New York Giants: Stock Up/Stock Down After Week 2

What's good and not so good these days when it comes to the New York Giants?

Sep 15, 2024; Landover, Maryland, USA; New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers (1) reaches for a first down during the fourth quarter against the Washington Commanders. / Peter Casey-Imagn Images

Through the first two weeks of the New York Giants 2024 season, there has been much to digest at all levels of the organization. 

The year has hit the skids early, with the Giants losing their first two contests in embarrassing fashions. Part of their fast woes have been from individual performances and others have arisen from team-wide dysfunction that came into play, as we saw in Week 2 against the Washington Commanders. 

However, with a couple of games under their belts, it’s a good time to start looking back and evaluating where the franchise is at. The Giants have had some valiant efforts from young pieces that are molding nicely into the system, but there have also been some head-scratching trends that are leaving room for more effort.

New York Giants cornerback Dru Phillips (22) makes a catch during practice, just before the first preseason game of the season, Thursday, August 8 2024, in East Rutherford / Kevin R. Wexler / NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK

Stock Up: CB Dru Phillips

One of the early bright spots on the Giants roster has been the stellar play of rookie slot corner Dru Phillips. 

Despite being immediately thrown into a starting role by Shane Bowen, Phillips has taken advantage of the opportunity and been the Giants’ highest-graded coverage defender in the first two weeks of the season. 

He leads the team in defensive production with 16 tackles, three tackles for loss, one sack and one forced fumble and has allowed a 79.6 passer rating on his targets, which is the best among players with at least 44 coverage snaps.

Phillips, the third-round pick out of Kentucky, has faced some speedy slot threats in his professional debut and limited that element of the opponent’s offense. He has been targeted 9 times already and allowed receptions on seven of them, but only succumbed 28 yards and 34 after the catch in that span to show a great job of discipline and playing where he needs to on his reps. 

To make it better, he has impressed with his ability to get involved in stopping the run game, an element that Bowen expects of the cornerback position with its reliance on underneath defenders. Phillips was a main factor in catalyzing the defense in the first quarter against Minnesota with his forced fumble, and then he followed that up with eight tackles and five stops in 28 run defense snaps. 

Stock Up: WR Malik Nabers

If his entire journey from LSU to East Rutherford hasn’t enticed you, Malik Nabers has quickly put his fingerprints all over the first two games of his NFL career and is budding into an early stud for the Giants.

Last Sunday, Nabers walked onto the gridiron for the first time against Minnesota and made some good plays with a decent target load, hauling in five catches for a team-high 66 yards and an average ball of 13.2 yards in a disappointing season-opening loss. 

He followed that up with an impressive performance that nearly carried the Giants to victory in Washington. The rookie snagged another team-leading 10 receptions on 18 targets for 127 yards and an average catch of 12.7 yards, topped off by his first career touchdown, which put the Giants ahead, 12-9, at the end of the first half. 

No matter where he is on the field, Nabers has been a problem for opposing defenses to prepare for. His separation abilities (average 10.2 yards distance from target) and superb ball recognition make it difficult to stick with him, and it’s led to just two drops in the open field and over 100 yards after the catch in two games alone. 

With his first two outings, Nabers is already placing himself in elite company at the top of the NFL in several categories. He currently sits third in receiving yards (193), one more than Justin Jefferson, whom he battled with in Week 1, and leads all rookies in yards, catches, targets, and big plays of 20 yards or more (5). 

Stock Up: Offensive Line

After years of trying to rework their abysmal offensive line, general manager Joe Schoen might have finally found a combination that will work for Daniel Jones and the offense. 

According to PFF, the Giants offensive line currently ranks sixth in the league in pass blocking with a 76.3 grade. That is a stark difference from the unit that finished dead last under the same metric in 2023, barely won 50 percent of its pass-blocking snaps, and looked even worse against the run pressure. 

The Giants additions—headlined by Jon Runyan and Greg Van Roten at the guard spots and Jermaine Eluemenor at right tackle—have fit into the equation nicely under the direction of new offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo. In two games, they’ve allowed just two sacks and 17 pressures, which is also a massive plus after an 85-sack campaign last year, and have remained healthy to maintain the exact amount of snaps in the starting five. 

Outside of Andrew Thomas, who’s been a stalwart, Runyan has been the sharpest of the new blockers while giving up only two pressures in his 85 pass-blocking snaps. On the other side, Eluemenor has been the replacement the team needed after Evan Neal’s injury problem, allowing Jones more time to move in the pocket and make the throws that will move the offense to more endzone visits that we saw in Week 2 when the Giants had three.

The run protection still needs some work, but it saw an uptick in the Commanders game when lead rusher Devin Singletary averaged 5.9 yards per carry and a touchdown that sparked the Giants offense in the first half. If these trends can continue beyond Week 2, it will be the starting point to helping New York handle the pressure from elite defenses and find a path to competing offensively. 

It’s taken a lot of draft capital and cap space to morph the offensive line into a respectable group again. Right now, it’s working as long as the rest of the pieces come together around them.  

Sep 15, 2024; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels (5) runs the ball against New York Giants safety Tyler Nubin (31) and linebacker Bobby Okereke (58) during the fourth quarter at Commanders Field. / Peter Casey-Imagn Images

Stock Down: Run Defense 

As bad as the Giants' run defense was last season, it’s only taken a deeper nosedive after the first two games of the season, which has been a big blemish on Shane Bowen’s unit's debut. 

