We’re now fully into scoreboard watching season for New York Giants fans. No, not to keep track of playoff possibilities, but to monitor the team’s fragile perch atop the Tankathon rankings for the 2026 No. 1 draft pick. The latter is sure to be Fernando Mendoza after Indiana dispatched Ohio State and Mendoza won the Heisman. Furthermore, unless Dante Moore goes nuclear in the CFB playoffs, Mendoza will probably be seen as the only quarterback worth trading up to No. 1 for. Unfortunately, the Giants faced stiff competition from the equally pathetic two-win Raiders and Titans, not to mention the three-win Browns, Saints, Jets, Cardinals,… and Washington Commanders, whom the Giants faced today. You could cut the tension with a snow shovel at MetLife for this meeting of two disappointing teams who’d love nothing more right now than a haul of high 2026/2027 picks.
What did we learn from the Giants’ 29-21 loss to the Commanders? Well, we learned that the No. 1 pick is still in play. But what else?
Daboll + Dart > Kafka + Dart
I thought that Mike Kafka got off to a good start as Giants head coach even though he lost his first two games. The firing of Brian Daboll was triggered by Dart’s concussion in Chicago, which precipitated another fourth-quarter collapse by the Giants. Kafka thus got to call his first two games with Jameis Winston at quarterback, and the Giants’ offense played well in both of them, especially in Detroit, almost defeating two possible playoff teams.
Dart then returned for the New England game, and though he didn’t play poorly, he didn’t play well, either. It was understandable against the Patriots, who have one of the NFL’s better defenses this season. The Commanders, though, have one of the worst defenses, particularly in pass coverage. Today, Dart did tone down the ball carrying heroics except for a designed run at the 1-yard line that did nothing but generate another visit to the blue tent. Maybe this is Dart’s kryptonite. For whatever reason, the Giants’ passing offense has looked inept for extended stretches in the past two games.
Part of this is Dart’s own fault. In particular today, he was overthrowing receivers on intermediate and deep routes, except for a beautiful deep pass to the end zone that Darius Slayton couldn’t hold onto. Still, though, the offense seems more conservative since Dart returned. Obviously it doesn’t help that Dart doesn’t have a WR1 to throw to and that Cam Skattebo has been out since the second Philadelphia game, but I thought Dart still looked better vs. the 49ers and Bears than he has since. The Giants’ final “drive,” after the Abdul Carter fumble recovery, was the icing on the cake. The Giants had the ball at the Commanders’ 49 with a chance to tie, and they could only move the ball to the 36 against a bad defense.
You know what else doesn’t help? Calling running plays on second-and-10 when you have an offensive line that is mediocre at run blocking. Kafka called four…yes, four…runs on second-and-10 in the first half of this game, and none of them succeeded. Once in a while? Sure. If even I can spot this tendency, though, I imagine that opposing teams can as well. Another example: After being penalized on second-and-10 for not getting the play in on time, Kafka called a draw on third-and-20 that got 2 yards. What are we doing here?
Kafka + Carter > Daboll + Carter
Abdul Carter has had a strange rookie season. In some sense he’s been as advertised. Carter by far has been the most productive rookie edge defender in the NFL in rushing the passer, with 48 pressures and a 14.1% pass rush win rate:
Courtesy of Pro Football Focus
His time to pressure is the fastest of any edge defender in the NFL:
Yet I’m sure we all have the feeling that Carter has disappointed as a rookie, disappearing in some games and for long stretches of time in others. Since Kafka became head coach, we’ve learned about various transgressions Carter has committed off the field, most notably being late for or missing meetings and walk-throughs. Those incidents earned him a benching for the first series of Kafka’s first game and for the first quarter of his second game.
Today, though, the sleeping Giant was awakened. Carter was a beast, making Marcus Mariota’s life miserable right from the start. He sacked Mariota once, had four total pressures, and had an outstanding 21.7% pass rush win rate. In the run game he had four tackles and an assist, all four of them “stops,” i.e., failed rushing plays, with only one missed tackle. More importantly, he stripped Mariota of the ball late in the game to give the Giants one final chance to get the game to overtime. This is the Carter the Giants thought they were getting when they selected him at No. 3. If so, Kafka has to get some credit for the discipline that Daboll apparently was unwilling to enforce.
The Giants’ tackling is unimaginably bad
The Giants’ rushing defense in one sense did not seem all that bad today relative to what we’ve seen all season, although previous games are a low bar to clear. I don’t think I saw as many of the gigantic holes for Jacory Croskey-Merritt to run through as I did, e.g., for Jahmyr Gibbs in the Detroit game. It didn’t matter, because even when Giants’ defenders are there, they either let ball carriers bounce/slide off them, or else they take awful angles to the ball and never lay a hand on the ball carrier. This happens at all three levels of the defense. Today such missed tackles directly cost them the game. Here are three examples:
1.) I said “as many,” not none. Here’s the all-too-familiar parting of the Red Sea that occurs too often on running plays into the middle of the Giants’ defensive line. This one was a 16-yard TD for Croskey-Merritt:
2.) Jaylin Lane’s 63-yard punt return for a TD that came after the Giants had a chance to take the lead at halftime. I count three players who had the chance to tackle Lane and outright whiffed on him, only one of them who had any excuse of being engaged by a blocker:
3.) Not to be outdone, the secondary also had their “moments” missing tackles. Here’s Terry McLaurin’s late 51-yard TD that seemed to ice the game for Washington, courtesy of Paulson Adebo and Dane Belton:
Why is Brian Daboll gone and not Joe Schoen?
When you watch a game like this, it’s hard not to be struck by the lack of talent at so many positions on this Giants team. I’ll give Joe Schoen some of the credit for getting the quarterback room right this year after last year’s disaster. Russell Wilson (only signed for one year) only had one good game out of three, but with with Dart and Winston (who is on a two-year contract) the Giants are set at quarterback for 2026 and need only to add an emergency QB in the offseason.
I’ll also give him credit for grabbing Cam Skattebo and Tyrone Tracy in Rounds 4 and 5, respectively. Neither of them in my opinion will ever be a Jahmyr Gibbs, but as a tandem the two of them are pretty good, and with Devin Singletary form a good and versatile running back room. The Giants don’t miss Saquon Barkley that much. Likewise, I think Schoen has finally created a pretty good offensive line room (with the considerable help of the Carmen Bricillo hiring) although the Giants need to add a guard or two in the offseason. And with Brian Burns (whose contract looks pretty team-friendly now), Kayvon Thibodeaux, and Carter, the pass rush is a team strength, especially if what we saw today from Carter becomes the norm.
The rest of the defense, though, is a disaster. If I’m Chris Shula, Jeff Hafley, Lou Anarumo, or Steve Spagnuolo, I’m looking Giants ownership right in the eye and telling them I can’t work with a GM who put together a defense as awful as this. Yes, Daboll gets the blame for the Shane Bowen hiring, but when you look at the defensive tackle, linebacker, cornerback, and safety positions, the cupboard just seems bare even though there are a couple of young players who could mature. At linebacker it’s the result of mostly ignoring the position. In the secondary, though, it’s the result of spending a lot of money and draft picks but poorly. I don’t know if Schoen behind closed doors talks differently than he does before the press, but somehow this team has to get an infusion of talent on the defense to compete. Whether Schoen can be that guy, I don’t know.
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