Week 2: Tales from the timeline

Nick Falato goes through some of his All-22 tweets from the Giants’ Week 2 loss

The New York Giants found a new and creative way to lose in Week 2 against the Washington Commanders. New York became the first team in NFL history to score three touchdowns and lose in regulation while NOT allowing a touchdown.

Of course, this was possible because Washington kicker Austin Seibert kicked seven field goals. The Giants failed to have a contingency plan for their 37-year-old kicker, who was placed on the injury report late last week. New York ran into a similar problem last year yet inexplicably failed to have an insurance policy for Gano.

New York is finding ways to lose games due to mismanagement — not good! Here are the Week 2 clips for this edition of Tales from the timeline.

Malik Nabers

Nabers was the passing attack. The Giants did an excellent job establishing the run with a physical DUO approach up-front combined with exceptional running from Devin Singletary. New York did a solid job creating traffic and confusion for Washington on the back end, and Nabers was the beneficiary of that confusion. Here are all 18 of his targets:

The Giants unsuccessfully took deep shots to Nabers when Washington rotated into single-high looks and once in the honey-hole against a Cover-2 look. New York failed to connect on anything deep Nabers, but his yards-after-catch ability (YAC) was exceptional. Nabers had 589 YAC in college last season, ranking ninth in the FBS:

He made this same move twice. He quickly accelerates to eat into the corner’s cushion, and his shiftiness creates space with a subtle move to the inside at the catch.

The Giants did a good job scheming Nabers open against man coverage. They were able to do that in the red zone successfully:

Other offensive plays

Nabers’ star is shining. Andrew Thomas’ star continues to shine. Here are 10 pass-blocking reps from Thomas that showcase his abilities:

In general, the offensive line played exceptionally well. This may be the best I’ve seen the offensive line play since I started covering the team in 2019; I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but they protected Jones and created space for Devin Singletary to gain extra yards:

Unlike Week 1, Wan’Dale Robinson did not see 12 personnel targets in this game. He played 63% of the snaps and is a main-stay in their 11 personnel package. He did, however, catch one of Daniel Jones’ two touchdown passes:

Defense

The Giants’ defense was gashed on the ground. They surrendered 215 yards on the ground, allowing 6.1 yards per carry. It’s a combination of scheme and personnel. The Giants’ off-leverage was a terrible matchup against Kliff Kingsbury’s horizontal passing attack. Pre-snap movement and motion displaced linebackers, and the defensive front — behind Dexter Lawrence — is not equipped to occupy their gaps in the WIDE front. There’s a massive burden placed on the linebackers in this scheme. Dexter Lawerence can’t do this on every play:

Lawrence played 82% of the Giants’ defensive snaps. When he’s not on the field, the Vikings and Washington have run the football directly at the middle of the defense. The Giants do not have any depth up front. We must also see more from the Giants’ pair of edge defenders. Brian Burns still earns much offensive attention but is being paid to sack the quarterback. Here’s a good play from Burns as the read defender on the zone read:

Kayvon Thibodeaux still has room for growth, but he did look much better than Week 1:

It didn’t seem like the Giants had five sacks, but they did. Here are two of them; the first one was close to being a much more impactful sack:

One of the lone bright spots of the young 2024 season has been rookie third-round pick Dru Phillips. He’s been elite in run support and has looked exceptional in coverage through two games:

This defense has talent, but it also has massive holes and lacks depth. It’s not playing cohesively, and it doesn’t seem comfortable against the run. Speed bumps happen when a new defense is implemented — it’s not always smooth — yet the defense has surrendered 737 yards through two weeks against a rookie quarterback and Sam Darnold.