Giants Head into the Bye at 6–2
Time for the team to rest up and regroup for the second half
If I told Giants fans before the season started that the team would be 6–2 at their bye week, I wouldn’t have believed the words coming out of my mouth. Yet here are Brian Daboll’s Giants, sitting pretty despite a 27–13 loss at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks yesterday.
Sure, 7–1 would’ve been nice, but it’s impossible to complain about the Giants being where they are at this point in the season. They came up against a solid Seattle team that just outclassed them at key points in the game. That, along with the two costly fumbles — not your best work, Richie James — that directly swung momentum entirely to Seattle doomed the Giants.
But it’s not the end of the world, and I find myself experiencing a sort of calming zen towards the loss, surprisingly. The team was bound to be on the losing end of a close game eventually, so better to get it out of the way in time for the bye week. Now, the team can regroup and refocus ahead of their 11/13 game against Houston.
Through seven games this season, the Giants’ formula on offense has been pretty straightforward: give Saquon the ball and use Daniel Jones’ mobility to pick up chunk yardage on the ground and roll Jones out for easier completions. Through seven games this season, the plan has mostly worked to perfection. Game eight, however, saw the Giants’ offensive plans hit a roadblock against a beatable Seattle front.
The Giants curiously came out throwing against Seattle, failing to attempt to establish the run with Barkley early on. Perhaps that was in response to backups at LG and RT, but it was still a questionable move given what we’ve seen from this offense so far. For most of the first half, the offense sputtered, failing to establish any sort of consistency on the ground or through the air.
Seattle came to play, and their defense was especially impressive given their previous performances. Saquon had nowhere to work on the ground, and the Giants’ lack of depth AND talent at skill positions was especially apparent yesterday. On two separate fourth down attempts, Daniel Jones’ target was Marcus Johnson. Yes, the same Marcus Johnson who was elevated from the practice squad earlier this season.
Marcus Johnson also had the highest snap count of any WR on the Giants, which is a WILD thing to write out given how ridiculous that is. Again, Johnson was elevated from the practice squad. On a normal roster, he’s the last man on the bench, ready to play in case of an emergency. On the 2022 Giants, he’s literally playing more snaps than anyone else at the position.
This is important to remember, as Giants fans on Twitter and elsewhere clamor for a trade for a WR. Yes, the Giants desperately need help at WR and would certainly benefit from a move. But we are eight games into a full-on rebuild, and there’s no need to go all-in already. The Giants are playing with house money, and I trust GM Joe Schoen to not force anything unnecessarily.
As for the Giants defense, they held up as well as they could against this surprisingly solid Seattle offense. Geno Smith continues to impress, looking like a genuinely top-end QB, and the combo of DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett (mistakes and all) proved too much for the Giants over 60 minutes of play.
I expected Ken Walker III to run all over a porous Giants rush defense, but they actually held up well against the RB and limited him to 2.8 yards per carry. It was key 3rd- and 4th-down conversions, along with short fields, that doomed the Giants. They just couldn’t make enough stops over the course of the game to keep Seattle at bay long enough.
Looking to tomorrow’s trade deadline, the focus for many Giants fans seems to be on bringing in some much-needed WR help for the second half of the season.
While I obviously agree that this has to be a key focus for the team going forward, I’m not too high on them using precious draft picks to acquire a WR. Sure, there are names out there like Brandin Cooks and Jerry Jeudy, but neither really gets me all too excited. The big thing for the Giants under Schoen and Daboll is process, something both have highlighted over their time in the Meadowlands.
Essentially, focus on the process over the results, and provided the process is a sound one, the consistently good results will follow. It’s what Daboll’s preached all season — win or lose — and it’s what Schoen has clearly focused on with the moves he’s made thus far. Why change now just because the Giants find themselves in the thick of a very bad NFC playoff hunt? This is not a roster set to compete with the likes of Buffalo, Philly and Kansas City just yet.
Six wins out of eight does not mean you have to put all your chips in right away; you don’t even have to put some of your chips in. This is a very flawed roster with not a lot of cap space, so drafting well and making deals that make sense will be key. Look at the WR depth in drafts the last few seasons and tell me it doesn’t make sense to rely on Schoen and Co. to draft cheap, young talent at WR for the time being.
All I’m saying is this: if the Giants don’t make any trades at the deadline, I will not mind one bit. This is year one of the rebuild, so take a deep breath, sit back, and enjoy watching “the process” develop.
