Written by: Tony “The Prophet” Yantosca
It was another disgraceful game for the Giants who find new ways to throw games away. Along the pantheon of bad losses under the Gettleman/Shurmur administration, this has to be near the top. We know Shurmur is dead man walking but hopefully this put the last nail in the Gettleman coffin for this pompous, incompetent know it all. For a full analysis of Monday’s night game go back and look at my week 14 Prophet’s Point After. I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version here.
The Giants build up a 14-point lead by the half 17-3. They took advantage of the Eagles weakness, their secondary. Eli was able to get 2 long touchdowns to Slater at the expense of overmatched cornerback Darby. In the first half, Wentz was terrible with only 97 passing yards and a lost fumble. The Eagles come out after half time as a new team. They dominated the time of possession 25:15 minutes to only 8:55 for the Giants in the second half and overtime. The Giants had 6 3 and outs in the second half!
The Eagles were mentally tough. They control their own destiny because if they win out, win the division. The Eagles were decimated by injuries in the game and still pulled out the victory! Jeffrey (now on IR), their only deep threat to stretch out the defense, went down early in the second quarter. Nelson Agholor was out this week. Pro Bowl left tackle, Lane Johnson went out at the 4-minute mark of the second quarter. In the 4thquarter Arcega-Whiteside went down and left the game. The Eagles had one wide receiver left, Greg Ward, 2 tight ends and the running backs. Boston Scott had the game of his life when he got a chance to play more because of the injuries.
In the second half, the Eagles killed the Giants with the short pass game and screens that resulted in tons of YAC yardage. Bettcher was asleep and couldn’t figure how to stop that all night. When it got to crunch time, everybody in the free world knew that the Eagles were going to Zach Ertz, the only healthy elite weapon they had left, except the Giants defense. He had a touchdown at the end of the fourth quarter and the game winning touchdown in overtime. On that touchdown, there wasn’t a defensive back within 9 yards of him. Thomas went the wrong way to the right. Jackrabbit was at the left side of the end zone and Ogletree was still at the goal line.
Enough incompetence, let’s look at this week’s matchup. The Giants are actually favored in this match up because the team they are playing are worse than they are even though they have 1 more win. The Dolphins are 30th in defense giving up 398 yards/game. The only teams worse are the Bengals and Cardinals. They give up 257 to passing and 141 to rushing, which is tied for 30th (only team worse are the Bengals). So,there is finally a chance for Barkley to get going this week after a bust of a season. He has not been the same since coming back from the injury. He has only 61 yards a game and 2 touchdowns in 10 games.
For the Giants they want to get Barkley going but take advantage of the passing game. They definitely want to get Slayton deep again after his 154 yards and 2 touchdowns last week. They want to get Tate and Shepard back in the pass game after both had bad games vs the Eagles. They need to take shots early and get the lead. Both these teams have the worst first quarter point differential in the league. Giants are still -61 after it was 0-0 vs. the Eagles last week. If they get then lead, they can use Barkley to salt the game away at the end of the game vs this bad run defense. Engram is out for his fifth game this year and also the other TE Ellison is also out again. Engram is becoming the next Jordan Reed, Redskins TE who was born on IR. He has missed 5 games last year and 5 already this year. They could shut him down for the year. His replacement, Kaden Smith, who had 2 good games previously put up a dud last week with 2 catches for 9 yards.
For the Dolphins it will be Fitzmagic trying to take advantage of the Giants get well pass defense like all the other quarterbacks have done this year. Now it will be even easier without Jenkins. I will comment on that at the end. Davante Parker and Albert Wilson are both questionable. If Parker plays, he will light it up against the Gmen with over 100 yards and 1-2 touchdowns. The Dolphins are down to Laird as their lead runner. He is seeing 80+% of the snaps and he can catch the ball as he had 4 receptions last week. But have no doubt Fitzpatrick is looking to air it out. He has had at least 37 attempts in four straight games.
If the Giants can get pressure on him, they can turn him over. Fitzpatrick has been sacked 33 times. This can be the key of the game. Fitzpatrick has 13 touchdowns to 12 interceptions. This is the battle of the two worst turnover ratio teams in the league. The Giants are -13 which is 31st in most part thanks to Danny Dimes’ 21 turnovers. The Dolphins are dead last at -14 turnover ratio. We saw a pass rush last week for the first time in a long time for the Gmen. Rookie 3rd round draft pick, Ximines has 2 sacks. Marcus Golden also had a sack bringing his total to 8.5. He is the first Giants linebacker to have that many sacks since 1999. Remember Jerry “Reach” for a decade did not believe in drafting linebackers. Ogletree has been the best linebacker we have had since Antonio Pierce and even he is having a subparyear. Leonard Williams played his best game of the year. Remember I was against giving up 2 draft picks for a player the Jets couldn’t wait to get rid of. We’ll see how he works out.
My comments on Jackrabbit: his remarks on Twitter are indefensible. You can never get involved talking to fans. The Giants were looking for an excuse to get rid of him and he provided it by not being apologetic, and when he did it was half-hearted. He was critical of the organization and Mara does not like that. He was right about the way he was being used covering half of the field. It just speaks to Bettcher’s incompetence. Jenkins was part of Jerry Reach’s $285M spending spree when he left the team devoid of talent and got Coughlin fired. He went crazy spending money because he figured he was next because the team was so bad.
In trying to determine the outcome it is close. Miami is 7-2 against the spread in their last nine games. They are 4-2 vs the spread on the road. Conversely the Giants are 1-5 against the spread at home. This is a trend that continues from last year where they were also better on the road. The over under is 2-4 to the under for Miami on the road and also 2-4 to the under this year for the Giants at home. So, with 2 bad defenses I am doing the opposite to what you should do. I am calling this a win for the Giants 23 and Miami 21. With the line at 3, I am taking Miami and the points. They may take themselves out of the Chase Young sweepstakes but it may not matter because he is saying he may not come out this year anyway. Maybe he does not want to come to the Giants with all the dysfunction right now.
New York Giants Underground 