Before his team departed Hard Rock Stadium in Miami with a 20-9 loss to the Dolphins eight days ago, Joe Judge felt he had a great idea to help his players bond and rediscover their identity that’s been nonexistent the entire season.
Boarding the plane with their eighth loss of the year, the Giants would skip returning home to the noise and negative (deservedly so) distractions in New York for the seclusion and soul-searching desert of Tucson, Arizona. Spending the week practicing at the University of Arizona, Big Blue would figure out who they wanted to be and correct the lingering issues that have plagued them as the final stretch of the season drew near in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately for Judge, his team’s identity as a losing, offensively inept football team had been long established this season. And certainly an organized retreat in the middle of nowhere and away from the metaphorical heat of New York didn’t fix that as the Giants faced the Chargers on Sunday.
Entering SoFi Stadium for their first matchup in four years, the Chargers added a new element to the storied connection between the two franchises, one the Giants would now like to forget.
Every time the two organizations square up, we are constantly reminded of the infamous trade that went down between them in the 2004 draft. The Chargers (then San Diego) traded Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning (their No. 1 overall pick) to the Giants in exchange for their No. 4 pick, fellow quarterback Phillip Rivers. A transaction resulting from Manning’s refusal to play for the former franchise, the latest family heir went on to win two Super Bowls (both of which he was MVP) while Rivers had a lengthy career wearing the thunderbolts but it never bloomed into even a Super Bowl appearance.
Almost 18 years later, the Giants and Chargers were in their latest class of quarterbacks. The Giants with Daniel Jones, their third year player who missed the game due to continued rehab from a neck strain, and the Chargers with Justin Herbert, the second year prodigy the former organization had their sights on before the draft in 2019.
Providing another Hollywood-worthy performance in SoCal, Hebert gave the Giants and their brass a taste of what could have been had they held out their quarterback search a year longer. Completing 23-of-31 passes for 275 yards and three touchdowns, Herbert led the Chargers to another dominant win, 37-21, to propel them to an eight victory and closer to a berth in the AFC playoff picture.
Whether it was with his size and mobility, or his freakishly strong arm slinging balls 60 yards down the football field, Herbert knocked the Giants’ socks off, and their record down to 4-9, as the entirety of his playmaking abilities went on full display.
“This guy’s a talented player,” said Judge about the quarterback he could have been developing. “He’s a very, very talented player. He’s gonna be one of the top quarterbacks in the league for a long time.”
Speaking on Herbert’s deep ball ability that showed forth again on Sunday, Judge added:
“We’ve already seen [the deep throws] on tap a thousand times. It ain’t the first time he’s made that throw and it ain’t the last time he’s going to make the throw. We can’t let one play define your entire game against anybody.”
One play wasn’t the difference maker between a win or a loss on Sunday, but the Oregon product’s performance—and short career more broadly—offered an obvious distinction from the return on investment the Giants have received from Jones. Jones has missed games in all of his first three seasons and has yet to prove he can take over a ball game with his own talented skill set and lead the Giants to consistent success.
With Jones out for the second straight week, backup quarterback Mike Glennon, cleared from a concussion he suffered in Miami to make the start, could never come close to imitating the spectacular prowess of Herbert. Glennon, known as a game managing replacement his whole career with several teams, barely did such, completing a dismal 17-of-36 passes for 191 yards, two passing touchdowns and one rushing, and an interception to drop his career record as a starter to 6-23.
The loss guaranteed the Giants their fifth straight losing season, and their eighth in the last nine seasons with the last taste of winning football coming in 2016. Four games remain in the Giants’ 2021 season, three against divisional opponents, and we’re left to wonder whether any good will come out of them or if the team will check out early on their coaching staff.
In terms of Sunday, the good was very little in New York’s favor, and there was a lot of bad and ugly right under the surface. I break it all down below.
The Good
Justin Herbert had undoubtedly one of his best performances of the season, and that’s really no surprise since he was facing a Giants team whose whole pride was their defense and that group was weary through 13 weeks of carrying a lowly offense.
Throwing three touchdowns throughout the game, the most jaw-dropping came 17 seconds before halftime after the Giants offense failed to make the most of incredible field position from a bad Chargers punt and returned the favor right back. On 3rd down and 11, pressure coming from the edge rushers, Herbert launched a 59-yard bomb through the stadium to receiver Jalen Guyton who beat two Giants defenders–Logan Ryan and Xavier McKinney–over the top and secured the bread basket catch for a last second, Charger version of the Immaculate Reception.
