Giants v. Cowboys - Week 4 Recap
Just as I was adding the finishing touches to my preview blog, I received a text from my boy JP. Typically, these workday messages are ramblings about which quarterback we should draft, a random memory about the 2007/2011 teams, or a shitty anime recommendation. But on this day, he came bearing gifts. He had secured a pair of tickets to the Cowboys game and wanted his favorite troll blogger to tag along.
Me and JP share a lot of similarities in terms of our fandom. After a loss, we’re inconsolable, declare the season to be over, and want every individual responsible filing for unemployment that Monday. Then, by the time gameday comes around, we’re full confident that the Giants will be able to pull off some sort of upset to right the ship and begin our playoff push. So it’s safe to say that following a victory - we stormed MetLife ready to fucking dominate.
Much to my chagrin - we did not dominate.
It turns out, we’re the only team unable generate a run game against this Dallas front. 24 rushes for 26 yards against the worst rushing defense in the league is both a complete embarrassment and a product of Zimmer loading the shit out of the box on a down in, down out basis.
Dallas was able to get away with this nonsense because they’ve watched nearly as much Daniel Jones as we have - and know damn well the guy physically cannot push the ball downfield in any sort of capacity. Don’t get me wrong - he was extremely efficient and his consistency in completing short passes without the luxury of any sort of rushing attack, kept us in this game. But the fact of the matter remains - this bullshit dink and dunk offense will never lead to consistent victories.
We owned the time of possession, out gained Dallas, and would have finally beat this fucking team if any one of our 5 field goal drives resulted in a touchdown. I’m so damn tired of throwing short of the sticks on 3rd down and praying for YAC. To be frank, I’m tired of being in 3rd down in general. We’re incapable of creating any explosive plays, no matter how weak of a defense we’re facing.
The excuse for years is that we didn’t have the pass protection or receivers to run an actual NFL offense. Well now we seemingly have both, yet we’re 2/14 on passes that travel 20+ air yards. You can cry about play calling all you want - but I have an aching suspicion the coaching staff saw that dying duck to Slayton (on a free play I might add) more times than once this summer. Hence the decision to implement an offense that keeps you in close games, and works for the quarterback you were unable to replace in the most recent draft.
People will point to the Wan’Dale drop, Nabers not getting his feet in, and Darius Slayton…being Darius Slayton - but even with these conversions, there is no guarantee these are touchdown drives by any means. 2 plays later, we’d be sitting in yet another 3rd and 6, praying DJ hits a receiver in perfect stride so they can break a tackle and dive for the first.
It’s just too damn hard to score with this formula. You need 20 of these plays to be executed to perfection in order to find the end zone. Meanwhile a sack or phantom face mask penalty completely derails a drive. Daniel Jones has executed the gameplan perfectly in 3 consecutive weeks and the results have been 3 coin flip games against non-playoff teams. You see what happens when Josh Allen plays a perfect game? He’s wearing a baseball cap the entire 2nd half.
Shout out to the defense - who was clearly outmatched on the outside, but came up with several key stops while holding an objectively strong offense to just 20 points. The big play to Lamb is a killer, but again - that’s what real offenses are able to do. If we’re able to make one big play of our own, the tone of this blog is a lot more positive than the total apathy you’re reading.
At some point, the “we should be 2-2 or 3-1” talking point is just bullshit. We are what we are - an average defense with a pass rush that works great when you’re ahead - but is hamstrung by an offense that unsuccessfully tries to paper cut its opponents to death.
I assume this play style will continue to yield one possession games against the league’s mediocrity (see the Dallas Cowboys) - but shouldn’t we want more at this point? Does Mara see the army of wannabe rednecks and cholos that invade our slinky looking stadium every year? It’s a total embarrassment and I just can’t bring myself to believe in this iteration of Giants football any longer.
That is - until I receive this text from JP next Saturday:
“Seattle hasn’t played anyone, plus we’re on 10 days rest”
