Clawing Their Way To A Win

By : Jeff Knapp

The Giants didn’t start out flat and finished off their opening drive with a 32 yard TD catch from Darius Slayton, but then allowed Trevor Lawrence to move the ball easily down the field with Travis Etienne finishing it off with a 7 yard TD run and a 2 point conversion to take the lead.

The Giants looked good going into the 2nd half despite some dropped passes and a costly offensive pass interference call that might have cost the Giants a potential TD although it did lead to a field goal.

The biggest concern going into the half was a eye injury to rookie TE Daniel Bellinger who took a few fingers or hand in between the face guard that knocked him out of the game with a fractured eye socket and he is out indefinitely.

The Jags took the ball to start the 2nd half and it didn’t look good for the Giants, who allowed the Jags to take the ball 73 yards in under 4 minutes that ended in a 1 yard TD run by Trevor Lawrence. The Giants didn’t help themselves on this drive by getting hit with a huge 15 yard roughing the passer penalty that put the Jags on the Giants 11 yard line. 

From there on the Giants defense took over and the Jags went 3 and out on 2 drive and a turnover on downs during their next 3 drives.

I believe it took every Giants fan the rest of the day to calm their nerves. The last drive was one for the ages and nothing we want to see again. Trevor Lawrence threw an interception with under a minute to go but that was reversed after the Giant’s Belton was nailed with illegal hands to the face, allowing the drive to continue. Then with about 22 seconds left an a 4th and 15 coming up, the Giants not only allow a 28 yard completion but also get hit with a 15 yard roughing the passer penalty putting the ball at the Giants 17 yard line. Finally on the last play, Trevor Lawrence completes a 16 yard pass to Christian Kirk who is amazingly stopped at the 1 yard line by Xavier Mckinney and Julian Love to end the game. 

Next week the Giants will be in Seattle to take on the Seahawks and will be without starting left guard Bred Bredeson and rookie right tackle Evan Neal, who has a MCL injury and may miss 3-4 weeks at minimum. We will also keep an eye out on Adore Jackson who left the game in the 4th quarter with a possible concussion, so we’ll see if he passes protocol on that. 

At 6-1, the Giants are giving us hope, with Daniel Jones having his best season ever, and Saquon Barkley looking like he did his rookie year and a defense that although is not having the easiest time getting to the QB, but is much better than it has been over the past few years. The O-line needs get better since Jones is one of the highest sacked QBs in the game at the moment with 20 sacks (he was sacked 22 times last season).