E-GIANTS
Dave Klein was the Giants' beat writer for The Star-Ledger from 1961 to 1995.
He is the author of 26 books and he was one of only three sportswriters to have covered all the Super Bowls up until last year. Dave has allowed TEAM GIANTS to reprint some of his articles.

(Just five our Scott Landstrom a terrible game to analyze, and he's like a squirrel looking for acorns - he'll find them all. And that's just what this week's analytical breakdown offers, a precise chronicle of all the things that went bad in the humiliating loss to the Miami Dolphins. Read on, fans.)

By Scott Landstrom
Two weeks ago, following the second half collapse against the Niners, yet another game in which our pass-blocking offensive line seemed to 'crumble' before our very eyes, I wrote the following exact excerpt.'

'We can run the probability statistics of how long a quarterback can remain healthy when under this kind of 'jail break' pressure, but I warn you it will be very similar to the calculations on the implosion of 'The Titan''.

Well, Giants Nation, the creaking of the hull due to all that water pressure finally turned into a full-scale implosion, and Daniel Jones was knocked out of this game with a neck injury and is anything but certain to play this weekend in Buffalo - given his history with this exact injury. In fact he had a surgical procedure on his neck in 2021after hurting it badly enough to miss the final six games of that season.

The Pro Football Focus game grades are out, and they tell us a story that perfectly resonates with what our eyes told us during the game.

With Andrew Thomas missing yet another game due to his hamstring, John Michael Schmitz missing his first game due to an injured shoulder, Evan Neal not showing the 'quantum leap' improvement we had hoped for when he made changes to his body and training and worked during the summer with Willie Anderson, and the remaining players simply bereft of ability, we are left with one of the worst pass-blocking lines in NFL history.

Once again, the metrics tell a tale so one-sided that it begs the question of why Bobby Johnson is still employed as offensive line coach! Miami QB Tua Tagovailoa went back to pass on 30 occasions. Do you know how many times he was hit? How about one solitary time.

Do you know how many times he was sacked? Again, one solitary time. How about Johnson's unit on the other side of the ball, you ask? Well the combination of Jones and Tyrod Taylor went back to pass on 32 occasions, just two more than Tua did. The combination of the two Giant QBs, instead of being hit one single time, were hit FIVE times, and instead of being sacked just once, suffered through SEVEN.

Add the hits and sacks together, and we find that Miami's combination of pass blocking and pass rushing lines outperformed the woeful efforts of the Giants, 12-2.

Or how about this little nugget? Of the starting five offensive linemen for the Dolphins, two of them graded out this week in the 'top 10' of their position with excellent grades of 78.3 and 80.4. The very lowest of their starting five came in with a 58.9. On the New York side of the ball NOT ONE lineman scored as well as the WORST grade on the Dolphins.

In those 30 attempts their QB had, this line allowed a grand total of FIVE 'pressures' on Tua. On the other side? As New Yorkers are known to say 'Fuhgettaboutit!'

Jones and Taylor suffered through 37 'pressures,' once again being so bad that there was more than one pressure on every pass attempt. Multiple rushers breaking through the front wall. Can you say, 'Jail Break'?

The pass blocking grades for New York found four of the five blockers scoring 31.8 or lower, and of the 'young kids' we brought in from the practice squad to potentially help spell our starters and keep them fresh? Two of them (John Mayfield and Markus McKethan) both received 0.0 for pass blocking - the lowest theoretical grade possible. Your lawn chair could get a 0.0, and it wasn't even at the field!

Yet despite this 'clown show' going on in front of him and this onslaught of rushers, do you know who was our highest rated offensive player? Would you believe it was 'Danny Dimes' with a sterling game grade of 87.1? In fact, Jones had the fifth highest overall game grade this week, the eighth highest 'passing grade' (78.6) and had the Number One rushing grade for a QB anywhere in the league this week (82.5).

And just imagine what his metrics would look like if we added the 45 yards lost to two heinous dropped passes: -- most gallingly by an unguarded Sterling Shepard, and secondarily on a ball Darren Waller dropped streaking down the left sideline. Unlike Shepard, he was tightly covered on this play, but come on, dude - the pass hit him right in the hands. Jones 'squeezed it in' to a tight target and got nothing for putting together a high-degree-of- difficulty 'perfect pass.'

So despite being overrun by the football equivalent of a 'Chinese Human Wave Attack' by the rampaging Dolphins' pass rush, somehow Jones held his composure well enough to finish 'Top 10' in all three disciplines of his job before he was blown up by a free-running pass rusher and injured for the remainder of game.

