Big Blue View mailbag: Week 1 loss leads to lots of questions

Doug Mollin asks: Christian McCaffrey, arguably the best RB in the NFL, missed the Monday night game against the Jets.

The 49ers started Jordan Mason, a UDFA from 2022. And against a well-regarded Jets defense, he ran 28 times for 147 yards and a touchdown (5.3 YPC).

This is just one example but does this lend credence to the observation that any capable back can be productive behind a good OL?

Obviously if Saquon was running behind that SF line Monday night, he might have gotten 200+ yards and 3 touchdowns (he certainly looks to enjoy running behind the Eagles OL).

Don’t want to pick a Saquon fight or relitigate all of that. But since you can’t pay everyone in the NFL, it seems that the OL should definitely come before the RB, no?

Ed says: Yes, it lends credence to that “if you can block you can run” belief. There are, of course, different levels of running backs. Guys like McCaffrey and Barkley will occasionally make plays others can’t make. But, a highly-paid superstar running back is a luxury item. A quality offensive line, or at least a functional one, is not.

---

Scott Coghlan: Ed, I saw this line in an article this week and it made me wonder:

“This is the 55th season since the 1970 merger, and it’s the first time the Giants a) started five rookies in a season opener, and b) started two rookies on both offense and defense in an opener.”

Is it possible the Giants are actually tanking? Personally, I hate the concept of tanking and will never support it. Before this week, I never would have thought the Giants regime and ownership would support it. But Daboll made a lot of head-scratching decisions regarding personnel in that game. We know they wanted a new QB in the draft but felt their pick was not high enough to get one they desired. Daboll watched Jones in camp for weeks, so I imagine he knew how badly he might play.

Could they actually be tanking, or at least doing a soft version of a tank?

Ed says: Scott, they are not tanking. They simply played an exceptionally poor game.

Jones wasn’t good. Daboll was surprised by the lack of blitzing from the Vikings. He planned for a heavy dose of the blitz and the Giants were often caught with extra tight ends or in max protection while Minnesota dropped seven or eight defenders into coverage. That usually left the Vikings with more defenders in coverage than the Giants had receivers running routes.

As for the young players, the Giants have an exceptionally young roster. They drafted Malik Nabers, Tyler Nubin, and Dru Phillips to play key roles, and they are. They believe Theo Johnson is their best tight end, so he is playing. Daniel Bellinger started in that role as a rookie fourth-round pick. Darius Muasau started in place of a less-than-100% Micah McFadden.

Daboll is not going to tank. GM Joe Schoen is not going to tank. They would like to keep their jobs beyond this season. Wins are the only things that guarantee that.

They will try to win every time they step on the field. If they are good enough, they will. If they aren’t good enough, they won’t.

---

Wesley Protheroe asks:Just watched ‘Hard Knocks’, in which GM Schoen fixates on acquiring Brian Burns and fails to make competitive, bona fide offers to Barkley and McKinney. For the record, the resources dedicated to obtaining Burns ($30M and a high No. 2 draft pick) could have been used to re-sign Barkley ($12.5M) AND McKinney ($17M) AND also drafted a starting-caliber CB, EDGE, DT or developmental QB. Said another way, the Giants could have retained the services of their best offensive player, there best secondary player, and potentially a third starter for the cost of Burns. Your thoughts?

Ed says: Wes, what the GM fixated on was building the team based on his core philosophy. Based on his belief, which is also mine, that you have to have pass rushers and pass blockers before you spend gobs of money on running backs and safeties.

They now have an offense where their best player is a wide receiver, which is more in line with how the game is currently played.

The Philadelphia Eagles overpaid Barkley based on the rest of the running back market because they are in a win-now window and they could. He is a luxury item for them. The Green Bay Packers just plain overpaid Xavier McKinney, especially based on most of the teams in the league with highly-paid safeties trying to shed those salaries.

