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Giants (2-13) Raiders (2-13)
Last week the Las Vegas Raiders put up a good
fight against the Houston Texans. The Raiders were behind from the start, and
took the lead for the first time in the game in the third quarter. The Texans
came back, and even with the Raiders scoring the third highest points in a game
against them, the Texans finished up with a 23-21 win.
The Giants had one of
their worst performances of the year playing against the Minnesota Vikings. Their
limited offensive passing strategy resulted in just two field goals. It was one
of the Giants lowest scoring games, and even with the defense coming up with a
fumble recovery touchdown, they ended up with a 16-13 loss. Las
Vegas Raiders
Al Davis was the principal
owner and general manager of the Oakland Raiders from 1972 until his death in
2011. The team won Super Bowls in 1976, 1980 and 1983. The last season the Raiders
appeared in the Super Bowl was in 2002. They were up against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,
coached by Jon Gruden, who Davis had traded to the Bucs for two first-round draft
picks, two second-round picks and 8 million dollars. Gruden led Tampa Bay to a
48-21 Super Bowl win over his former team.
After years away from coaching,
in 2018 Gruden was finally persuaded to come back by Mark Davis, who had taken
over when his father passed away. Gruden agreed to a 10-year, $100 million contract,
which included a no-trade clause. In 2020 the Raiders moved to the Las Vegas area.
Gruden had the team headed in the right direction when they finished second in
the division, but five games into the 2021 season, Gruden resigned. Midway through
the 2023 season, Josh McDaniels was fired. Antonio Pierce took over as head coach.
Last year the Raiders finished with a 4-13 record. In 2025 Pete Carroll was hired
on as head coach with a three year contract, Las
Vegas Raiders Offense
Quarterback
Geno Smith played in Seattle with Pete Carroll as head coach for four years. The
Raiders made a trade to have the two reunited, and get their offensive unit on
a roll. Smith completed 70.4 percent of his passes last year, his highest as a
starter, and is at 67.1 percent now. His touchdown to interception ratio hasn't
been good though. Last year he threw 21 touchdowns with 15 interceptions, and
currently it's 18 touchdowns with 15 interceptions.
Smith won't be able to
throw any passes to tight end Brock Bowers, who leads the team with 7 touchdown
catches. The Raiders have placed Bowers on their injured reserve list. The next
leading receiver is Tre Tucker, who has 5 touchdowns as well as running back Ashton
Jeanty. Jeanty was the number 6 overall pick in the draft, and has caught 50 of
the 66 passes thrown to him for 326 yards.
When Jeanty isn't busy catching
passes, he's running with the ball, and has 224 carries for 828 yards and 5 touchdowns.
Jeanty is hard to bring down, and last week against a tough Houston Texans defense,
his catch and run resulted in a 60-yard touchdown. Jeanty also ran the ball a
career high 24 times, for 128 yards and another touchdown.
Las
Vegas Raiders Defense
Patrick
Graham got his start as a defensive coordinator with the Giants. After two years,
when the Giants were making major coaching changes, Graham moved on to the Raiders,
and has been doing that job for the last four years. Things were coming together
in 2023 when they gave up the ninth fewest points in the game, and the passing
defense was ranked 12th. They were about the same last year in that area, but
giving up 6 more points a game had them ranked 25th. Edge rusher Maxx Crosby missed
five games. Christian Wilkins played in only five, and Malcolm Koonce missed the
whole season.
This defense doesn't lean
heavily on the blitz, but Crosby is a powerful force on the field. He leads the
team with 10 of their total 27 sacks, and 28 tackles for a loss. Jonah Laulu has
4 sacks, and Koonce has 3. It will certainly hurt their defensive efforts in this
game, that the Raiders have decided to place Crosby on injured reserve, and they
have done the same with their top safety Jeremy Chinn. Giants
Offense
The numbers didn't look good coming
off their low scoring loss to the Minnisota Vikings. The game plan seemed to be
leaning heavily on the rushing attack. It was so unbalanced that Jaxson Dart had
only one completion on 5 passes by the end of the first half, and that was a 2-yard
catch by Wan'Dale Robinson. Tight end Theo Johnson had two drops, and Dart was
sacked 3 times and threw 1 interception.
Dart finished the game with 7 completions
on 13 passes for 33 yards with no touchdowns, one interception and he took 5 sacks.
There was just one passing first down. The rushing game sounds decent, with Tyrone
Tracy running 16 times for 71 yards and Devin Singletary gaining 47 yards on 11
carries, but there were no touchdowns there.
Without throwing passes down
the field to complement their ground game, the offense came up with just six points
on two field goals. For this game, the offensive line will be without left tackle
Andrew Thomas and center John Michael Schmitz. Johnson is also out, and he's second
on the team to Robinson in targets and receptions. The offense will have things
a bit easier, with the Raiders latest moves placing some of their defensive players
on injured reserve.
Giants
Defense
This defense had a good showing
last week despite the team losing to the Vikings. Their offense wasn't putting
points on the board, but an interception by cornerback Paulson Adebo toward the
end of the first quarter set them up past midfield. It resulted in a 27-yard field
goal for the Giants first three points in the game. Then just as the half was
ending, a sack by Brian Burns resulted in a fumble that safety Tyler Nubin returned
27 yards for a touchdown. That made it a 13-10 game, giving the Giants a shot
at completing a comeback in the sceond half. That didn't happen, even though the
defense held the Vikings to just one field goal over the last two quarters.
The game could have had a different outcome, as the defense earlier looked to
have scored a pick-6 when safety Jevon Holland intercepted a ball near the Giants
goal line, and returned it 96-yards for a touchdown. It was called back though
as the refs called Abdul Carter for a neutral zone infraction. Carter might have
been too eager there, but his quarterback pressure was felt through the whole
game. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy had to leave the game after completing just 9
passes. Carter came up with one sack, Brian Burns had 2, and Chauncey Golston
had 1. The unit played well against the run, and they'll have to keep that focus
as running back Ashton Jeanty looks to be the Raiders biggest offensive weapon
in this game. Overall
The
Giants and Raiders are both on 9 game losing streaks. The Giants seem to be all
in, and the Raiders seem to have made some player moves that can cast doubts that
they are in the same mindset. One can never be sure, as losing teams tend to look
forward to next years draft selections. NFC
East Games
Thursday at 1:00pm Cowboys (6-8-1)
at Commanders (4-11)
Sunday at 4:05pm Giants (2-13) at Raiders (2-13)
Sunday
at 4:25pm Eagles (10-5) at Bills (11-4)
The Cowboys and Giants are the NFC
East teams favored to win in these games.
Check out.
Giants
On The Air. Listen to the Radio Broadcasts.
TeamGiants on Twitter.
Next Game
Jan 3/4 Cowboys at Giants
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