Last Sunday, the New York Giants played with grit, competitiveness, and a desire to prove themselves in a game they absolutely needed to.
They laid the chip on their own shoulders after multiple weeks of the same pattern–tone setting coachspeak from head coach Joe Judge, tumultuous football, and more repetitive coachspeak in the postgame– and the time had come to show that their words could elevate into a more solid, winning performance on the field.
All three phases of the game stepped up and made huge contributions to the team’s victory. The offense, as banged up as it was with continuous injuries, found their stride in the second half to the tune of 22 unanswered points and put quarterback Daniel Jones in the spotlight with his own highlight reception. Led by rookie linebacker Azeez Ojulari (2.5 sacks), the Giants defense racked up six sacks and forced an important turnover in the redzone. Last but not least, special teams was sharp and a big factor in the Panthers inability to push drives into scoring territory.
The Giants (2-5) will need to prove themselves once again in Week 8, except this time against a more formidable foe that, up until recently, has carried a resume of Super Bowl-caliber dominance throughout the NFL.
On Monday night, under the primetime lights of Arrowhead Stadium, the Giants will enter another stadium known for raising the decibel meter and look to earn a second consecutive win as they meet with the defending AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs (3-4). The meeting marks the 15th regular season matchup between the two teams since their first on Nov. 3rd, 1974, with the Giants leading the series 11-3 and winning five of the last six contests.
The Chiefs come into their homestand losers of three out of their last five, with wins only coming against NFC East teams in Washington and Philadelphia. Looking at the season more broadly, they’ve been a complete shell of themselves, with quarterback Patrick Mahomes caught up in a league leading interception rut–nine turnovers in seven games–and the defense under former Giants defensive coordinator and interim head coach Steve Spagnuolo bottoming out in many opposition offensive categories.
Mahomes, who is tied with the New York Jets’ Zach Wilson for most turnovers in the league and three shy of his career-high of 12 from the 2018 season, has one turnover in each of his last six games and multiple turnovers in each of his last three. The reasoning for his struggles have fallen partly on poor decision-making in the pocket, a result of Mahomes’ and the Chiefs offense having to play from behind with a defense giving up 29 points per game (5th most in the league) and forcing plays downfield that haven’t fully developed.
On the subject of the Chiefs defense, they’ve been read like an open book through seven games, giving an average of 414.6 total offensive yards and 3.6 touchdowns per game (30th overall in the NFL). Opposing teams have not hesitated to push the ball downfield against the Chiefs’ swiss cheese secondary that has allowed an average of 8.3 yards per pass and a 68% opposition completion rating.
Getting those opposing offenses off the field has been a constant battle as well. The Chiefs’ defense ranks 30th in the league in both opposing 3rd and 4th down conversion percentage with 49% and 75%, respectively. In the redzone, it’s been all feast and little famine for opponents who score a touchdown 73% of the time within the 20-yard line against Spagnuolo’s unit.
While the Chiefs previous display of dominating football has been exposed by quality opponents in recent weeks, the Giants and head coach Joe Judge are steering clear of any attempts by the media to get bulletin board comments out of them regarding their opponent.
Instead, Judge and his team know they have a difficult test on Monday night against an incredibly talented football team that is still the talk of the league and a two-time defending AFC champion. Not to mention Super Bowl worthy if they go on a run.
“I mean, how’d the league catch up to them?” Judge said and quipped when being asked if the rest of the league has caught up to the Chiefs. “Is everyone as fast as Tyreek Hill or [Mecole] Hardman? Can everybody cover the ball as deep as [Mahomes] can throw that thing? I think it’s a foolish narrative for us to buy into if we think this team isn’t as good as they are.”
“They’re a good defense,” said Daniel Jones, concurring on the team’s defensive talent. “They’ve been a good defense for the past however many years, the Chiefs have been a top team in the league.”
“They’ve got really good players on defense, guys who can disrupt the game and who can make big time plays. I don’t think there’s anyone on our team or in this building who’s going to overlook them.”
The Giants are not wrong to think that way. As much as there have been negative things to point at with the Chiefs, there have been just as many redeeming qualities that can make them dangerous on any given night.
On the flipside of his resume, Mahomes has completed 187 of his passes for nearly 2,100 yards and thrown 18 touchdowns, which is the third most in the NFL behind Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford. With his powerful arm and insane athleticism, Mahomes can move around the pocket, extend plays and find receivers downfield for huge plays that torch defenses.
“He looks like one of the best quarterbacks in the world to me,” Judge remarked of Mahomes. “Look, to be as athletic as he is, as just naturally instinctive as he is and have that kind of arm strength to make all those throws, there’s a reason this guy gets paid that much money because there’s not a lot of these guys walking the Earth.”
With Mahomes under center in his fourth season in Kansas City, the Chiefs offense ranks third in total offense yards, fourth in passing yards, fourteenth in rushing yards, and eighth in scoring with 26.9 points per game.
The defense can be porous, but they still can force some turnovers if an offense isn’t careful. They rank fourteenth in opponent interception thrown percentage and nineteenth in takeaways per game, securing an average of one per contest.