Speaking of that rusher (OLB Andrew Van Ginkel), I wonder how OT Joshua Ezeudu slept the night after the game, knowing that his complete WHIFF on his man put Jones into the x-ray tent and done for the game (and maybe additional games as well)? Way to go, Josh - really didn't even lay a hand on your man or make even glancing contact on several different plays (Van Ginkel had EIGHT 'pressures' on the day).

I have seen more aggressive contact in the supermarket line then what Ezeudu did on that play, which was basically to flop onto the ground like a flounder dropping out of a net.

And you guys on the defensive front seven - sit back down. Do you think this was a catastrophic failure on just one side of the ball? Think again!

With all the comments and hand wringing GM Joe Schoen did about wanting to improve the run defense after the Eagles (among others) ran it down our throats twice last season, what transpired in this game?

Something I have never seen before -- the two Miami running backs carried the ball a combined 21 times, and do you think they had one, or maybe even two rushes of over 10 yards? How about this - they AVERAGED 10.3 yards per carry - 21 carries for 216 yards. Do the math if you doubt me. And it wasn't just one big run that did in the metrics, out of all the running backs (Raheem Mostert, leading rusher Devon Achane) 21 carries, FIVE of them went for over 20 yards! Almost a quarter of all attempts!

Well, to say that the Giants have problems on both lines is the understatement of the year, when your O-line gives up 37 pressures, and your D-line gives up 10 yards per run and only provides five pressures in 30 chances.

There were a few players who deserve praise - beyond Jones - not a bunch, but it would be unfair to not point them out as the 'few' who don't need this lecture:

1) Dexter Lawrence had a good game and had the third best run-defense grade in the league this week with an 80.4, so you can bet he was getting double-teamed as standard policy by the Dolphins on running plays.

2) Without question, the best performing unit on the field was the secondary, and that may seem counter-intuitive when the opposing passer exceeds 300 yards on only 30 attempts but hear me out.

Safeties Jason Pinnock (10th best game grade among safeties, including a 102-yard 'pick six' to score the Giants' only TD) and Xavier McKinney (15th best game grade and forced a fumble that was recovered by New York) were studs in the deep secondary.

Cor'Dale Flott (90.5) had the best game grade on the team on either side of the ball, and only allowed 3.0 yards per pass attempt, and rookie Deonte Banks had the same exact metric on five attempts - only 15 yards allowed for 3.0 yards per attempt. The one player who does not get any praise out of this group is rookie Tre Hawkins III, who had a game grade of 28.7 and got absolutely 'left at the curb' by Tyreek Hill on his 69-yard touchdown reception. Hawkins ran 4.35 at the combine, one of the best forty times of all DBs, but he looked like he was stuck in mud when Hill easily flew by him.

3) With as horrible as this team has been at forcing turnovers (and it must be an NFL record to be sitting at ZERO after four games) we should acknowledge that the defense finally got off 'the schneid' and did so in outstanding fashion with two interceptions and a forced fumble and recovery.

The fact that Pinnock ran back one of the interceptions 102 yards to 'the house' prevented this game from being the blowout it otherwise would have been, so clear progress was shown in going zero for the first four games to getting three in one game, and scoring with one, no less.

Oh, and meanwhile, Jones and the offense committed zero of them on this day, so the team that came in having given the ball away eight times for a 'minus-8' turnover differential managed to win that battle, 3-0, in this game which, given all else that happened, prevented this from being a truly ugly 'woodshed beating.' And it got the Giants to 'minus-5' on turnover margin on the season, jumping from DFL over five other teams in the process.

Next Sunday the Giants are visiting Buffalo, perhaps the best team in the NFL right now - and maybe without our QB on top of all the other missing starters battling injury. The old proverb is 'It is darkest just before dawn,' and I don't know about you, but this seems pretty freaking dark to me.

The Bills are favored by 14.5 points, according to Vegas - before any news comes out on the MRI results on Jones' neck, and whether he can even play. If they are indeed without their field general, look for that line to go to about 18.0 points, and I think the Christians had better odds than that against the Lions back in the Roman Coliseum, right?

Comments or questions are encouraged and can be sent to: egiantswest@gmail.com

davesklein@aol.com

You can subscribe Dave's newsletters which run much more frequently than what is available here. - Team Giants

NOW - Send a request to davesklein@aol.com for a free week's worth of news!