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The New York Giants defeated the Washington Football Team in Week 9. Here are the winners, losers and those in between from this matchup.
How sweep* it is.
Although they made it interesting in the end, the New York Giants finished off their season series against the Washington Football Team with a 23-20 road victory.
The Giants picked up their second win of the season (both coming versus Washington) by forcing five takeaways and committing no turnovers on offense to improve to 2-7.
Here are the winners, losers and those in between from the Giants’ Week 9 victory over Washington.
Instant analysis of the New York Giants’ 23-20 Week 9 victory over the Washington Football Team at FedEx Field.
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The New York Giants came into their Week 9 showdown with the Washington Football Team looking to build on their strong performances over the past month, which included a 20-19 win over Washington in Week 6.
The point spread, favoring Washington, had dipped to 2.5 points down from 3.5 points earlier in the week in anticipation of the Giants continuing their four-game winning streak over the WFT. The over/under was astutely set at 43.5 points predicting another tight defensive game. The Giants won the first meeting on a fumble return for a touchdown by linebacker Tae Crowder.
This time around it looked like the Giants would waltz to an easy win, but that hasn’t been their modus operandi this season. Only one of their games has been decided by ten or more points.
The Giants had a commanding 20-3 lead at halftime and led 23-10 with a little more than five minutes remaining in the third quarter. But like many of their games this season, the Giants could not seem to distance themselves from Washington, allowing the WFT to get back in the ballgame in the fourth quarter on a 68-yard catch and run by WFT wideout Terry McLaurin on a pass from Alex Smith.
The Giants’ secondary misses several tackles on the play, which narrowed the score to 23-20.
Smith relieved Kyle Allen, who left the game in the first half after getting leg-whipped (accidentally) by Giants’ safety Jabrill Peppers. Smith passed for 325 yards but threw two interceptions on the WFT’s final two drives — one to Peppers and the other to Logan Ryan.
With the 23-20 victory, the Giants improved to 2-7 but remained in last place in the NFC East. Daniel Jones (23/34, 212 yards passing, 1 TD 0 INT) did not turn the football over in this game. It is only the second time in his 22-game NFL career that he’s played a clean game. The other was last year’s win in Week 16 at Washington.
Jones is now 4-0 against Washington. Considering he only has five wins in his career (Tampa Bay is the other), that’s pretty amazing.
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The New York Giants made it closer than it should have been, but they survived a late Washington Football Team surge to pick up win No. 2.
The New York Giants led the Washington Football Team by 17 points at halftime and 13 points entering the fourth quarter, but that’s just not how they conduct business here in 2020.
The Giants notoriously play close games and there was no way they were going to win easy. And they certainly did not, providing Washington every opportunity to come back.
In the end however, the Giants defense made the plays they needed to and picked up their second win of the season.
Here are the winners, losers and mixed reviews from the Giants’ Week 8 loss to the Buccaneers.
Close, but no cigar.
Sporting their all-white color rush uniforms on Monday night, the New York Giants played as well as they looked as they nearly upset Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Quarterback Daniel Jones bounced back from two costly interceptions to throw a clutch touchdown pass to Golden Tate with 33 second left to play.
Unfortunately, the officials picked up the flag on the two-point conversion and the Giants’ comeback was quickly shot down as they fell 25-23.
Here are the winners, losers and those in between from the Giants’ Week 8 loss to the Buccaneers:
The New York Giants won their Week 6 game against Washington. Here are the snap counts on offense, defense and special teams.
The New York Giants picked up their first win of the season on Sunday, defeating the Washington Football Team, 20-19, at MetLife Stadium.
It wasn’t exactly a pretty win for the Giants, but it was another step forward and showed continuing progress. And after five straight losses, the taste of victory must be sweet.
Here’s a look at the snap counts that attributed to their first W.
Offensive snaps: 48
Defensive snaps: 73
Special teams snaps: 22
Undrafted rookie receiver Austin Mack out-snapping veteran Golden Tate 36-30 immediately leaps off the page. Tate has been a disappointment this season and his playing time is beginning to dwindle as a result.
Meanwhile, running backs Dion Lewis and Wayne Gallman have seen their roles almost entirely vanish in favor of Devonta Freeman, who took 73% of all offensive snaps.
