The New York Giants fought valiantly in a 34-27 overtime loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday, but once again found a way to lose a game it looked like they were going to win. Let’s get to the ‘Kudos & Wet Willies’ review.
Kudos to …
Kafka has watched the Giants’ defense play all year. He knew full well there was zero chance the defense was holding a three-point lead. In my view, the only card to play there was going for the touchdown to try and make it a two-score game.
Kafka coached a terrific game. He broke out two trick plays for touchdowns. The Giants compiled more than 500 yards of offense. For the fifth time this year they built a double-digit lead the defense could not hold. Kafka coached like a man who knew the defense wouldn’t hold up.
In addition to the fourth-down play, there are some saying Kafka should not have called a pass play on second down, a decision that resulted in an incompletion and stopped the clock. Again, I disagree. The goal there was to get a touchdown. That’s what mattered, whatever play or plays they chose to run.
The under-manned Giants never trailed in regulation to a team that was 13.5-point favorites. Without Jaxson Dart, Malik Nabers, Cam Skattebo, Kayvon Thibodeaux, Paulson Adebo, Micah McFadden, and Tyler Nubin. Getting his team to play that well and compete that hard against a team as good as the Lions on the road is praise-worthy.
Wan’Dale Robinson — Robinson had the best game of what has been an outstanding season for the fourth-year slot receiver. In fact, he had a career game. Robinson had nine receptions for 156 yards and a touchdown, surpassing the 142-yard receiving game he had against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2.
Robinson had a 40-yard touchdown catch, and added receptions of 39, 26, and 17 yards. He averaged 17.3 yards per catch.
Jameis Winston —This game was a full-on Jameis Winston Experience game. He went 18 of 36 for 366 yards passing, two touchdowns, and one interception. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of telling the story.
- Winston threw a 40-yard touchdown to Robinson on a flea flicker where he had to dodge a Detroit defender to catch the ball and then get it off.
- He caught a 33-yard touchdown pass from Gunner Olszewski on an end-around pass. The quarterback not only made what amounted to a contested catch on a broken play, but he stiff-armed and ran over a defender to get to the end zone.
- He completed nine passes of 23 yards or more.
- Winston ran 11 yards for a first down on fourth-and-10 on the Giants’ final possession in overtime.
- He, of course, threw an interception when he did not see Thomas Harper on a fourth-quarter throw intended for Robinson.
- Winston also gave this sort of confusing, but still fiery, Winston-esque pre-game speech:
Pass blocking — Winston threw the ball 36 times. Per NextGen Stats, 21 of those were 10 or more yards down the field. The Giants were going VERTICAl. Yet, Winston had plenty of time to throw. The only Detroit sack of the game came on the final play, a desperation fourth-and-5. He was hit only seven times. The line did a fantastic job pass-blocking. To be honest, as the game wore on, it did an increasingly good job creating space for Tyrone Tracy and Devin Singletary to run, as well.
Younghoe Koo — The Giants’ field goal kicker made both of his field-goal attempts, including a 44-yarder that might be a pedestrian distance in today’s NFL but was his longest in three games with New York. He also made a touchdown-saving tackle on a 44-yard return by Detroit’s Kalif Raymond in the second quarter.
Darius Alexander — The Giants’ third-round pick had his most productive day as an NFL player with a pair of sacks of Detroit quarterback Jared Goff. Alexander had just a half-sack when the game started.
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Tyrone Tracy — The second-year running back had his best overall game of the season, with 130 total yards of offense. Tracy ran 20 times for just 62 yards (3.1 per carry), but he fought for all of those yards and protected the football while doing it. He also caught three passes for 77 yards, including a 39-yard catch-and-run on a blown coverage by the Lions.
Giants’ opening drive offense — The Giants scored an opening-drive touchdown for the sixth time this season, this one on the Winston to Robinson flea flicker. If they could only finish as well as they can obviously start.
Theo Johnson — The second-year tight end, who has suffered from drops and inconsistency throughout the early part of his career, is increasingly becoming a force. He had just three catches on Sunday, but they went for 77 yards and all came in the second half as the Giants’ offense tried to hang on to its narrow lead. One of the two incompletions to Johnson also resulted in a defensive pass interference penalty that gave the Giants a first down.
Isaiah Hodgins — The veteran receiver continued making an impact in his second game since returning to the Giants. He had a gorgeous leaping 12-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter and a 30-yard catch on third-and-10 from the Giants’ 8-yard line while they were trying to hold a three-point lead with roughly eight minutes to play.
Wet Willies to …
Shane Bowen — All anyone needs to know is that Dexter Lawrence was not on the field for the first play of overtime, which turned into a 69-yard touchdown run by Jahmyr Gibbs of Detroit on which he was untouched.
Beyond that, this was the third time the Giants’ defense could not hold a double-digit fourth quarter lead. Their fifth double-digit blown lead of the season.
Leading 27-17, the Giants gave up a 49-yard touchdown run to Gibbs on which three defenders got hands on him and none had the toughness or urgency to make sure they got him on the ground.
Carl Banks was FURIOUS that Lawrence was not in the game. Me, too. I don’t care if he was “nicked” and being saved for pass-rush situations, as Kafka said in the post-game. This is overtime of a game your head coach, your offense, most if not all of your teammates have fought their guts out to get into position to win. Your best defensive lineman cannot be on the sidelines with the game on the line. Terrible.
Fourth quarter/Overtime defense — See all of the above. The Giants played with great effort on defense. They gave up some plays to Gibbs and the Detroit offense. They were physical, though, made Goff aware of them, got a turnover and did enough to have a lead.
As usual, though, they found a way to give it away.
Eric Gray — We have watched the third-year running back struggle to hold on to the ball on kickoff and punt returns for the past two seasons. The first time he touched the ball this year, trying to field a kickoff, he muffed it.
Jamie Gillan — I’m not sure what is going on with Gillan the past few weeks, but his kicking has fallen off. He mishit a 44-yard punt on which he got a fortunate bounce and roll, and also hishit a 40-yard punt that went dead at the Detroit 39-yard line.
Kwillies to …
Jevon Holland — The big-money free-agent safety had his first interception as a Giant, and his first since 2023. He also had a silly delay of game penalty on Detroit’s final drive. You can argue that penalty made the difference in the game as Jake Bates barely made a 59-yard field goal on that drive to force overtime.
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