Giants lose to the 49ers 30-12

"The Giants were listed as big underdogs in this game, and that was no secret. I was hoping for a win of course, but even a decent showing with a close outcome against the San Francisco 49ers would be nice to see. Aside from being on the road on a short week, they had shown some offense and scored points in the last two quarters they played. Everyone considers Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley to be the best players on the offense. The Giants would be without Barkley for this game, and add to that, we know that Jones plays his best when Barkley is on the field.
The 49ers scored first with a field goal after a long drive, and it was good to see the Giants match that with a field goal after a long drive as well. Both offenses were moving the ball, and it was good to see the Giants defense stop the 49ers, after just one first down on their next drive. That said, the 49ers defense was even more efficient, sacking Daniel Jones on his next play, and the Giants went 3-and-out.
The 49ers put together another long drive, and this one ended with a 9 yard pass from Brock Purdy to rookie Roonie Bell, who's first career catch turned out to be a touchdown. I wasn't happy that the Giants were down 10-3, but it was an interesting note that Purdy and Bell were both drafted in the 7th round, Purdy the last pick, and Bell very close to that.
What was worse than the score was seeing the Giants with a repeat performance, including another sack on Jones on this 3-and-out. San Francisco added another touchdown, and I wasn't expecting much from the Giants with under two left to the half, but they did move the ball close enough for Graham Gano to kick a 57-yard field goal to make the score 17-6.
The Giants made just one first down to start off the second half, but a nice punt by Jamie Gillan, and a 49ers penalty, had the niners back at their own 4-yard line. After a 3-and-out, they punted and got hit with a 15-yard penalty when they interfered with our rookie running back Eric Gray, trying to make a fair catch. That put the Giants at the 49ers 37-yard line, and I was hoping they could do more than kick a field goal with this opportunity.
Jones completed a pass to Parris Campbell, who has been his top target this game, and then his next one to Darren Waller drew a pass interference call. Next, running back Matt Breida ran the ball in for an 8 yard touchdown. Unfortunately the 2-point conversion failed, and they couldn't make it look any worse with Jones taking a sack on that try.
That's what I thought, but the the whole rest of the game was worse. The 49ers went on to add two more field goals and a touchdown. The Giants added three 3-and-outs, and an interception on their drives. The bad play right before the interception was a Jones pass to Breida for minus 9 yards. The Giants weren't expected to win this game, and ended up with a 30-12 loss."

"There was no getting around the fact that not having Saquon Barkley available for this game would be a major blow to the Giants offense. On Sunday it didn't wake up for their scoreless fist half, but they got it together and overall Barkley and Daniel Jones ran the ball 26 times for 122 yards, and 2 touchdowns. Unfortunately, that Giants win was costly, as Barkley suffered a severe ankle injury near the end of the game. In two games Barkley had been the lead running back for 29 of their 33 carries, and 2 of their 4 offensive touchdowns. How does a team replace someone like that? The answer is it just won't happen, and that was apparent tonight.
There had been encouraging news coming off last game, when Jones and tight end Darren Waller started connecting in that second half. Waller had five catches for 64 yards, after catching just one for 12 yards in the first half. Every time the Giants had the ball in the second half they scored, and the defense, after giving up one more touchdown, rose to the occasion. They shut down the Cardinals so the Giants could have a comeback victory.
Everyone knew that Christian McCaffery would be hard to contain in this game. With Brandon Aiyuk inactive dealing with a shoulder injury, quarterback Brock Purdy would have to rely on McCaffery even more so than the previous two weeks The same could be said for Deebo Samuel and George Kittle, Purdy's other top targets. It all worked for San Francisco as the Giants couldn't continue their roll. The Giants needed a good first half, but couldn't stop the 49ers on third and long, and that had them behind 17-6. They couldn't catch up after that. They managed one touchdown early in the third quarter thanks to good field position gifted to them by 49ers penalties, and that was the end of their scoring.
Jones finished up with 22 completions on 32 passes for only 137 yards, and no touchdowns. He was sacked twice and intercepted once, when the ball flew up off the hands of Darren Waller, who caught only 3 of the 7 passes thrown his way. Parris Campbell was next with 6 targets, and he caught all of them, but for only 24 yards. Matt Breida had one nice 8-yard touchdown run, but the running game produced just 29 yards and that one touchdown.
The Giants offensive line couldn't hold up for Jones to do much better. They'll have to address that before the next game. The defense did get to Purdy for 2 sacks, but he averaged 8.4 yards a completion for 319 total passing yards, thanks to their extremely poor tackling. Repeating - they'll have to address that, before they host the Seattle Seahawks for a Monday Night game."

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