Daniel Jones provides Giants hope, Redskins need to generate pressure

Our Week 4 opponent preview analyzes how Jones made his historic entrance, the weak parts the Redskins can attack and how well Terry McLaurin has been playing.

Approximately five months ago, the New York Giants shocked the football world when they selected Daniel Jones with the sixth-overall pick in the draft. Prior to this past Sunday, you may have found more than a few individuals still chuckling. Now, however, those laughs may come with slightly more hesitancy. In case you missed it, Jones led the Giants to an 18-point comeback victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Jones used his legs and his arm to carve up the Bucs defense. In terms of debuts, it stacks up as one of the best in the last 6 years.

The quarterbacks displayed here were those selected in the first or second round (as well as Dak Prescott) dating back to 2013, and how they performed in their first NFL start. Jones had the fifth-highest EPA-per-dropback among those displayed, and found himself sitting just behind the living legend, Patrick Mahomes. That's not bad company to keep.

Perhaps more surprising than Jones' EPA-per-dropback is his average depth of target. I certainly would have expected this number to be much lower, anticipating that a rookie quarterback would be more likely to play it safe in his first NFL start, and rely heavily on Saquon Barkley as a check-down option. 

On the contrary, Jones came out slinging. I wondered if perhaps this had anything to do with Saquon's injury in the second quarter, but this doesn't appear to be the case.

 Jones' target depth appeared to be relatively consistent before and after the injury to Barkley. This is a good sign for him and the Giants, as it's been reported Barkley will likely be sidelined for 4-8 weeks.

Without question, Jones provided a spark and energy to the New York Giants. The troublesome aspect of this past Sunday was that Jones was hit 11 times, five of which resulted in sacks. That means that Jones was hit on about 24% of his dropbacks. 

For comparison, the Miami Dolphins lead the league with a 24.4% hit rate allowed (at least they're first in something).

It's rather obvious New York needs to do a better job of protecting Jones if he's going to have any chance at repeating his success. He performed tremendously under pressure on Sunday, but past research by others has indicated that performance under pressure is volatile and unpredictable. Fortunately for New York, the Redskins have been one of the worst at generating hits on the quarterback.

Washington has generated the third-lowest frequency of hits on opposing quarterbacks. With Jones and the Giants coming to town, they'll need to find a way to generate additional pressure. Otherwise, it could be another long day for the Washington defense.

Although the Washington defense has been quite porous thus far, the good news is that the Giants haven't been much better. This is especially the case when it comes to guarding opposing wide receivers.

The goal of this graph is to observe the frequency and severity of pass plays against the defense. In the case of the Giants, we see that they tend to be bad in both aspects. Allowing big plays and longer targets is bad, but allowing them at a frequent pace can spell disaster. 

Of course, exploiting this weakness is all predicated on Case Keenum. Thankfully, a dynamite weapon has emerged in Terry McLaurin. 

As a graduate student at Ohio State last year, I had the privilege of watching "Scary Terry" quite a bit. Even then, I was optimistic that he would have a solid career as an NFL receiver, though I didn't expect him to perform quite this well, and certainly not this early. Here's a look at just how incredible he's been to this point in the season.

McLaurin's showing an ability to make explosive plays in the passing game, which is a much-needed element given Keenum's play up to this point. With how New York has performed against opposing receivers to this point, it's reasonable to assume that McLaurin will continue his production this Sunday, though the Giants will certainly pay him a great deal of attention.

It was Pat Shurmur that coached Keenum to the best year of his career in 2017, and thus it's possible the coach will have some additional insights for game-planning against his former quarterback. If Keenum struggles again this week, chants for Dwayne Haskins will only grow louder, as fans search for rejuvenated hope. For now, however, the Giants seem to have found theirs.