Daniel Jones was better vs a weak WAS defense. Yet it was not enough. Washington pounded the ball down the Giants’ throats and the Giants could not stop it. 35 carries for 215 yards. 6.1 yards per carry. Daniels 23/29. What did the Giants in was Graham Gano. The kicker pulled his hamstring on the first play of the game, when he was running after the returner who had sprung free. It turned out that the play needed to be called back due to a flag on the Commanders. But the damage was done. Gano would not be available for extra point service OR FG service. This proved to be a nightmare, with Gillan missing his extra point FG and then the Giants failing to make two other 2 pt conversions. They will be pointing fingers at Daboll for not dressing two FG kickers, as Gano had a groin injury coming into the game and had been added to the injury report on Saturday.
The Commanders were equal parts their own worst enemy. In 3 trips into the red zone they had 4 false starts, which are tantamount to drive killers for rookie QBs. 7 FGs would do the trick, owing in part to relentless success in the run game.
Nabers is a menace. He did everything but bus the tables in the Luxury suites. 10 catches, 127 yards, 1 TD. Unfortunately, his last touch would doom the Gmen, as they would have taken the FG (no Gano) but failed to convert the 4th Down. Nabers could not pull in a ball on the sidelines. He is the kind of player who won’t make that mistake again.
Jones was better. Not good. Better. He threw the ball deep to Nabers 3x and missed him by a country mile each time. One attempt missed him by ~15 yards, the next missed by ~8 yards. He was able to get Nabers involved in the short game. The YAC piled up. Nabers also drew his first DPI flag, an impressive feat for a rookie in his second game in the NFL. If I were the opposing team, I would not worry about Nabers deep because there is little likelihood Jones can capitalize off of that.
The Giants next 6 games are at CLE, DAL, at SEA, CIN, PHL, at PIT. They will not be favored in any of these games. They could win vs WAS and CAR and then lose out the rest of the way to TB DAL NO BAL ATL IND PHL.
There are some things to build off. We tweeted mid game that Dru Phillips is a football player. Despite watching him play well, it was stunning to look at his stat line: 12 tackles. 7 solo tackles. 2 tackles for a loss. 1 sack. He already created a turnover in Week 1. In Phillips‘ pre draft scouting report he was given positive comments for being a tackler with promising coverage skills. He’s already making impact plays regularly in only his second game in the NFL. We expected and got that kind of impact from Malik Nabers. To be seeing it from Phillips bodes well for the future, particularly because he was a Round 3 pick. I’ll stop there and be grateful for something positive from this ugly loss.