Assessing The Giants Roster At The Mini-bye
Can they fix the problems from their first 3 weeks?
The glass half full view of the Giants through 3 games is that things have gone about as predicted by the professionals (Vegas). They were a 2.5 point home underdog to Dallas, a 5.5 point favorite on the road vs Arizona, and 10 point underdog on the road against SF - which foretold all 3 final outcomes. They are on pace for 5.5 wins which isn’t far off their preseason over/under of 7.5, and a win against Seattle next Monday bumps them ahead of that pace. Knowing the Cowboys and 49ers are each pretty widely considered Super Bowl contenders the most predicted outcome ahead of these first 3 games probably would have been 1-2 even before factoring in Andrew Thomas and Saquon Barkley injuries. The Arizona win on the road isn’t even looking so bad now that they’ve played 3 competitive games against the NFCE and beaten Dallas.
The glaring issue with the glass half full view from my point of view is the defense. You might say this was the one big way the Giants gained on the elite teams of the NFC that wasn’t.
Last year they only gave up 30 points twice in 19 games, both times against the NFC Champion Eagles, the first of which was with a defense full of injuries. They have already given up 30 points twice this year and against Arizona they gave up 28 (which would have been 31 if not for a missed FG). They are 30th in points allowed averaging 32.7 per game, +11 over last year’s average.
Through 3 games they only have 2 total sacks and no turnovers.
They are currently graded by PFF among the worst tackling teams in the NFL, last year they were 8th best.
And all of that is against a backdrop of a roster that has the 13th most active roster AAV on their defense (but almost the same amount as teams #11/12):
None of that excuses an offense that has also had issues, currently ranked 30th in points scored, but those issues are a lot more straightforward and will hopefully be solved to some degree by offensive lineman getting healthy during this fortunately timed mini-bye. Despite the injuries the offense has at least put up 1 winning performance so it’s in there somewhere. They’ve had to play new starting lines each week, 2 games without their all pro left tackle, and 1 game without their best skill player. The defense hasn’t put up a winning performance yet despite playing 3 non-elite QBs and good health.
9/27 update - here’s a handy chart from PFF that helps articulate why the defense shoulders more disappointment in their performance through 3 weeks.
A Closer Look At The Defensive Problems
Diving deeper here’s a look at the specific defensive players who are and aren’t performing as expected. PFF grades aren’t my favorite methodology but this is comparing apples to apples with the players’ own grades this year vs last year so it’s a relative clean comparison, as well as comparing how their grades rank vs their peers. The rank of their 2023 cash for their position is a very clean rank because it is literally how much new money the Giants determined those players were worth paying this year, and had they wanted they could have spent that money on others.
The color coding here is green for positive impact/improvement, yellow for neutral, red for underperformance, and purple as it’s own category of “wtf is going on here?”
The key takeaways:
For all the bad, even at a low point it looks like they got the biggest defensive spend of the offseason right with Lawrence. Still a stud.
Holmes and Simmons haven’t played very many snaps so far, technically neither is a qualifier in their PFF positional rankings, but going forward I’d imagine that changes. McCloud or Flott too if healthy again. All are slot options worth exploring.
Related to takeaway #2 I’d imagine we see Adoree Jackson out of the slot and back outside more often. That experiment has not gone well so far and hurt them both inside and out. Hawkins and Banks have been ok, but Hawkins in particular has tackled very poorly and committed some key penalties.
McFadden has improved, appearing one of the more active players on defense, but has had issues tackling - like many others. He’s been picked on in coverage with 10/10 targets going for 68 yards and a TD. Needs to continue improving.
The FA class, especially Nacho and Okereke, need to step things up. Those were guys they targeted early in FA. Okereke has flashed ability so hopefully it’s just a learning curve in what is known to be a complicated defense.
Is there a bigger disappointment so far on the entire roster than Thibodeaux? No way to sugar coat his performance so far. His win rate for pressures on true pass sets was 13.2% last year. This year it’s almost exactly half that at 6.7%.
A quicker look at the offense
This chart makes the story of the season pretty obvious, specifically why the Giants are currently last in sacks allowed. Playing Parsons and Bosa (plus Lawrence/Armstead/Hargrave) didn’t help and given the youth on the OL it almost feels like a miracle they were as competitive as they were against San Francisco.
*Note - because QB contracts are so unique from every other position I didn’t use Jones’ cash rank because I think it’s distorted (3rd highest). His cap # rank is equal to his AAV rank (13th), which is what I used in the chart because I think that’s the truer ranking for his contract.
The takeaways on offense:
The offensive line needs to get healthy and get better. If that doesn’t happen the season goes nowhere and Bobby Johnson goes somewhere else.
There’s no bigger ($) disappointment on the bench than Glowinski, but if Parris Campbell doesn’t improve quickly he’ll be a close second. Hyatt and Robinson seem likely to takeover those snaps as soon as Seattle. If they don’t it’s possible Beasley and Shepard get a chance to do it at some point.
Despite an apparent nagging injury Waller has generally delivered. His performance in SF however was particularly disappointing because he left some plays on the field you expect pro bowl level players to make. CMC, Deebo, and Kittle made tough plays on 3rd downs that were key to the 49ers moving the ball up and down the field at will. Waller missed 2 or 3 opportunities to do the same.
It’s still early, but so far these 3 games have been a good example of why premium players get paid premiums. The Giants are paying Slayton ($6m) and Campbell ($5m) about the same amount they are paying Barkley and Waller individually. Through 3 games Campbell looks like a downgrade on Richie James despite his higher end athleticism while Slayton looks like a good value but still more on the complimentary side of things. Through 3 games the decision to not extend Barkley for an extra 1-2 years beyond this one still looks curious because in need of a play he’s still the best at creating big plays out of very little and finding players like that is really hard. Barring catastrophic injury he’s likely going to get tagged again in March because regardless of position it’s unlikely there’s a better playmaker available for $12m per year in FA or trade. The price tag on any playmaker on his level via trade is going to start at a first round pick (and anywhere from $12m-30m AAV depending on position).
Final Thoughts
Fix the pass protection and tackling quickly or nothing else may matter.
Put Adoree Jackson back outside and let the more natural slot players play slot. If the Giants can’t get Jackson and Williams back impacting games on a pro bowl-ish level they made mistakes bringing them back at their respective salaries.
To only a slightly less disappointing extent McKinney and Ojulari are running out of time to prove they are worth 2nd contracts.
Transition Campbell out and Hyatt/Robinson in.
The most depressing argument at this point in the season - which 2022 top 10 pick is the bigger disappointment right now, Thibodeaux or Neal? Top 10 picks need to be foundational pieces. Bobby Johnson and Wink need to figure out how to get a lot more production out of them very quickly. In some ways it’s likely the season will go as each of those 2 players goes since Neal has been the weak link in the offense’s achilles heel (pass pro) since his first game and Thibodeaux’s unexpected Copperfield so far this year is emblematic of most of the unit. If they turn things around their units could follow but if they don’t this team will be fighting to stay above water.
Seattle at home is a borderline must-win with trips to Miami and Buffalo after that. This is another 3 game set that looks like a 1-2 on paper but if they can somehow come out of it 3-3 the schedule eases up in a big way. If the coaching staff wants to live up to their accolades and interview request popularity from last year, this mini-bye came at the right time and we should see the best defensive effort of the year against a Seattle team that despite some issues has scored 30+ each week so far. If they don’t tackle better Seattle may run for 200+ behind Charbonnet and Walker.