One minute prior, the Giants offense was in the driver’s seat with a grand opportunity to at least march 10-20 yards downfield and cut the deficit with the leg of Graham Gano. The next, they were walking to the locker room in disbelief and frustration as the Chargers opened things up with a 24-7 lead at halftime and had the second half kickoff awaiting them.
“It’s just very frustrating,” Ryan said. “I’m frustrated with myself. As a pro athlete, you have to make split-second decisions and you get judged on them and I didn’t make the right one there. I’m frustrated for my teammates. I’m frustrated for the coaches. We practiced that play and we were prepared for that play, and I just didn’t make that play.”
Hebert’s other two touchdown passes came in the second and fourth quarters, respectively. Capping off a drive that began at their 40-yard line with 1:30 left in the opening quarter, Herbert connected with receiver Joshua Palmer for a 12-yard score that gave the Chargers a 14-7 reception after the Giants tied the game with their first touchdown when Glennon dropped a short pass to fullback Elijah Penny.
Then, with under five minutes elapsed from the fourth, Herbert finished his day with a 1-yard strike to tight end Jared Cook that expanded the Chargers’ advantage to 37-7, the largest lead of the game. Chargers coach Brandon Staley removed Herbert and most of his starters on the ensuing possession.
For the Giants offense, anything that could be defined as “good” must be taken with the coarsest grain of salt. There were small victories, and of course that’s not what any Giants fan wants to hear, but at the same time the final scoreboard was not indicative of the entire product on the field.
Most notably, the Giants found a way to cease their horrific redzone scoring woes for one week. The Giants entered Sunday’s affair with the NFL’s worst redzone conversion rate at 41.9% and had gone just 1-4 inside the opponent’s 20-yard line in the previous two games against the Eagles and Dolphins. More times than not, the Giants have had to rely on Gano, the team leader in points this season with 90, to get themselves on the board and the effects of settling for field goals have dropped their scoring average to the bottom barrel of the league.
Against the Chargers, the Giants gave Gano’s record-breaking foot a rest as they took advantage of their redzone opportunities and went a perfect 3-of-3 from inside the Los Angeles 20. Their first score came from the 3-yard conversion by Penny, his second touchdown of the year, to even the playing field at 7. Penny’s touchdown made Sunday even sweeter for his family, as he joined his brother Rashad of the Seattle Seahawks who had two scores in their game.
Here’s where the caveat comes in for the Giants–their latter scores came in garbage time with the Chargers calling off the dogs for a more important matchup coming up Thursday night with the divisional rival Kansas City Chiefs.
With under five minutes left in regulation, Glennon found runningback Saquon Barkley open in the corner of the endzone after Barkley burnt the secondary with a juke move route for an 18-yard touchdown (Barkley’s first since week 4 in New Orleans) to cut things to 37-13.
Barkley struggled for another week to become the productive weapon in the Giants offense that he was back in his record-breaking rookie season in 2018, finishing with 16 carries for 64 yards including a long run of 13 yards. The stat line was his best this season which is a scary thought for a player who averaged 81 yards per game his rookie campaign.
On the Giants following possession, they leveled the score a bit more as Glennon kept the ball and ran it in from seven yards to earn the first rushing touchdown of his career and make the final score 37-21 after a two point conversion by Penny.
So, the Giants may rejoice at getting over 20 points for the first time in over four weeks and improving their redzone conversion rate a smidgeon, but that was about all the gold one could find in the barren offensive scheme.
The Bad
For starters–not to throw everything on the Giants offense although they’re the prime reason the team is failing this season–the Giants were horrendous in converting the first down to extend a number of their uneventful possessions on Sunday.
The Giants offense had a total of 20 first downs compared to the Chargers’ 25 and despite the team being pass focused instead of pushing the run game with Barkley, only eight of those came from the air. Two first downs came courtesy of Chargers’ infractions, and the result was a 7-14 conversion efficiency on third down and 0-2 on fourth down.
