Five Alarming Trends Established by the Giants This Season

These stats underscore the problems that have cost the New York Giants games this season.

Nov 3, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll reacts to an offensive pass interference call negating a Giants touchdown during the second half against the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The New York Giants' main goal every year is to be competitive against their division rivals but against everyone.

Suffice it to say that the Giants, at 2-11, have come up woefully short in accomplishing that objective due to a variety of reasons, from injuries to coaching to quarterback play to the defense and special teams. 

Indeed, there has been very little for the Giants, in their 100th season, to smile about as this season has set up another long, cold, and arduous offseason ahead for general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll (assuming both are retained) to fix what has ailed this team.

Close, But No Cigar

If you’re looking for a glass-half-full stat among some otherwise concerning ones, consider that this season, the Giants have been involved in eight one-score games. This would suggest that this team has not given up on head coach Brian Daboll and that it still plays hard for him, regardless of the outcome.

The bad news? The Giants are 1-7 in those one-score games. And in what could be considered a small bit of consolation, in at least two of those games (Washington Week 2 and last week against the Saints), it came down to lady luck simply not smiling on the Giants. 

The Giants have drawn too many of these little yellow flags, especially in the last two weeks. / Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

Sloppiness

Over the last two weeks, the Giants have committed 25 penalties, 13 of which came in their Thanksgiving loss to Dallas, a team high under head coach Brian Daboll.

To put those 25 penalties into perspective, The Giants had 58 penalties before that rash of penalties began, which would have had them among the least penalized teams. 

Even though the Giants, who finished the 2023 season with 89 penalties (tied for seventh fewest), are currently ranked 10th league-wide for most penalties, some of that sloppiness could be attributed to the revolving door of personnel at some positions, which has disrupted cohesiveness, while other penalties (e.g., delay of game) can be attributed to in-game strategy.

The Giants’ top penalties committed this season have been false starts (14) and offensive holding (13), both of which, when combined, have accounted for 32.5% of the team’s penalties this season.

Slow Starts

In what has seemed like an ongoing problem with no end in sight, the Giants continue to struggle to get out of the gate.

This year, they have failed to score a touchdown in the first half of a game eight times and in the first three quarters of a game just six times. 

Breaking down the Giants’ scoring by quarters, they have been blown out in all but one quarter of play: the fourth quarter when often the game has reached “garbage time” and opponents have eased off the gas pedal.

Otherwise, the Giants have been outscored in the first half of games 158-87, a -71 point difference. In having to often play from behind, that tends to make the Giants offense one-dimensional, that dimension (passing game) currently being an area that right now is not a team strength.  

Three Times Has Not Been a Charm

Ideally, a team will avoid third-down situations because it is effective on first and second downs.

That has not been the case for the Giants, who, on the season, have converted 35.87% of their third-down plays, 24th in the league. 

Over their last three games, that conversion rate has been 30.95% (29th in the league), and in their last two games, they’ve converted eight-of-31 (25.8%) of their third downs after having converted over 45% in each of their three prior games.  

Touchdown Drought

Along with the scoring struggles mentioned earlier in this piece, it’s worth noting that the Giants have had the fewest passing touchdowns in the league (67) since 2020, a problem that obviously existed before the arrival of head coach Brian Daboll.

Even more alarming is that unless something changes over these last few games, this will be the first time during the current century the Giants have failed to throw for double-digit touchdown passes in a season. 

If the total stands, it will also be their lowest total since 1995, when they had 11 touchdown passes. With no current Giants quarterback having thrown for more than eight touchdowns this season (all eight belong to former quarterback Daniel Jones), it will also mark one of the worst performances by a Big Blue signal caller since Dave Brown tossed 12 touchdowns in 1994.  

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See Also

• Have Giants HC Brian Daboll and GM Joe Schoen Sealed Their Respective Fates?

• New York Giants Injury Update: Potential Bad News for Offensive Line

• New York Giants Open Week 15 as Massive Home Underdogs vs Baltimore

• Giants Make Multiple Roster and Practice Squad Moves

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