It’s still the same old story. A fight for love and glory. A case of do or die. But for the New York Giants, it’s die, mostly, as time goes by.

Monday night was the type of dispiriting loss the Giants have had too many of this season – another game against a two-loss playoff-contending team that they could have won (there have now been three of them) but lost because of mistakes and failures to rise to the occasion at key moments. Yes, you are what your record says you are, but they’re not far from having a much better record. Let’s find out who played well and who didn’t, and how much in the 26-18 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Offense

PFF grades

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

The Giants did not play terribly on offense last night. Unfortunately there were a few notable exceptions in an important category.

• Daniel Jones had an OK game (64.4), but that’s the problem. He’s often just OK and is not able to go out and win the game for the Giants. Jones actually did go downfield a decent bit: six passes of 20+ yards, six more of 10-20 yards. And he completed half of them. He was under pressure a lot (53.5% of dropbacks) and he handled it well:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

Jones’ passing grade was only a little worse under pressure than when kept clean, and he was hardly affected by the blitz. He had two big time throws…but also two turnover-worthy plays, one of which was intercepted and sealed the loss. He also had four passes dropped by his receivers, which is becoming the norm. That’s sort of the story of the game – the offense is not far from clicking but small mistakes prevent it from doing so.

• The offensive line of course had a rough game in pass protection against one of the NFL’s best pass rushes. The worst offenders were Chris Hubbard (9.3) and Jermaine Eluemunor (40.4), who had to deal with Alex Highsmith and T.J. Watt, but Jon Runyan Jr. (46.8) was poor as well, while Greg Van Roten (77.4) played well and John Michael Schmitz (63.7) was OK, too. Hubbard gave up a sack, six hits, and five hurries, while Runyan was charged with a hit and five hurries and Eluemunor a sack, a hit, and two hurries. The offensive line did do much better in run blocking, with no one grading below average and Hubbard (91.0) and Van Roten (87.3) grading excellent. The line was charged with five penalties as well, with only JMS not being flagged.
• Tyrone Tracy had an excellent 80.4 run grade while Devin Singletary graded 62.2 in limited action. We’ll hope that Tracy’s concussion is not a long-lasting problem.
• Malik Nabers (71.5) and Darius Slayton (69.9) had pretty good receiving games, but Nabers’ two drops reflect a nagging problem with him. Wan’Dale Robinson was slightly below average (53.1). Tight end Chris Manhertz graded an excellent 86.0 in receiving and should have had a TD were it not for a penalty; he also pass-blocked well (72.4). Theo Johnson pass-blocked well too (75.5); his 60.4 receiving grade reflects a drop he had.

Snap counts

• Once again, Jones and the starting offensive line, this time featuring Chris Hubbard at left tackle, played every snap. Evan Neal also had a snap! (On the ill-fated 2-point conversion attempt.)
• Slayton also played every snap and Nabers all but one snap, whileRobinson played 86% of snaps, i.e., (1) the Giants played a lot of 11 personnel, (2) Jalin Hyatt rode the bench all evening.
• Theo Johnson has solidified his position as TE1 with 70 snaps, with Chris Manhertz getting 11 and Daniel Bellinger only seeing the field on offense once.
• Tracy is now the clear RB1, with Devin Singeltary still seeing significant snaps and Eric Gray making only cameo appearances.

Defense

PFF grades

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

A number of defensive players performed well. To the extent that the defense contributed to the loss, it was because of 16 (yes, 16) missed tackles by nine different players (by comparison, Pittsburgh had 6) and overall poor play by the secondary. The Giants did not have a single player who graded above average against the run.

• Looking at the lowest grades, we see Jason Pinnock (42.3), Deonte Banks (47.8), Tyler Nubin (50.0), and Dru Phillips (52.9) as four of the worst five, with Nick McCloud (57.8) a bit below average as well. Phillips (six targets, six receptions, 115 yards) was especially picked on by Russell Wilson. Only Greg Stroman Jr. (75.2), who replaced Banks, graded well.
• Bobby Okereke (81.3) had his third consecutive good game and his highest grade of the season. Perhaps he has finally acclimated to Shane Bowen’s system and is starting to remind us of the player we saw last season. Micah McFadden (77.6) also played well, after a three-week stretch of subpar performances. Isaiah Simmons did well in limited action (74.2); he has only played on defense in three of the past five games but has been effective in each one. Darius Muasau (57.5) was OK but slightly below average in limited snaps.
• The defensive line had one of its more quiet games overall. You have to say that Pittsburgh’s offensive handled them more effectively than the Giants’ offensive line handled the Steelers’ DL. Dexter Lawrence, as always, was above average (72.2) and strong in pass rush (87.5 with a hit and two hurries), but he like other defensive players tackled poorly. Elijah Chatman played all right (67.4), as did Armon Watts (65.3). Brian Burns (65.1) had a sack, a hit, and two hurries, while Azeez Ojulari graded only 54.0, and only an average 62.0 on pass rush, despite accumulating two sacks and two hurries. Tomon Fox was average (63.8) as the rotational edge defender Keep an eye on D.J. Davidson (55.6), who seems to be slowly improving over time, with close to average or above average grades in five of the past six games. He has recently split snaps almost evenly with Rakeem Nunez-Roches (44.6), and last night it was in a game that was undecided in the fourth quarter.

Snap counts

• As usual, Okereke, Pinnock and Tyler Nubin played every snap. McFadden played a majority of snaps opposite Okereke, while Simmons andMuasau split the rest of the time.
• The big story in the secondary was Banks being removed late in the second quarter in favor of Stroman. Phillips and McCloud played about 80% of the defensive snaps.
• Ojulari played the most snaps on the edge of any Giant, a few more than Burns, with Fox filling in for one of them occasionally. Lawrence as usual was the workhorse inside, and as mentioned earlier, Davidson and Nunez-Roches split time while Chatman played less than Watts.