Joe Schoen’s philosophy in this case was correct. What we don’t know yet is whether he picked the right players. Will the offensive line get the job done? Will Brian Burns be the player the Giants acquired him to be? We’ll see.

---

Douglas asks: At this point, what earthly reason is there to run Daniel Jones out there and risk having the injury guarantee come into play? That would be catastrophic!! Does anybody still seriously believe that he gives the Giants any better chance to win than Lock or DeVito?

Ed says: Douglas, it is far too early in the season for the Giants to be making decisions based on Jones’ 2025 injury guarantee.

They tried to draft another quarterback and were unable to trade up to get one of the guys they loved. So, they chose to hold their water, ride with Jones for another year, and put the best team around him they could. Obviously, their hope was — and is — that Jones will at least plat at his 2022 level.

Like it or not, their resumes say that Jones has been a better quarterback than Lock throughout their careers.

Jones:

Lock:

Lock is on his third team, and could not win or keep jobs in Denver and Seattle. The Giants believed — and still believe — Jones is the best quarterback on the roster.

Now, if he continues to play as poorly as he did against Minnesota they will have no choice but to acknowledge that and replace him. That will be about performance if it happens, not the injury guarantee.

---

Alan Backman asks: So my question is what is going on with the Giants season prep and game prep with Daniel Jones? Assume he got most of the reps in the preseason, right? Giants coaches saw him. Presumably they knew about Flores tendency to run a kind of amoeba defense and had Jones prep for this. Did you and other reporters see Jones practice? Did you have any idea he was this bad? I can only assume one of three results:

– No, they didn’t know he was this bad. How could this be? Did they just throw kid gloves at Jones in the preseason and now find he cracks under what? It’s not cracks under pressure because he wasn’t under pressure that much (38% of the time).

– Yes, if they knew he was this bad, why was this not shared more broadly? I can see where the coaches don’t want to ring the alarm bells. But wouldn’t you or other reporters say something if you saw this kind of poor play?

– Acceptance. Maybe it’s not tanking. But it’s the closest Mara will allow. The Giants knew Jones was this bad. They tried hard to trade up in the 2024 draft. It didn’t work. They know they need all the draft resources they can. They are NOT trying to lose. But they accept that Jones poor QB play will lead to a lot of losses. They take their bitter medicine, hopefully draft the franchise in 2025 and move on.

Which do you think is most likely ? Because I just find it hard to believe that no one knew he was this bad.

Ed says: Alan, I will try to unpack this the best I can.

Our coverage throughout the spring and summer detailed what we saw from Jones every time we were at practice. Jones took all of the first-team reps during training camp.

Did we know he was “this bad,” in your words? He had ups and downs in training camp, and played poorly in his one preseason appearance vs. the Houston Texans.

Jones had an awful game in Week 1 against the Vikings. It was reminiscent of the way he played last year. But, Jones helped a Brian Daboll-coached team win a playoff game in 2022. They have some evidence he can play winning football, or that he could play winning football not that long ago.

The Giants did not treat him with “kid gloves” in training camp. They did full 11-on-11 work, the most competitive thing they can do in practice, almost every day. Jones took all the first-team work in joint practices against the Detroit Lions and New York Jets. They actually pushed the quarterback as hard as they could under the current practice rules.

As for the reporting or what the team said about Jones, here are my thoughts. We in the media, myself and everyone else, writing practice reports, were as honest as we could be about what we saw each day. We have all also written about the question marks surrounding Jones. No one in the media was hiding anything. As for the Giants, what would you expect them to say?

They are not “accepting” that Jones will be bad. If he continues to be bad, he will eventually be replaced. If they get to a point where there is no chance they can be a playoff team and it makes sense to replace him to avoid the potential of his injury guarantee kicking in, they will do that.

---

mhe1069 asks: Ed, after the Game 1 debacle you wrote: “The Giants, from Daboll down through every player…all gave us some version of the ‘it’s only Week 1, it’s one loss, there are 16 games to play’ spiel.” Not to defend the indefensible but would you rather brutal honesty from them, that they were unprepared, outplayed, and have the makings of a historically bad team? Might them putting it as they did be a better way to approach a loss like this. After all there are 16 more games to play.