In his return, linebacker David Mayo took just 11 defensive snaps, while rookie linebacker Tae Crowder has all but established himself as a starter.
Linebacker Markus Golden, who had seen his role increase in recent weeks, took just 24 snaps.
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Tackling five backfields that create confusion in fantasy football and trying to make sense of them.
Despite the ongoing extreme makeovers with the NFL itinerary, we remain right on schedule here with your weekly serving of TT&T.
Running backs remain the most valuable point-for-point fantasy football commodities, and with that in mind this week, we’re tackling five of the league’s most baffling backfields – ones where a clear, startable fantasy back has yet to emerge.
From each of these five backfields, we’ll take a look at the key stats and metrics produced so far and use those as guideposts to try and forecast whatever fantasy value may emerge from each going forward.
Here goes, starting alphabetically with the …
Major asterisk here, of course, with quarterback Lamar Jackson ranking second on the team in rushing attempts (41) and pacing the squad with 238 rushing yards – and that’s even with Jackson’s average number of attempts down 3.5 carries per contest (11.7-8.2) from last season.
The drafting of Dobbins has played a major role in knocking Ingram’s per-game touch average down to 9.6 from 15.2 a year ago, and that – and an expected touchdown regression – has caused Ingram to fall from the RB1 ranks down to sub-flex territory as he currently ranks 34th at the position in total fantasy points (standard scoring) and 42nd in average fantasy points per contest.
Ingram has been the Ravens’ back to own simply due to the fact that he’s getting the most the carries on the league’s second-best rushing team (160.8 yards per game). But Dobbins is superior in yards-per-touch (8.0-4.8) and fantasy-points-per-touch averages. Additionally, his higher usage in the passing game portends bigger and better fantasy things as the season presses on. He’s a must-add if he was somehow dropped in your league.
Edwards still will be involved as well – primarily as a late-game closer – but Ingram and Dobbins are the Ravens’ backs to own in standard-size leagues.
The Sept. 7 signing of the 35-year-old Peterson changed the whole dynamic of the situation here as he has 10 more touches than the rookie Swift and the incumbent Johnson combined.
Given his superior rushing attempt and snap shares and red-zone work, an iron man known as Peterson has been Detroit’s most trustworthy fantasy back to date, but Swift’s sizable edge in the passing game isn’t to be ignored. The second-round pick quietly ranks 20th among all league running backs with 13 receptions and figures to become more and more involved as his adjustment to the pro game eases and his early-season health issues further fade away.
Johnson, thought be to be a rising fantasy star only a season ago, has become the odd man out.
There’s definitely some interest here as the Rams have logged the league’s second-most rushing attempts (169) this season and trail only the Browns as well in overall rushing-play percentage at 51.5.
Even though Brown owns a sizable snap edge, Henderson has out-touched Brown in three of the Rams’ last four games for a 62-41 edge during that span. Akers, meanwhile, got the start in Los Angeles’ opening two games before leaving early in Week 2 with a rib-cartilage injury that kept him out of action until Sunday.
As a rookie second-round pick, Akers is the team’s shiny new object, while Brown lends a steady, veteran presence, and Henderson has been the most productive and dynamic of the trio to date. Look for a Henderson/Akers split of the workload going forward with the former drawing the slight edge in touches.
The Pats’ backfield situation is the toughest enigma to crack – for a number of reasons.
First, there’s the sheer number of backs in the mix (five), and then there’s the Cam Newton factor, as the quarterback remains one of the league’s top red-zone rushing threats with 12 carries for 37 yards and four TDs in only three games so far. And, then, most significant of all, this is the Patriots we’re talking about, as the chameleon-like Bill Belichick and his staff change things up on a weekly basis to keep opposing defenses – not to mention fantasy general managers – off-balance.
With Michel on injured reserve, though, and the rookie Taylor seeing only a 12.2-percent snap share in the games he’s played, that whittles the usable fantasy contenders down to three.
White, who’s averaging five catches per game, remains a PPR-format flex factor while Harris – he of the preseason buzz before a finger injury knocked him out of the first three games – made the most recent favorable impression with a team season-high 17 rushes for an even 100 yards in his 2020 debut in Week 4. Burkhead is the jack-of-all trades who always figures to be active and involved to some degree, but we’ve more than likely already seen his best game this season as he accounted for a 65.8 percent (34.8) of his 52.9 PPR points in Week 3.
