Count on your BBV staff for expert insights into all New York Giants games – if I remember correctly, we are all now 0-3 with our picks after the Giants’ 21-15 win in Cleveland yesterday. As a favor to all Giants fans I intend to pick Dallas to win on Thursday night.

In the meantime, what do the numbers have to say about why the game played out the way it did?

Offense

Snap counts

By now, the Giants’ playing time patterns on offense have pretty well been established, and little changed this week from last week:

• Daniel Jones and all five starting offensive linemen played every snap. This is boring…which is just the way you want it after the offensive line instability of the past few years. The only way it could be better would have been if Drew Lock got some fourth-quarter snaps because the Giants were so far ahead.
• Malik Nabers and Darius Slayton are playing most snaps, with Wan’Dale Robinson on the field more than half the time and Jalin Hyatt once again only seeing the field 10 times on offense. At least he got a deep target yesterday.
• Theo Johnson (58 snaps) continues to be TE1 in this offense, even though he has done very little to positively affect the game. Chris Manhertz got the majority of snaps for blocking purposes (27 snaps), and Daniel Bellinger (26) was once again third in the pecking order, although he saw the field more than in his previous games. That’s 111 TE snaps on 72 plays, i.e., Brian Daboll is going with a lot of multiple-TE sets (even one play with 3 TEs and 2 RBs yesterday, I believe).
• Devin Singletary (49 snaps) is clearly the lead back, with good reason. Tyrone Tracy (21) is seeing the field more, and Eric Gray (3) is in the doghouse.

PFF grades

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

• PFF did not like the game that Daniel Jones played yesterday (49.7). It was a strange performance in several respects. For example, a good (in my opinion) first half and a mostly poor second half But also, upside-down splits:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

Jones was pressured on slightly more than half his dropbacks yesterday, and predictably, his performance was terrible under pressure (including one turnover-worthy play), which accounts for his overall poor score. However, both of his TD passes came when under pressure, and his ADOT was twice as large under pressure than when kept clean, neither of which one would expect from him.

• The story of the game on offense, of course, was Malik Nabers (83.8). Nabers leads all rookie wide receivers in PFF grade and yards, and is tied in touchdowns. His 93.2 receiving grade against man coverage leads the NFL (all WRs, not just rookies). Wan’Dale Robinson (73.7) had a good day too.
• The offensive line had its worst game of the season as a group (36.2 pass block grade, vs. 72.3 and 78.2 in the first two games). Surprisingly, the biggest culprit was Andrew Thomas (14.7 pass block grade). Thomas supposedly played hurt Sunday, but so did Myles Garrett, and Garrett absolutely took AT to the woodshed, beating him for 3 QB hits and 5 hurries. John Michael Schmitz (43.2 pass block, 1 hit, 1 hurry) also had a subpar performance, while Jermaine Eluemunor was slightly below average (51.8 pass block, 1 hit, 3 hurries). Jon Runyan was average (61.3, 2 hurries), and Greg Van Roten had his best game of the year (73.3, 1 hurry). Another upside-down set of offensive stats. It’s as if the Giants’ offense played on Bizarro World yesterday.
• Theo Johnson continues to be TE1 in playing time, but he’s been more like TE3 in performance thus far (50.1 overall yesterday). Of note are the forgotten Daniel Bellinger (73.7 overall), who played well in all aspects of the game, and Chris Manhertz, who scored well in pass blocking (76.2), which is job No. 1 for him. All three running backs had nondescript games overall, though you have to say that Devin Singletary’s heady slide at the 1-yard line before the two-minute warning partly compensated for his second consecutive game with a fumble.

Defense

Snap counts

• Starting safeties Tyler Nubin and Jason Pinnock played every snap, while Dane Belton was on the field 17 times.
• Tae Banks also saw every snap and Cor’Dale Flott almost every snap at cornerback. Adoree’ Jackson has not reclaimed the starting CB2 job, playing only 17 snaps. The Giants had to scramble yesterday when Dru Phillips suffered a calf injury after only 7 snaps, leading to Art Green seeing the field 11 times.
• Bobby Okereke as usual played every snap at ILB, while Micah McFadden played almost every down, Isaiah Simmons a little less than half, and Darius Muasau saw 3 snaps.
• Dexter Lawrence (53 snaps) and Rakeem Nunez-Roches (44) were on the field a majority of the time at IDL. Elijah Chatman is carving out a non-negligible role for himself (21 snaps), as is D.J. Davidson (17). Jordon Riley (2) is last in the pecking order.
• Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux played about 80% of the snaps on the edge, similar to Dexter Lawrence in the interior, while Azeez Ojulari saw the field 20% of the time.

PFF grades

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

The defense was the other story of this game, with five Giants scoring in the 80s and two more in the 70s:

• Not surprisingly, Brian Burns (89.7) and Dexter Lawrence (87.5) led the way. Burns had a sack, a QB hit, and 4 hurries, while Lawrence had 2 sacks, 2 QB hits, and 3 hurries. The pleasant surprise was free agent rookie Elijah Chatman (86.6). Chatman had been invisible his first two games, but yesterday he looked like the player we saw in the pre-season, with a sack and 3 hurries. D.J. Davidson played well, too (79.5, 1 hurry). Kayvon Thibodeaux (58.3) and Azeez Olulari (53.0) both graded slightly below average, but I thought both made their presence felt in key moments, especially Ojulari, who had 2 sacks and 2 hurries. Both players’ overall scores, along with that of Rakeem Nunez-Roches (52.7) were dragged down by poor tackling, which seemed to infect the entire defense in the second half.
• Micah McFadden (82.3) had his second consecutive excellent game. It’s a small sample, but thus far he is PFF’s fifth-ranked tackle overall this season. McFadden made a jump from terrible as a rookie to at least average if not better last season, and the early returns suggest that he continues to improve. In two games he has missed only two tackles, a bugaboo last year, when he missed 25. The flip side is Bobby Okereke (67.3), who has played OK but has not excelled thus far in Shane Bowen’s defense the way he did in Wink Martindale’s.
• Jason Pinnock (82.2) excelled yesterday, especially on the blitz, where he had a sack and 2 hurries. He played fairly well in other aspects of the game as well. Tyler Nubin was average overall (67.4) but is emerging as a mainstay of the defense. Dane Belton (51.8) scored slightly below average. Isaiah Simmons (44.6) is listed as a WILL LB, but yesterday he played more as a strong safety, in the slot on 26 of his 30 snaps. He was good against the run but poor in tackling and coverage.
• Tae Banks had another rough outing (48.7), as we discussed last evening. Cor’Dale Flott (63.8) and Adoree’ Jackson (66.8) were okay but nothing more. Dru Phillips played well (76.7) but only briefly because of his calf injury. Art Green (66.0) saw his first NFL snaps but was not targeted at all.