Ed says: I wasn’t at all trying to be critical of Daboll or the players. That is what they are supposed to say. That is what you expect them to say. That is what they should say. In my column, I was simply making the point that Sunday was an opportunity wasted, and that the ugly nature of the loss was concerning.

---

Ronald Buchheim asks: I’ve asked before about the disparity between reporters’ evaluations and PFF grades. This time I’m wondering why every report I read said Jones was dreadful, But PFF gave him a nearly decent 57.6 for passing against the Vikings. What do you make of this? Did PFF perhaps Put more weight on the five dropped passes, the above average pressure, and the defensive scheme that precluded long passes?

Ed says: Ronald, I have always found Pro Football Focus grades to be enigmatic when it comes to quarterback play. Jones’ PFF grade for Sunday places him 22nd out of 36 quarterbacks who played. I did not watch every game or survey other fan bases, but it is hard for me to believe 14 quarterbacks were worse than Jones in Week 1.

The five dropped passes, which totaled a league-worst 18.5%, were part of it. He had four throwaways, a number matched only by Jalen Hurts. He isn’t going be penalized for those.

I think, though, there are better ways to judge quarterback performance/impact than by using PFF grades or passer rating.

ESPN’s QBR stat placed Jones 30th in the league, with only Bryce Young and Deshaun Watson worse. By Expected Points Added (EPA) Jones was also 30th, with only Young and Watson below him. Those are probably more accurate measures of performance than PFF grade.

---

Brian Misdom asks: It’s Monday and I am still licking my wounds from what I witnessed yesterday and in need of being talked off the ledge a bit.

Throughout this offseason, I have maintained Daboll has been the best coach we’ve had since Coughlin (low bar, sure) and that Schoen has cleaned up the front office. I have consistently viewed staying the course as an important part of getting the Giants back on track. You can’t be on the coaching circuit every 2 years and be competitive.

After yesterday, I have to ask, what happened to the group from 2022? Daboll cannot have forgotten how to coach. While there has been turnover, the staff is still largely driven by a number of the same position coaches and I would argue our roster is in better shape now than what they inherited.

I am at a loss of how this team can seem so uncompetitive with the same staff that squeezed every ounce out of the 2022 team. What has changed? Was it all smoke and mirrors?

I want Daboll and Schoen to show they should stay but how many more stinkers like the one vs. the Vikings can these two endure?

Ed says: Sunday was a bad day for the Giants. Daniel Jones was awful. Brian Daboll, in my view, got outmaneuvered by Minnesota defensive coordinator Brian Flores.

The 2022 season was a surprise year. That team did not have a playoff roster. They won some games they should not have won. Daboll had a great year, and won Coach of the Year. That was not a team with a roster ready to be a consistent contender.

Injuries and some questionable roster decisions derailed last year. The Giants never had a chance.

One game this season is not time to bridge jump. Still, the one thing I have said that could put the jobs of Schoen and Daboll in jeopardy is for this season to go off the rails. If they go 3-14, the personnel and staff decisions they made don’t pan out, and things continue to get uglier and uglier around MetLife Stadium co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch may have no choice but to start over again.

We aren’t there yet. In my view, though, Sunday’s season-opening debacle opened the door toward getting there.

---

Doug Mollin asks: This might be a very simple question, but I’ll ask anyway. Much discussion about Daboll not calling any long shots (only one pass went for more than 20 yards).

When a play is called, however, don’t all the WRs (and often the TE and/or RB) have a route to run? Some short, some intermediate and probably some long?

Is it up to the QB then to read the play, see who is open and make the right decision?

Here’s what you reported on Daboll: Daboll acknowledged that while deep passes were part of the game plan, the team failed to execute. “We certainly called the plays. Sometimes they take them away. We’ve got to do a better job all the way around. It starts with me,” he said.