No sequence summed up the Giants’ lack of first down efficiency, and really their offensive anomaly as a whole, then their second to last possession of the first half. A Riley Dixon punt on the end of the previous drive pinned the Chargers at their own 4-yard line just before the two minute warning would transpire. Herbert and the Chargers offense lost one yard on an Austin Ekeler run on first down and then went incomplete on one of the next two plays to set up their own punt.
Punter Ty Long’s boot went awry with his back against the out of bounds line at the back of his endzone, barely passing the Charger’s 40 before it was bounced out of bounds at the Los Angeles 41. Suddenly, the Giants were down 17-7 with over a minute and a half before the break and an incredible opportunity to cut into the lead and keep the game interesting.
As you may have guessed, the Giants offense absolutely blew the stellar field position and timely opportunity and gave the ball right back to the Chargers to maintain their two minute scoring famine. Going -2 yards on three plays, Glennon threw an incomplete down the middle to a struggling Sterling Shepard, followed up with another to Barkley that was destroyed behind the line of scrimmage for yards lost, and then missed Devontae Booker again to cement the three-and-out drive.
The Giants didn’t get so lucky with Dixon’s punt the second time around. Because of where the Giants were punting at the Chargers 41, Dixon managed only an 18-yard punt that Los Angeles corralled at their own 25. It was there the Giants set up their eventual fate of Herbert sailing the ball to the other endzone to Guyton to extend the lead to 17.
Speaking on the highlight of Hebert’s amazing game, the Giants defense was once again at the worst state it’s ever been under the leadership of Patrick Graham.
If any area of the team deserves credit for its overall performance in this forgettable season, it’s undoubtedly the Giants defense. Although ranked 22nd in the NFL through 14 weeks, Graham’s group has been a huge factor in keeping the Giants competitive in most of their games despite an unimpressive and banged-up offense.
However, under the California sun at SoFi, the Giants defense had no answers for Herbert and the big time plays of the Chargers receiving core. Giving up big-yardage plays left and right, the defense succumbed a total of 423 yards of offense with an average of 6.0 yards per play. In the passing attack, they gave up a season high of 8.2 yards per reception.
The Giants defense had to resort back to the tactics that earned them wins against Carolina, Las Vegas and Philadelphia if they wanted to provide their team a chance to win–forcing turnovers and bringing pressure from the edge up into the quarterback’s pocket. Likewise, neither of those things were accomplished on Sunday, as the Giants had their second game with no turnovers after forcing at least one takeaway in each of their first eleven games and left Hebert practically untouched.
Hebert only hit the ground on a sack twice the entire game, once by Dexter Lawrence and the other by Azeez Ojulari, the Georgia rookie who’s been having an incredible first year leading the Giants defense with 7.5 sacks in 13 games played. A huge blow to the pass rush came in the first quarter when defensive end Leonard Williams, never missing a game the entirety of his seven-year career, left the contest with an elbow injury and didn’t return.
According to sources, initial tests on Williams’ elbow brought back positive results, and the Giants are optimistic that their star defensive end could return to live action before the season concludes.
What leaves the biggest mark for the Giants, on either side of the football, is one stat that has lingered with them all season, a number that grew even murkier when the final whistle sounded in Los Angeles.
With Herbert’s miraculous touchdown pass to Guyton in the final two minutes of the first half, the Giants deficit in the final 120 seconds of football in either half grew to 59-0. That is correct, through 14 weeks the Giants have now been outscored by opponents 59-0 in the final two minutes of a half.
Much of that rests on the Giants inability to extend meaningful drives and manage the clock long enough in that time span to allow themselves the opportunity to score points and prevent the opponent from doing likewise. That is why seeing the Giants put up 14 points at the end of the game is perceived as fools gold, because that was when the Chargers had their sights already set on next week and it was simply lackadaisical backyard football from the Los Angeles defense.
When it mattered most, the Giants offense failed to tally at least 10-15 yards and put Gano in his comfortable field goal range to ensure some points and milk the remaining 1:40 off the clock at that time. They forced the weary defense to trot back out and make one more stop to keep them competitive on the scoreboard, and the opposing offense capitalized on their failures on the other end.
The Ugly
In referring to the “ugly” aspect of the Giants routing in Los Angeles Sunday, it’s less about the product on the field than the reaction from the team, specifically the head coach, in the aftermath of the beatdown and his reflections on the season as a whole.