Last season, the Giants were one of the league’s biggest donors regarding opponent rushing metrics. Despite playing behind former defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, whose system was more reliant on manufactured pressures to quell the foe, the team ranked 27th in total yards allowed in 2023, a failure carried by their absent run efforts that gave up 2,251 yards, 24 touchdowns and a 4.7-yard average carry that sank to second-worst in the entire NFL. 

Bowen was brought into the fold to establish a system that not only clamped down in the red zone but was designed to pack the box and provide reinforcements to stop the run. That change has not brought the intended results through the first two weeks, as New York has allowed a combined 326 yards on the ground to Minnesota and Washington and been pummeled at the line of scrimmage for the 29th-worst average carry of 5.3 yards. 

The team’s stock dropping in this area has more to do with poor tackling than the talent assembled up front. The Giants have a fearsome core with All-Pro gap stuffer Dexter Lawrence and linebackers Bobby Okereke, who led the team in snaps last season, and Micah McFadden headlining the interior. 

However, most of the front seven still struggled to finish plays at the point of contact, which led to a mediocre tackling grade of 60.7 and a missed tackle rate of 13.8 percent. 

On Sunday against Washington, the issues of bad tackling reared their ugly head on several critical drives where the Giants' defense needed to make a stop to preserve their skim lead on the Commanders. 

A few times, they failed miserably, and it led to chunk gains, including the 40-yard gash by running back Brian Robinson Jr, the rival’s lead back, who was caught at the line of scrimmage but not taken down to explode for the big scamper that set the Commanders up for one of their seven field goals that helped upset the Giants. 

Coming off the 215-yard embarrassment in that game, the Giants' run defense has been exposed, and that is not something they want to hang their hats on as they rely on the defense to account for their competitiveness. 

More work needs to be done to fill the holes up the middle, or you’ll see more afternoons when the opponent dominates the time of possession and wears out the Giants’ most important unit. 

Stock Down: Third Down Defense

While the Giants' run defense has done them no favors in their two losses, neither did their underwhelming third-down efforts on Sunday.

While the Giants' run defense has done them no favors in their two losses, neither did their underwhelming third-down efforts on Sunday. 

No matter what the Commanders' distance to go was, New York became a gaping hole for the NFC East rival to dart the football through. This factored into their getting dominated in time of possession and allowing Washington to stay within a field goal’s shot of tying or winning the game outright. 

Shane Bowen’s crew allowed at least one third down conversion on seven of the Commanders’ eight drives and gave up a hideous conversion rate of 50 percent (7-of-14) in that same span. 

On five of those seven attempts, the Giants had Washington trapped behind double-digit distances as high as 13 yards and still failed to come up with the stop that most winning franchises would have made in that situation. 

To put it more gravely, the Giants succumbed 153 yards to the Commanders on third down conversions, a stat making up more than a third of the opponent’s 425 yards of total production. 

Having inefficiency like that will make it very difficult for New York to win football games this season and does nothing to help the offense that did show valiant efforts by posting three touchdowns amid the absence of a trustworthy kicker to earn points in the deep range. 

Sure, the defense did hunker down every time Washington made it inside the 20-yard line, which is an expected strength for a scheme headlined by Bowen that came over from his days in Tennessee. 

It could have been much worse if the conversions translated to seven touchdowns at the end of drives, but that is the level of damage that can be reached with a young defense if the Giants don’t clean it up before they face several elite offenses later in the schedule. 

The youth of the secondary is only going to last so long as an excuse. The Giants need to figure out how to close the gaping holes over the middle that continue to haunt their late-down success.

Stock Down: Roster Management

In the first three years of their regime, it’s been hard for the fanbase to become fully enraged by Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll's decision-making. As the franchise handed over the keys to its future to the duo from Buffalo, a patient source of equity has been built up to allow them to make the moves necessary to move the roster closer to competitiveness at a smart price. 

However, twice in the last two years, we’ve seen instances of roster mismanagement that are starting to test that patience and the two's reputations. In Week 2, that boiled to the surface a second time as the Giants completely mishandled the status of their kicker Graham Gano and his ability to remain healthy for the entirety of the game against Washington. 

Earlier in the week, Gano was added to the injury report with a groin ailment that was straining his work at practice. The two sides figured he could still give it a go on Sunday and neglected to have their contingency plan in place should Gano exit that game with the injury. 

It would turn out the negligence would bite them back on the opening kickoff as Gano pulled his hamstring chasing down Austin Ekeler to prevent a touchdown return that was called back for a holding infraction. The rest of the game saw the Giants have no true kicker to attempt any field goals, a reality that could have been avoided if Jude McAtnamey had been called up from the practice squad to fill the empty hole on the 53-man roster. 

Daboll took accountability for the conference that went into electing to travel to Washington with Gano as the other rostered leg besides punter Jamie Gillan, who was not ready for the sudden job. Yet, the words wouldn’t mean much to the team or the fanbase, as the mishap ended up being a major cause in the Giants’ losing five points and suffering a painful defeat at the hands of seven boots by Washington’s Austin Seibert that outscored the offense of New York. 

It was a completely avoided situation, and instead of defining a win, it was the biggest talking point in summarizing an early Giants loss when wins are hard to come by. The Giants' stock has dropped due to organizational malpractice that, if repeated down the road, could start to carry weight on the future of the team’s current regime. 

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