Are the poor long passing results a Daboll play calling problem or a DJ not making plays problem?

Ed says: It’s a Doug Mollin two-fer! A glorious week for our mailbag hero.

Doug, there is no one size fits all answer. Eli Manning used to say that every interception had its own story. Every play call, every throw has its own story.

The Giants threw the ball 42 times. Anytime a quarterback throws 42 times in a game you are going to be able to go back and find plays where the ball did not go to the right place. Did Jones miss a few opportunities to throw the ball down the field? Probably.

I detailed earlier in the week at least two situations where I thought Daboll was not aggressive enough in his play-calling. Daboll has also acknowledged that Minnesota’s game plan, based on coverage rather than the heavy blitzing style it usually employs, surprised him. It often left the Giants with the wrong personnel on the field. That’s on the coach.

Each play usually has a specific progression, where the quarterback is trained to look at receivers in a certain order. We don’t always know what that progression is supposed to be. That’s why I take with a grain of salt screaming from fans about “so-and-so was open but the quarterback didn’t look there.” Maybe “so-and-so” was the fourth read on the play and the quarterback saw an opportunity to get the ball to the first or second player in his progression.

Blame Jones. Blame Daboll. Blame the offensive line. Blame the receivers. The Giants need to create more big plays.

---

Edwin Gommers asks: When is it time to legitimately start talking about firing Brian Daboll.

Ever since his hot-head moment I’ve lost trust in him being the right man for the job. Yes he was coach of the year a few years ago but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Since that hot-head moment he has piled disappointment on disappointment and bad decision on bad decision.

I mean you take play calling away from Kafka only to replace it with this type of horrendous performance.

I don’t have much to say about Joe Schoen’s picks. Evan Neal is worrisome but I do believe he was the best OT in that draft. I wouldn’t have mortgaged the farm for Drake Maye (I would have for Jayden Daniels. Maye, McCarthy and Nix would have been Daniel Jones all over again. Penix is one injury away from retirement.

However with Schoen and Daboll so closely tied it might be time to remove both and start over under Brandon Brown especially when picking a new QB because at this pace, being destroyed by a Sam Darnold led team, it likely means the Giants will be picking top 3 in 2025.

Ed says: Edwin, Daboll was Coach of the Year just two years ago. I will keep saying this — I do not think the Giants want to start over again. I believe they want to ride with Schoen and Daboll as long as they can. The one thing that could lead to a change is if the season goes completely off the rails and becomes so ugly there is no path forward for the coach and GM to eventually create a winning team.

The door is open for that to happen after Sunday’s disappointment, but there are 16 games to see what happens.

---

Jeff Sacks asks: We, at home, watching on TV, don’t get to see the entire field usually. So I was wondering:

• do our speed receivers get open downfield?
• are they open and DJ doesn’t see them?

I believe we only had one pass longer than 20 yards…this can’t/won’t make it in today’s NFL.

Ed says: Jeff, you are right that the Giants need to create more down field plays. They know that. The plays have to be called. The receivers have to be open. The quarterback has to read the play and deliver the ball. The quarterback has to have the protection to get the ball down the field, and trust it.

As I said above, every play has a different story. The quarterback is to blame sometimes. The receivers other times. The coach. The offensive line. The quarterback will get the majority of the game because that is how it works.

---

Julian Roberts asks: Will the Giants receive draft picks for the losses of McKinney and Barkley?

Ed says: Julian, the formula for determing compensatory picks is complicated. It is based largely on how many qualifying free agents a team loses and how many it adds.

The Giants lost five players who qualified for the compensatory formula:

Xavier McKinney, Saquon Barkley, A’Shawn Robinson, Tyrod Taylor, Ben Bredeson

They gained four:

Jon Runyan, Jermaine Eluemunor, Drew Lock, Devin Singletary.

Unofficially, Over The Cap estimates that the Giants will receive a fourth-round pick relating to the loss of McKinney.