After receiving heavy criticism the week before for trying to put lipstick on a pig in regards to the abysmal nine-point output his team laid in Miami, head coach Joe Judge finally took some verbal accountability and concern for how the team’s performance reflects on him as the head coach.
Asked by a media member whether he’s worried about the spotlight on himself now and the direction of the team, Judge sternly confessed what many have been waiting for him to say. His choice of words, on the other hand, left in question the sincerity of his response.
“I’m the head coach. Everything in the program reflects on me. I don’t ever shy away from that, I don’t make excuses, I don’t hide from that. I’m not a finger-pointer, I’m not an excuse-maker, and I’m never gonna try and deflect anything.”
While the sound of that may have pleased the ears of Giants fans irritated over the coach’s charades at the podium, Judge then quickly fell back on his usual act of trying to find the “intangible” positives amid another display of embarrassing football.
“In terms of the direction the program is going, there’s a lot of things I see week after week with our players and where we are going that I’m encouraged by in a lot of ways,” Judge said broadly as one could hear the collective groans 3,000 miles away in New York and New Jersey.
“Sometimes that’s tough to see externally. But there’s some key foundational pieces being put in place and there’s a lot of things we’re making progress on pushing forward.”
“In terms of the big scope of where we’re going, internally you can see a lot of pieces being put together. A lot of things within the direction, the culture, the foundation of the program that I’ve been fortunate enough to know what it’s supposed to look like. I can see the foundation being poured and solicited and we’re going to get in the right direction”.
Once again, Judge gave the media and the fanbase no immediate specificity in terms of particular player or team improvements he’s been seeing with his eyes that seem to be in another world. The Giants are an absolute mess of an organization right now, spending five years under the .500 mark with no sign of light in sight.
For four years since general manager Dave Gettleman took over the front office reins, a tenure that appears to be over in four weeks time, the Giants have had one of the worst offensive lines in football. They continue to draft irresponsibly and spend endless money on the now fragile cap on free agents in an attempt to “win now” that never pan out.
Offensively, they average about 17.5 points per game and have issues even sniffing the endzone on most possessions. On the other side, the defense has a bright future behind Graham, but like the team’s success in 2016, that will eventually fizzle out if there is no complement from the rest of the team.
When asked by a member of the media to give more details on what he meant by his foundation comments, Judge provided likely the longest answer to a question by a professional football coach in history (6.5 minutes), going on a tangent about what he’s seen from the moment he stepped in in January 2020. Still, it read like one whole nothing burger to the laymen reader.
Judge needs to wake up and smell the coffee in that his tenure as the Giants head coach hasn’t resulted in the vision himself nor ownership and the fans had for it. Maybe Judge has a vision that extends beyond two years, and he has historical evidence to prove that teams can turn things around with a diligent, slow moving process or as he calls it, “the right way”.
However, the city he works in is the most impatient within sports and the Giants fans aren’t willing to wait for a winning season in 2025. They haven’t seen a championship since 2011 when the team was spearheaded by a solid front office, strong offensive line, and a two-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback.
Not only that, but he needs to be more honest with himself in terms of his characterization of not being a finger pointer. Judge has never done as much as bring up a player or coach’s name in responding to a question, which is admirable, but he has gone to some lengths to implicitly cast blame on other personnel besides himself.
A month earlier, Judge told reporters that the “fish stinks from the head” but he didn’t mean that everything was extending down from him. Two weeks after that fish continued to stink in Tampa Bay, Judge spent his presser criticizing the coaching staff and proceeded to fire former offensive coordinator Jason Garrett the morning after, forcing Garrett to face the gauntlet for the team’s mediocrity on that side of the ball.
While there was a concerted effort Sunday to display a ration of honesty outside the closed doors of the locker room, Judge still has a ways to go before he regains the quickly fading trust of the city he pledged to represent with toughness and accountability, among other things. If not for anything else, Judge needs to continue improving before he runs out of pawns–both tangible and intangible–to offer him protection from the guillotine that Giants ownership desperately wants to avoid using.
Barring an absolute collapse in the final four games of the season, it’s unlikely they will have to execute another firing of a head coach in what would be the third straight in under two years of their tenure with the team. Lest we forget though, owner John Mara was at his wits end with the losing before it started, and it seems clear he’s open to everything if it translates to getting his franchise out of the decades-long debacle they’ve been trapped in.
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