
Defense
The numbers for Saquon Barkley (17 of 176, 1 TD) look special, but 96 of the yards came on two runs. That’s Saquon. He is a big-play maker. Allowing 269 rushing yards is abysmal, but this was not a fair fight.
The Eagles could not block the defensive front — Dexter Lawrence had two sacks and Brian Burns and Azeez Ojulari had one apiece — but Jalen Hurts (10 of 14, 114 yards) barely had to put it in the air. He threw four passes in the second half.
Nick McCloud was beaten cleanly by A.J. Brown on a 41-yard TD connection. CB Deonte Banks did not show great effort, failing to tackle Hurts on a scramble.
Rookie CB Dru Phillips was solid. He dropped DeVonta Smith for a 2-yard loss.
Matthew Adams raced in untouched for what should have been a sack but he inexplicably let Hurts escape for a 16-yard run.
Grade: D
Special Teams
Matt Haack outkicked his coverage on a 64-yard punt that Cooper DeJean returned 28 yards, breaking tackles.
Haack earlier in the second quarter hit a poor 26-yard punt that drifted out of bounds. He later had a 50-yarder with no return. Ihmir Smith-Marsette muffed a punt that he knocked out of bounds.
He did have a decent 12-yard punt return.
Adams was called for a false start penalty on the punt coverage team.
Tomon Fox was called for a roughing the kicker penalty in the closing minutes for running into punter Braden Mann.
Greg Joseph hit his only field goal attempt, from 38 yards.
Grade: C
Coaching
No problem benching Jones early in the fourth quarter. Nothing was getting accomplished on offense.
The decision to come out throwing was not a good one by Brian Daboll. Of course, he did not know his team was not going to be able to block anyone.
Defensive coordinator Shane Bowen may have to come down harder on players who do not always give maximum effort.
His guys got to the quarterback but allowed 6.0 yards per rushing attempt and too many big runs.
Grade: F
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