That leaves White (PPR) and Harris (still need to see more coming out of the Week 5 bye) as the Pats’ best RB fantasy bets.
We go from the toughest nut to crack (Patriots) among our five to the easiest, as Freeman is the main man here as long as he can avoid the health issues of recent seasons (18 combined games missed from 2017-19).
The last two weeks, Freeman has out-touched Lewis and Gallman combined by a 34-18 margin and has outgained them 155-88 with a 27.5-14.8 edge in PPR points.
The Giants, though, are saddled with one of the league’s worst offensive lines and overall offenses, keeping Freeman in flex-start territory most weeks instead of the RB2 ranks.
New York Giants TE Evan Engram is tired of losing and so are his teammates, who he says are “pissed off and hungry.”
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The New York Giants have not had a winning season since 2016 when they finished 11-5 and qualified for the playoffs. Only one player from that roster is still with the Giants, wide receiver Sterling Shepard.
Since they lost to the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round they season, they’ve compiled a record of 12-41 and are on their fourth head coach.
There are three players (other than Shepard) currently on the Giants’ roster who remain from the 2017 team who have never experienced a winning season: tight end Evan Engram, defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson and running back Wayne Gallman.
Gallman and Tomlinson are in line to become unrestricted free agents at the end of this season. Engram, the Giants’ first round pick in 2017, had his fifth-year option exercised by the team this past spring, so he’ll likely be here through 2021.
After three seasons in which the Giants fell to doormat status, 2020 was supposed to the the year things turned around for Big Blue. That hasn’t happened as they have gotten of to an 0-5 start and are currently in the lead to land the No. 1 overall selection in next year’s draft.
On Sunday, the Giants got into a shootout with the Dallas Cowboys and ended up shooting themselves in the foot again, falling short, 37-34.
Engram described the frustration that is beginning to seep into the walls at 1925 Giants Drive.
“Definitely disappointed. Definitely pissed off,” Engram told reporters Monday. “We fought our butts off yesterday and didn’t come up on the winning end. Yeah, we’re pissed off and we’re hungry. We’re going to get right back to work and try to go get one.”
Get one. That’s where it all starts, but unfortunately that is where is likely to end. The Giants are 3.5-point favorites over the 1-4 Washington Football Team this Sunday. That’s game they can and should win.
Engram was asked if the losing this year is different from years past.
“Losing is losing,” he said. “There’s no way to explain all that and decipher all that. At the end of the day, we have the talent to win on this team. It comes down to beating ourselves and execution. I’m not going to get into past years. We have to find out… We need to get better each and every day and come in and turn this thing around with this team this year.”
The Giants do not have a tough schedule going forward. They do play Seattle, Tampa Bay and Baltimore but the NFC East is faltering and the rest of the teams on their schedule are all beatable if the stars align right for the Giants.
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Instant analysis of the New York Giants’ 17-9 Week 4 loss to the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium.
The New York Giants came into their Week 4 game with the Los Angeles Rams at the brand new SoFi Stadium as 13.5-point underdogs.
The Giants offense, already the worst in the NFL, got off to a rough start with three punts and a field goal in the first four possessions which read like: fourth-and-19, fourth-and-19, fourth-and-13 and fourth-and-19. They gained just 67 yards total on five first half possessions.
But the defense kept them competitive in the first half, going into the tunnel down only 10-6. They held the Rams to 116 total yards and their high-flying passing game to 71 net yards in the first half.
Then, their defense kept them in the game for the better part of the second half as well but the offense could not take advantage. The Giants did not score a touchdown for the second straight week and haven’t crossed the goal line since early in the fourth quarter in Week 2 against the Bears in Chicago.
The Giants had upset on their minds nonetheless. With the score 17-9, they were driving in hopes of taking the game into overtime when Daniel Jones, who had been playing a rare turnover-free game, was stopped by the Rams’ Darius Williams, who made a diving interception on the L.A. seven yard-line to end the Giants’ quest to end their three-game losing streak.
The Giants are 0-4 on the season but actually looked more like a team in this game, though. The offensive line held its own and the defense stepped up their game. Perhaps they are pointed in the right direction after all.
