Big Blue Review: Week 3 vs. Titans; W; TEN: 7, NYG: 12
JJ McCarthy is NOT the answer. But a win is a powerful thing in the National Football League. One victory can move the chains on a season-altering trade.
It wasn’t pretty. Jameis Winston completed just 14 of 22 passes for 118 yards against the 0-2 Tennessee Titans. But with 17 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Jevón Holland’s end zone interception bailed out his new starting quarterback.
The Giants won 12-7. As head coach John Harbaugh said after the game, a win is a win, no matter how ugly.
In windy, rainy conditions, it was clear from the start this would be a low-scoring affair. In their first game without Jaxson Dart, the Giants were expected to shorten the playbook for Winston and prioritize running.
The Giants totaled 118 receiving yards and 138 rushing yards. 60% of their plays came on the ground, led by Cam Skattebo’s 20 carries. Najee Harris followed with nine. But the Giants can’t just run the ball every week. Not every team ranks ninth in rushing yards allowed per game like the Titans.
So, after a couple of phone calls, Harbaugh and general manager Joe Schoen traded a 2027 fifth-round pick to Minnesota for McCarthy.
Nothing beats waking up on a football Sunday. You have nowhere to be but on the couch watching your favorite team, or at the game itself. So you put on your favorite jersey and get ready for game day.
Then you look in the mirror and realize the player whose jersey you’re wearing is out for the season with a torn meniscus.
Then you look outside your window and realize it’s pouring rain.
Then you pull up your phone and see a video of port-a-potties floating in the parking lot outside your team’s stadium.
Then you remember: you’re a Giants fan.
That's okay. You still have something to root for. Although, indisputably, Big Blue stole a win on Sunday. They had no business beating Tennessee. After kicking a field goal in the first quarter, two in the second quarter, and another in the third, the Giants were on pace for the first shutout win in MetLife Stadium history.
But football is a four-quarter sport. Last season, the Giants blew five fourth-quarter double-digit leads. Many of them, including a 26-8 blown lead in Denver with less than six minutes left, happened because the Giants didn’t have a good placekicker.
On that fateful afternoon at Mile High, Jude McAtamney was kicking (unsuccessfully) field goals for the Giants. For years, the organization refused to replace injury-prone Graham Gano as their primary kicker, until now.
Meet Dominic Zvada. The former Big Ten Kicker of the Year went undrafted this year, but the Giants still signed him. Yesterday, he successfully kicked all four field goals, leading a special teams unit that dominated the Titans in the rain.
It all started in the first quarter. Before Tennessee’s would-be opening possession, as they returned Zvada’s game-opening kickoff, Zaire Barnes punched the football out of Chimere Dike’s hands, forcing a fumble and a turnover.
As the game unfolded and the Giants struggled to score, they became reliant on their punter. Jordan Stout took six punts, averaging 50.5 yards per attempt, including one 74-yard punt and three that landed inside the 20-yard line. Punters rarely don captain’s patches on their jerseys, but the veteran Stout has become a leader in the Giants’ locker room.
“I didn’t expect there to be a – what do you call it? – a nor’easter?” said Stout, who showed yesterday why the Giants made him the league’s highest-paid punter. “I didn’t expect one of those to come through this early. Hopefully [the weather is] gonna keep getting better.”
The win would not have been possible without stellar defense, especially the Giants’ defensive line. In his third career game, linebacker Arvelle Reese led the team with a deflected pass and 12 tackles, including 9 solo tackles. In 60 snaps, he allowed just two catches while earning five stops.
Unfortunately, the Giants likely lost Brian Burns for the season yesterday. One of their captains, he led the team with 16.5 sacks last season, the second most in the NFL. Yesterday, he played through an ankle injury, and he left the game with an ACL tear in his opposite knee.
“We’re going to take as many hits as necessary to keep on going,” Holland said. “Next man up. That’s how we practice. Guys go down, and everybody feels bad for them, but we know that they would want us to continue moving forward.”
Besides Reese, the Giants have several defensive linemen who can fill the void Burns left, including Abdul Carter and Kayvon Thibodeaux. But losing a threat like Burns is significant, especially in a league where tackles for loss are crucial and impactful pass rushers shine.
Similarly, losing Dart, a young, mobile quarterback, is devastating for everybody on this team, especially because a rookie quarterback’s four-year window is so valuable.
The Giants might have enough mental fortitude to stay level-headed for the rest of this season, even though their roster is very different than what they hoped. However, Sunday’s game showed that losing a starting quarterback affects more than a team’s offense.
When fewer points are scored, and the ball isn’t moving through the air as much, players feel the need to play with more intensity. Sometimes that causes injuries, like Burns, who played through a sprained ankle yesterday. The same concern exists for running back Skattebo, who had an added workload.
It is great that the team is rallying around their injured quarterback. As Winston said, “We are our brother’s keeper. 12 points. 6 times 2, it’s for you.”
At the same time, we’re three weeks into the NFL season, and the Giants won’t get their starting cornerback and a star pass rusher back. The players don’t need to sacrifice their health “for Dart” every week. This is why the Giants traded for McCarthy, who can move the ball through the air.
But at least there’s Holland. His game-winning pick was his third of the season, tied for the league lead. From seven yards out, with former Giants head coach Brian Daboll calling plays for Tennessee, quarterback Cam Ward tried to throw over Holland’s head, but Holland intercepted with 17 seconds left.
“Back-line throws are higher, front-line throws are lower,” Holland said. “[Ward] lofted one up there. He kind of throws from his hip. When he was running, he kind of sidearmed it, and it didn’t get enough height. I don’t think he necessarily saw me.”
Before Holland’s pick, the Titans made 14 plays, including two third-down conversions and one fourth-down flip. It felt like they were destined to score, especially after reaching the end zone on 15 plays in their previous possession.
As Skattebo aptly pointed out, “A year ago, we lose that game 100%.”
Guess what? Daboll still lost that game, but for the other team. During their stints with the Giants and Jets, Daboll and Robert Saleh combined for a 41-77-1 record. That doesn’t sound like a winning formula, yet it wasn’t bad enough for a Meadowlands revenge game.
For the first time since 2009, the Giants are 2-0 at home to start the season. Now, it won’t be long before the Giants bench Winston and commence the second McCarthy Era in East Rutherford. Hopefully, as Billy Joel said, “Cold war kids were hard to kill.”
The 2-1 Giants’ next game will be next Sunday at 1 PM (12 PM CDT) against the Arizona Cardinals (1-2) at MetLife Stadium (CBS, Paramount+).
