In the immortal words of former New York Knick Micheal Ray Richardson, “The ship be sinking.” It may not be much different from asking one of the Titanic survivors whether at least the food was good, but let’s find out what Pro Football Focus thought of the New York Giants’ performance yesterday and who was at the scene of the crime most often. We usually don’t report PFF’s overall team score for any game, but for the record, the Giants’ overall 50.4 Sunday was their worst of the season, beating out even the opening week massacre by Minnesota, for which they graded 53.9.

Offense

PFF grades

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

When your highest grade on offense barely makes it to the average category, you know the offense was inept. There’s not much to say about the so-called “skill players,” except that all of them were no worse than below average, with grades ranging from a low of 51.1 for Tommy DeVito to 62.2 for Devin Singletary. If you’re trying to find a few shoots of green, Singletary, Theo Johnson, and Tyrone Tracy at least pass blocked well in limited opportunities.

Speaking of pass blocking:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

For the second game in a row, Evan Neal did OK as starting right tackle. Neal gave up an awful sack to Calijah Kancey on Tommy DeVito’s first dropback after three straight running plays to start the game on offense for the Giants, but he had an almost clean game after that, allowing only one more pressure, a QB hit. It’s small consolation for a No. 7 draft pick, but if Carmen Bricillo is salvaging Neal to make him at least an average NFL tackle, that’s a victory at this point.

Greg Van Roten surrendered two sacks, and Jon Runyan four hurries, but overall they were just slightly below average. John Michael Schmitz, however, was pretty much a disaster in pass blocking (29.1). JMS allowed only one sack, being perp-walked back into DeVito by Vita Vea, and two hurries. The optics on that sack were terrible, but Vea is one of the NFL’s best power IDLs, and even the great Quenton Nelson was similarly embarrassed by Dexter Lawrence a couple of years ago (back when the Giants were good). The bigger problem is that it was indicative of JMS’ general lack of play strength against big bullying IDLs.

On the left side, Jermaine Eluemunor left after only four plays with an injury on the same play on which Neal gave up his sack from the other side. His replacement, Chris Hubbard, continued his poor pass blocking (46.6), giving up a sack, two hits, and four hurries. Memo to Tyre Phillips: please get into play shape as quickly as possible.

Snap counts

• Other than Eluemunor being replaced by Hubbard after four plays, the rest of the OL played every snap. DeVito played all but one, leaving the field for a cameo by now QB3 Drew Lock after being pulverized by a sack.
• Tyrone Tracy split time with Devin Singletary and Eric Gray more than usual. That appeared not to be by design – rather, Tracy was taken out after his second consecutive week with a costly fumble, and it seemed to be a message sent to him by Daboll.
• The wide receivers had their usual playing time splits, with Malik Nabers, Wan’Dale Robinson, Darius Slayton, and Jalin Hyatt seeing the field in decreasing order of frequency…not that any of us noticed since DeVito didn’t throw much to them when the game was being decided in the first half.
• Also as usual, Theo Johnson got most of the snaps at tight end, with Daniel Bellinger being used a bit more than usual and Chris Manhertz the least.

Defense

PFF grades

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

Puzzingly for a team that gave up 30 points, 23 of them by halftime, the Giants’ individual defensive grades weren’t all that bad, even though their 55.8 team defense grade tied (with the Carolina game) for their lowest of the season.

• Dexter Lawrence actually led the way with an 87.0 grade, but that was all because of his excellent run defense (90.8) – he was invisible in the pass rush (0 pressures), as was the rest of the defensive line: Kayvon Thibodeaux (58.5, 1 hurry); Patrick Johnson (53.3, 0 hurries), Azeez Ojulari (53.8, 0 pressures before leaving with a toe injury); Brian Burns (54.3, 0 pressures); and so on.
• More players had good run defense grades than I had imagined watching the game in real time: Thibodeaux (78.8), Rakeem Nunez-Roches (72.0), D.J. Davidson (68.5), Bobby Okereke (75.2). The main culprits in the Giants’ leaky run defense up front were Armon Watts (41.5), Brian Burns (52.3), and Micah McFadden (55.0).
• The bigger problems were tackling and pass coverage. The defense had five players grade below 35 in tackling, with 11 missed tackles as a team: Dru Phillips (28.3), Darius Muasau (28.4), Cor’Dale Flott (29.5), Dexter Lawrence (29.6), Kayvon Thibodeaux (34.1). By comparison, Tampa Bay had only one player with a really bad tackling grade (Jamel Dean, 29.5) and no one else lower than 57, and they only missed 3 tackles as a team.
• Pass coverage was the other disaster, with no one grading above 70, only four players grading above 60, and five players grading below 50. The worst were Micah McFadden (36.4, 3 receptions in 3 targets); Tae Banks (37.7, eight receptions in nine targets – Mike Evans was his daddy all day long); and Adoree’ Jackson (42.1, but not targeted – Baker Mayfield must have had too many other options).

If Shane Bowen’s seat is getting hot, we can see why.

Snap counts

There really isn’t much to say about playing time on defense; things looked as they have the past few weeks in general, with only a couple of exceptions:

• Brian Burns played almost every snap, though it wasn’t all that many (52) because the Buccaneers had several long, time-consuming drives that ate up the clock. Dexter Lawrence and Kayvon Thibodeaux played somewhat less. D.J. Davidson and Armon Watts got most of the other snaps in the interior; the Giants’ brief flirtation with Elijah Chatman appears to be just about over.
• Darius Muasau played a bit more than usual at linebacker and Bobby Okereke and Micah McFadden a bit less, presumably because the game was over by late in the third quarter. Isaiah Simmons got his usual cup of coffee in the lineup.
• Deonte Banks and Cor’Dale Flott got most of the snaps at outside corner. The latter is a bit puzzling, though. Flott is generally playing OK though not great, but Bowen takes him off the field on third down in favor of Adoree’ Jackson, who is clearly not in their future plans and isn’t playing great when he does see the field. Jason Pinnock and Tyler Nubin played almost every snap at safety.