The Giants will certainly have their hands full with this high powered Chiefs team, but it will serve as a good test for Daniel Jones and the younger offensive skill players whom the Giants are trying to learn more about amid their endless injury woes this season.
Jones has had a much more modest season stat-wise than Mahomes, throwing 1,727 yards and five touchdowns. Yet , he leads the Giants in rushing yards, tallying 229 on 41 rushes, and has two rushing touchdowns to his resume.
A major improvement in the third-year quarterback’s progression has come in the turnover category and ball protection. Jones has only succumbed four interceptions this season, and three of those came in his worst performance of the year against the Rams where he also threw no touchdowns and was returning from concussion protocol.
Unfortunately, Jones will have to find winning level offensive production without key members of the Giants’ offensive talent. On Saturday, the Giants ruled out running back Saquon Barkley and wide receiver Kenny Golladay, among others, for Monday’s game. Both players will miss their third consecutive game suffering injuries in Week 5, Barkley spraining his ankle and Golladay injuring his knee.
However, the Giants did announce that receiver Sterling Shepard would be a go for the game and listed rookie receiver Kadarius Toney as inactive. Recent reports said that Toney was trending towards playing as of Thursday and Friday’s practices. Toney has become a huge factor in the Giants defense, catching 23 passes for 317 yards and showcasing his unique elusiveness, but he has been sidelined since suffering an ankle injury in Week 6.
The continued absences of Barkley and Golladay mean the Giants offense will have to rely on a committee of skill players that helped them to a victory against the Panthers.
Receiver Darius Slayton has always been Jones’ trusty deep throw receiver since they both joined the team, so it is expected that Jones will depend on him to add more big catches to his 190 yard and 1 touchdown stat sheet.
John Ross was signed by the Giants for his elusive speed and big-time pass catching ability, which went on display in his 52-yard touchdown reception in the Giants Week 4 win over the New Orleans Saints. Ross could serve as the Giants’ Tyreek Hill in a Chiefs secondary that leaves open holes throughout the field for opposing receivers to make huge receptions, and that speaks music to Ross’s ears as he averages 19.5 yards per reception this season.
Expect Dante Pettis, who scored a touchdown and threw a completion on a reverse play to Daniel Jones last Sunday, to contribute to the offensive production as well. Pettis has 10 receptions for 87 yards and has spent most of his Giants tenure buried in the depth chart.
Devontae Booker will command most of the rushing attempts on Monday night in place of Saquon Barkley. Booker has 49 carries for 156 yards and a solid chance to have an impactful performance against a Chiefs defensive front that has struggled at stopping the running game at the first and second levels of the defense.
On the defensive side, the Giants defense is coming hungry to make their own stand on Mahomes and pressure the quarterback to make more costly mistakes to keep the scoreboard within reach for their offense.
Against the Panthers, the Giants sacked Sam Darnold and P.J. Walker for a combined six times, with 2.5 sacks going to rookie linebacker Azeez Ojulari. Ojulari has become a producer in the defense with the absence of Blake Martinez for the rest of the season, and through seven games already has 21 tackles and 5.5 sacks, the Giants leader in that latter category.
James Bradberry has also stepped up in the win, securing an interception just outside of the endzone to keep the Panthers off the scoreboard and, contrary to previous weeks, help the offense hold their lead built in the second half.
Defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence saw the Giants’ success in pressuring the quarterback and dominating the line of scrimmage last Sunday from the driver’s seat. For him, that focus has to be greater on Monday if the Giants want to have a chance to win the football game.
“The mentality is always the same for us,” he said. “To dominate, to pressure the quarterback, to stop the run, that’s an every week type of thing for us. We just keep the same mentality and just try to execute where we have to execute.”
The last time the Giants stepped into a raucous building, they left with an enormous team-defining victory that gave the players and fans at least something to smile about in what seemed like another lost season. In that game, however, they didn’t have to deal with the wrath of injuries they do now.
With the challenge being even greater this time around, and the whole country watching as well, the Giants will have their work cut out for them, but they could not have asked for a better time to face this Chiefs team. The atmosphere will be deafening, history should juice them, and the Chiefs have just as much of a chip on their shoulders to win this game and save their falling season and playoff expectations.
Joe Judge’s message to the media Saturday about his team’s task at hand could be summarized in two words: communication and execution. Do those two things on Monday night, and who knows.
“We’ve talked about everything from ‘hey these are tight sidelines, the fans are right on you there’,” Judge said. “We talk about the noise in the stadiums, it’s a very loud atmosphere. You’re still playing 11-on-11 on the field, but there is noise that you have to mitigate and you have to communicate through that.”
“You have to make sure the communication is right, so that’s why we go ahead and use noise at practice to make sure we are fighting to make the communication and overemphasizing every detail of it is important.”
“Ultimately, it comes down to the players on the field and how they execute, but in terms of the atmosphere out there, this is a great fan base.”
It’s the David-sized Giants against the weakened but still Goliath Chiefs on Monday Night Football. Let’s see if the Giants can at least stand toe-to-toe with Goliath and perhaps match the ancient story’s tale. If they can, suddenly the talks might be different about the state of the Giants 2021 season.
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