The Giants scored nine points for the second week in row and are now averaging an NFL-low 11.8 points per game.
Some quick hits…
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Breaking down the key targets and how those are turning into production for fantasy football teams through the first three weeks of the NFL season.
We are three weeks into NFL 2020, and the fantasy football picture is starting to gain some clarity as to the players we can trust in our fantasy football lineups and those we can’t on a weekly basis.
It’s certainly been an odd but interesting season for fantasy wide receivers so far with a number of key wideouts missing time due to injuries. That list includes the likes of Michael Thomas, Julio Jones, Kenny Golladay, Davante Adams, Courtland Sutton, Chris Godwin, A.J. Brown, D.J. Chark, John Brown, Jamison Crowder, Breshard Perriman, Deebo Samuel, Sterling Shepard and Diontae Johnson.
Usually, that kind of health uncertainty is normally more reserved for running backs, but if 2020 has taught us anything so far, it’s anything but a normal year.
In the meantime, a number of wide receivers – Calvin Ridley, D.K. Metcalf, Terry McLaurin, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Allen Lazard, among others – have stepped up in their place to grab an early high spot on the fantasy wideout leaderboard.
That established, it’s time to take a positional snapshot by breaking down the basic fantasy wide receiver stats and pegging what’s sustainable and what’s not. As usual, all stats are through play Sunday in Week 3.
Keenan Allen 37, DeAndre Hopkins 37, Amari Cooper 35, Ridley 35, Allen Robinson 31, Tyler Lockett 29, Stefon Diggs 28, A.J. Green 28, Tyler Boyd 26, D.J. Moore 26, McLaurin 25, D. Johnson 25, Robby Anderson 24, Julian Edelman 24, Russell Gage Jr. 24, Jerry Jeudy 24
Surprise inclusion: Anderson, Panthers. The speedy wideout, more renowned as a deep threat, has been targeted at least six times in every contest and is on pace for a career-high 128.
In his four previous seasons with the Jets, Anderson only reached 100 targets once and that was with on a 5-11 team where his chief competition for targets were with the likes of Jermaine Kearse, Jeremy Kerley, tight end Austin Sefarian-Jenkins and aging running back Matt Forte.
Surprise omission: Adam Thielen, Vikings. He does fall just outside the above list, tied for 21st with 21 targets, but much more was expected out of Thielen with Diggs, his long-time wide receiver 1A cohort, traded to the Buffalo Bills this season.
Thielen is on pace for 112 targets, which would fall well below his last two previous full-season totals of 142 and 153.
Surprise omission II: T.Y. Hilton, Colts. He’s only attracted 17 targets so far (tied for 39th overall), and is on pace for a measly 57. His previous low in a season in which he’s played at least 14 games is 90 in his rookie campaign of 2012.
Hilton’s new QB, of course, is check-down master Philip Rivers, but perhaps the receiver’s low target total is more a game-flow situation with Hilton only getting eight targets the last two weeks in games in which they’ve been comfortably ahead throughout. In Week 1’s 27-20 loss to the Jaguars, Hilton had nine targets.
Projected end-of-season top five: Hopkins, Allen, Robinson, Ridley, Adams
Hopkins 32, Cooper 25, Allen 24, Lockett 24, Ridley 21, Boyd 21, Diggs 20, Anderson 20, Cooper Kupp 18, Robinson 18, Adams 17, Gage 17, Smith-Schuster 17, CeeDee Lamb 16, McLaurin 16
Surprise inclusion: Gage, Falcons. Atlanta has been one of the NFL’s pass-heaviest teams so far with 129 attempts and 90 completions in four games, but the Falcons’ second-leading pass-catcher after three games figured to be Jones, new tight end Hayden Hurst or even RB Todd Gurley. Gage, however has six more receptions than any other Atlanta player aside from Ridley’s 21, and that’s with the wide receiver departing in the first half of Sunday’s game against the Bears with a concussion.
Gage quietly finished his second season a year ago with 49 catches for 449 yards and one TD so perhaps we all should’ve been paying more attention.
