The next game, we lost again.
This was a plot twist, but a familiar ending.
This time, the Giants played an unpredictable and often entertaining fourth quarter against the Rams on New Year's Eve.
A game they should have won, a game they should have won, turned into yet another game they shouldn't have lost, but in the end they lost.
A brutal missed two-point conversion, a reckless play call in the final minutes, and a predictably missed 54-yard field goal with 30 seconds left resulted in a 26-25 loss for the Giants, with the MetLife Stadium crowd at home. was returned to. The new year is here and we hope his 2024 is bright for your favorite team.
Here are some of the highlights and lowlights.
The comments made by Brian Daboll, Saquon Barkley and Tyrod Taylor about the unsound decision to run the ball on second down with 42 seconds left all sound like they're trying to protect offensive coordinator Mike Kafka. Ta.
The Giants were at the Rams' 34-yard line, which in many cases was one yard inside their destination at the 35-yard line, which would be considered in field goal range.
This was not one of those times.
It's already proving to be a tough day for kicking, missing three extra points: one from Giants kicker Mason Crosby and two from Rams rookie Lukas Havrisik. Ta.
It was already established that Crosby, 39, had lost his leg strength from his glory days with the Packers.
The Giants attempted a 52-yard field goal to Crosby from the 34-yard line. To make it easier to kick, he needed to pass the ball and gain at least another five yards.
Sure, throwing the ball comes with risks such as sacks and interceptions. The play call was a loss of 2 yards for Barkley rather than a draw, but this result was not surprising considering Barkley only averaged 3.3 yards on 12 rushing attempts. .
It gave Crosby a 54-yard field goal attempt, but at this stage of his career, kicking in tough conditions, it seemed unlikely.
Barkley said, “I don't make that decision. I don't call it a play. It's not a diss on the coach or the coach. Maybe they have a situation and the point we need to get to is the kick. They knew the line they had to get to, and that was their decision, and the Rams played well. The defense played well.”
Taylor said, “I didn't call any plays. I'm confident in every play we call and it puts us in the right situation to go out there and execute. I mean, at the end of the day. However, we didn't execute our draw play very well, so we have to learn from that and move forward.”
All Daboll said was, “I just want to play back.”
This is more of a guess as to whether Daboll will be on the podium or not.
However, unlike Berkeley and Taylor, Daboll is the only one who has veto power over Kafka's every call.
It will be interesting to see if Daboll considers taking over the offensive line's play-calling duties in 2024.
There was a sighting of a Sterling Shepherd.
He played five snaps on offense and threw one pass. He dropped it and looked pained afterwards.
What a tough career it's been for the Giants' longest-tenured wide receiver, the 30-year-old wide receiver, and perhaps even his NFL career.
This game was unusual in that the Giants made some truly spectacular plays that were ultimately wasted.
An 80-yard pass from Taylor to Darius Slayton and a 94-yard punt return by Gunner Olszewski scored a touchdown.
This was the 99th year of Giants football, and the first time the Giants had two touchdowns of 80 yards or more in a game. Including the postseason, 1,454 games were played.
Taylor threw the ball 60 yards into the air for an 80-yard touchdown bomb to Slayton. Still, he fumbled what was probably one of the easiest throws he had to make all season, and his awkward flip toss floated behind Barkley's reach for a two-point conversion attempt. failed.
“That's part of the game,” Taylor said. “If you play the game long enough, sometimes you're going to throw, sometimes you're going to miss. I hope I get more than I missed, but yeah, I just didn't execute well enough in that situation. is.”
Taylor looks at ease when talking about the plays he made and missed, the mark of a true professional.
Taylor was sacked six times.
This increases the Giants' total sacks this season to a whopping 83. Of course, this is the top of the league. Of course, this is an outrageous and unacceptable total. Of course it's embarrassing.
It's rare that you can look at a negative team stat and argue that it gets cut by two-thirds instead of half before it's allowed, but that's the case here.
Tommy DeVito has been sacked 36 times, followed by Daniel Jones (30), Taylor (16) and wide receiver Parris Campbell (1). Some of those sacks were on quarterbacks. Most of them are on the offensive line, which continues to be the bane of the Giants' existence.
Another game, and another full workload for Bobby Okereke and Xavier McKinney. Both played in all 62 snaps on defense. Anything else new?
This brings him to 1,063 snaps this season, all of which have come on defense.
Okereke was not used much as a pass rusher and entered the game without a sack. He was part of a pressure package against the Rams, got his first sack against the Giants, and then combined with Rakeem Nunez-Roches for a half-sack.
What a great debut season for Okereke with the Giants.
When it comes to predicting next season's chances, it's always dangerous to place too much emphasis on what we see in late-season games.
Second-year safety Dane Belton is not a regular member of the defensive line. He was forced to return to the field as Jason Pinnock went down with a leg injury.
Belton played 46 of 62 snaps on defense, and all he did was intercept Matthew Stafford twice and recover wide receiver DeMarcus Robinson's fumble by Adoree' Jackson. .
Belton is one of those players with a reputation for always being around the ball. He has four interceptions in six career NFL starts.
When was the last time the Giants scored on a punt return? It's been over eight years.
The last time they did that was in the 2015 season, when Dwayne Harris punted 80 yards for a touchdown in a 23-20 overtime loss to the Jets.
Taylor threw for 319 yards. Incredibly, this was the second time this season that a Giants quarterback has reached 300 passing yards in a single game.
The first and only time was back in Week 2, when Jones threw for 321 yards in a come-from-behind win at Arizona.
All you had to do was listen to how Rams coach Sean McVay answered a series of questions after the game, read between the lines, and say you can't believe he got on a chartered flight back to Los Angeles. All I could do was come to the conclusion that it must have been such a relief. win.
He knew his team was lucky to do so.
“There were a lot of things we tried to do to not win today, but our players found a way,” McVay said.
He also admitted that “we were a little off” and that committing three turnovers and giving up a 94-yard punt return for a touchdown didn't help the football win. Ta.
“When you turn it over as many times as we did in a situation that we haven’t really experienced, that’s what’s going to happen eventually,” McVay said. “It's really extraordinary that despite everything that happened, we were able to come out with a win. That's why I'm grateful for that.”
What a shame that “highly unusual things'' have become the norm for the Giants.
The Bills must have been grateful that the Giants went on to lose 14-9 against Buffalo.
The Jets lost to the Giants 10-7, but the Giants became “very unusual” and the Jets won 13-10 in overtime.
The end of the season can't come soon enough for the 2023 Giants.