Surprise omission: Green is tied for seventh in targets (28) but is way down at 26th in receptions with 13, making for a less-than-optimal 46.4 catch percentage. Those 13 catches also have only gone for 116 yards (8.9 per reception) as the 32-year-old Green has showed rust from his missed season of 2019 and hasn’t been on the same page with rookie QB Joe Burrow so far.
Projected end-of-season top five: Hopkins, Adams, Lockett, Allen, Thomas
Hopkins 356, Ridley 349, Metcalf 297, Diggs 288, Anderson 278, McLaurin 269, Cooper 267, Allen 265, Edelman 259, Lockett 259, Lazard 254, Michael Gallup 246, Justin Jefferson 245, D.J. Moore 239, Boyd 230, Lamb 230, Robinson 230
Surprise inclusion: Edelman, Patriots. It’s no surprise that Edelman is leading the Pats in targets (24) and receptions (15) so far – even with new QB Cam Newton – but his average of 17.3 yards per reception is eye-popping after he entered the season with a career average of 10.9.
However, it largely has been the product of one game – Edelman’s career-best 179 yards on eight catches in a Week 2 shootout in Seattle – so expect his yard-per-reception average regress closer to the mean as the season progresses.
Surprise omission: Mike Evans, Buccaneers. Evans, who has also had health issues this season, ranks ninth with 34.8 fantasy points (standard scoring), thanks largely to four touchdowns, but those four scoring grabs have covered a total of 27 yards as he’s had a 2-yard and two 1-yard TD receptions.
Overall, Evans ranks 61st among wideouts with 108 yards on 10 catches. For reference, Evans entered the season with a career average of 15.7 yards per reception. Perhaps, though, this is simply a function of the new Tom Brady-led offense with shorter passes and fewer receiving yards but more efficiency.
Projected end-of-season top five: Ridley, Hopkins, Diggs, Metcalf, McLaurin
Evans 4, Lockett 4, Ridley 4, Metcalf 3, Smith-Schuster 3, Thielen 3, Adams 2, Braxton Berrios 2, Brown 2, Keelan Cole 2, Diggs 2, Tee Higgins 2, Tyreek Hill 2, Dontrelle Inman 2, Andy Isabella 2, Lazard 2, Anthony Miller 2, Emmanuel Sanders 2, Darius Slayton 2, Cedrick Wilson 2
Surprise inclusion: Wilson, Cowboys. The second-year player out of Boise State reeled in 5-of-7 targets for 107 yards and two scores in Sunday’s (most recent) shootout in Seattle for his first career TDs.
That gives Wilson double the combined TDs of the Cowboys’ top three wideouts (Cooper, Gallup and Lamb) on the season despite 68 fewer targets.
Surprise omission: Cooper, Cowboys. He entered the season with 14 scoring grabs in 25 games with Dallas since coming over in a trade midway through the 2018 season, but he’s only garnered one of the team’s 11 red-zone targets so far and came out of Sunday with the highest target total (35) in the league without a scoring catch.
And that’s also playing on a team which the most passing attempts (145) and completions (96) in the league so far.
Projected end-of-season top five: Lockett, Adams, Ridley, Thielen, Metcalf
The New York Giants lost their Week 3 game against the San Francisco 49ers. Here are the snap counts on offense, defense and special teams.
The New York Giants fell to the San Francisco 49ers, 36-9, at MetLife Stadium in Week 3, dropping their record to 0-3 for the first time since 2017.
The bigger story from the game is that patience appears to be running out for quarterback Daniel Jones, while time appears to be running out for general manager Dave Gettleman.
As far as the latest loss, here’s a look at the snap counts that attributed to it.
Offensive snaps: 52
Defensive snaps: 77
Special teams snaps: 25
The balance of snaps between running backs Dion Lewis, Wayne Gallman and Devonta Freeman was interesting, especially given how little time Freeman had to prepare for Sunday’s game. Unfortunately, they were all as ineffective as the other. And given the team’s struggles on the ground, it’s curious to see fullback Eli Penny receiving just two offensive snaps.
On the defensive side of the ball, linebacker Devante Downs playing more than 70% of the team’s defensive snaps is a recipe for disaster. Nate Ebner taking more than 10 snaps isn’t a good thing, either.
But credit to Logan Ryan, who has adapted quickly and is not taking 100% of the defensive snaps.
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