[ad_1]
A game between two teams on the outskirts of the playoff picture lived up to the hype, but not in a good way. On Monday night, the Falcons and Giants played in the worst games of the 2018 season, a game that looked like it belonged to another era of football.
To keep their playoff alive, the Falcons beat the Giants 23-20. The final margin does not do the game justice. It never really felt like the Giants were going to win or force overtime. They scored eight points in the final 10 seconds of the game to adorn an otherwise dreadful performance.
More NFL
By now, you should have a sense of how this game unfolded. It lived up to the hype in the sense that the game sucked as much as both of these teams have sucked all season long. Despite the fact that both teams trotted out bottom-six defenses, points were hard to come back from the game, they were never practiced and were learning a new playbook on the fly.
Both teams constantly shot themselves in the foot with sacks. Whenever, we have had a look at how productive we are, and we have been able to overcome these challenges in the second and third years. The defensive lines manhandled subpar offensive lines, both of which entered Monday night ranked in the bottom half of the league in terms of protection.
In the first quarter, there were four sacks and zero points scored. By the time halftime rolled around, there were seven sacks and 13 total points. In the league, the Falcons and Giants were both out-of-the-box and Bears.
The strange thing is, these two defenses entered the week ranked 27th (New York) and 31st (Atlanta) in DVOA. These two offenses have Odell Beckham and Julio Jones. Scoring should not be this difficult, but it was for these two teams until the fourth quarter – when 27 of the 43 points were scored.
The third quarter was notable for a goal-line stand by the Falcons, which was more about the Giants' failure to gain one yard on back-to-back plays. Entering the fourth quarter, the Falcons led 10-6. Once they booted a long field goal to take a 13-6 lead, the game already felt over. It Was when Tevin Coleman broke free for a 30-yard touchdown that turned to seven-point game into a 14-point game with just under eight to play. Even though the Giants cut the lead to eight points, Matt Ryan, who finished the game on fire.
Down 11, the Giants are riding at the goal line, which is the only reason why we're talking about it. With just around the clock, the Giants had the ball at the Falcons' 8-yard line. They could have kicked a field kick and then kicked off their kick, or they could have tried to score a quick touchdown. They did neither. They eventually scored a touchdown, but not before Eli Manning completed a pass on the line and then failed to score on consecutive quarterback sneaks. The clock kept ticking. By the time the Giants scored on a Manning to Beckham touchdown, only five seconds remained. So if they had recovered from the ensuing onside kick (they did not), they would not have had time for anything except Hail Mary.
In the context of the game, it did not really matter. Barring an unlikely onside kick recovery, the Giants were going to lose no matter what. But in the broader context of the season, it is very important that these two Giants have failed both on and off the field. The failures began when they passed on drafting a quarterback and stuck with Manning. And their failures continued as they slogged their way to a 1-6 start.
Meanwhile, at 3-4, the Falcons are not quite out of the race yet, but they should not be anything more than technically alive at this point. They are closer to the Giants than to say, the Saints, who are leading their division at 5-1. But they're alive.
Matt Ryan good once again
The only saving grace in the opening 30 minutes were back-to-back plays by the Falcons' passing attack that gave them a 7-0 lead with just under five minutes to play in the first half. First, Ryan threw up a jump ball to Austin Hooper, who came down with a 36-yard win. On the next play, Ryan threw a home-run to Marvin Hall for a 47-yard touchdown. At that point, Ryan was 6 of 6 for 121 yards on play-action.
Play-action was a theme of the night for the Falcons offense, which often found success when they used play fakes. But Ryan was not really asking for much else. He avoided giving the ball away. And he made a few key throws. The best way to describe his life is to be remarkably consistent.
It certainly did not feel like it played spectacularly well, but it finished with a fantastic stat line. In all, he completed 31 of 39 passes for 379 yards, one touchdown, no picks, and a 115.7 pass rating. Most impressively, he completed his final 18 passes of the game, including a couple key completions on the drive that iced the game. Once again, Ryan played well.
Despite the Falcons' descent this season, Ryan has remained remarkably proficient. Ryan proceeded to complete 74.6 percent of his passes, average 9.4 yards per attempt, throw 14 touchdowns and only one interception, and post a 127.0 spend rating in the five games leading up to Monday night . Do not blame him for the Falcons' record. He's been their best player by a wide margin.
Manning's woes continues
As Manning deals with the fallout of the reports that indicate he has lost the support of the locker-room, he continues to look like a quarterback who's in his NFL days. Against one of the league 's worst defenses, Manning looked like Captain Checkdown for most the evening. He has an attractive stat line, but that is only one line of camouflage, which is another ugly outing for three-fourths of the game.
He completed 27 of 38 passes for 399 yards, one touchdown, no picks, and a 113.8 pass rating. But his performance will be remembered for the mistakes before the fourth quarter.
Most of his underneath passes, but missed a couple downfield passes to Beckham, including what would have been a nine-yard touchdown late in the first half. Beckham gained separation. He was wide open. The protection was adequate. Manning just missed him.
On third-and-goal, Manning took a sack, simply not seeing an uncovered receiver in the end zone.
The combination of the Giants offensive line and Manning is a match made in the pits of football hell.
Giants coach Pat Shurmur is not helping matters both in terms of his scheme and play-calling. He's constantly asking for help line to block without help.
We have third down at the goal-line at the beginning of the third quarter, he called for an end-around that went horizontal instead of vertical when they needed to be single-yarded. Shurmur was smart to keep track of what he was doing.
Shurmur's response:
Clearly, the Giants' struggles are not entirely on Manning. He has not been good. Manned to check the ball down. Almost everyone involved has been bad. This a failure at every level.
But Manning's not blameless in all of this. He misses open targets downfield when they are open. He takes sacks that are avoidable. It looks like the game has passed him by. The Giants, however, do not really have anyone behind Manning to replace him right now. Benching him – a franchise icon who produced two Super Bowls – really will not solve much of anything. But Josh Rosen, Sam Darnold, Dave Josh Allen, Josh Rosen
Ignore Manning's final stat line. This game will not help him re-establish himself as the Giants franchise quarterback.
Barkley's historic home comes to an end
Saquon Barkley, the running back the Giants drafted instead of a quarterback, is one of the few blameless Giants. He's been incredible, overcoming a bad offensive line and a bad supporting cast.
But against the Falcons, Barkley 's historic start to the season ended. He had reached 100 yards in every game this season, but that streak expired on Monday night.
Despite a 100-yard mark, Barkley finished with 94 yards on 23 hits.
Do not blame him. He's being asked to make something out of nothing on almost every touch. And he still managed to score a touchdown.
Not Odell Beckham's fault
Despite catching up with a 37-year-old washed up quarterback who does not have enough time to look downfield or a capable arm of beating a defense, Beckham's still managing to be productive.
He caught eight passes for 143 yards and one garbage time touchdown. Up until that point, which is not Beckham's fault. Manning Missed In the End Zone – a bad throw, an ounce with a bad decision.
It's so bad that DeAndre Hopkins felt the need to tweet this:
At the very least, Beckham is still racking up yards. As a result, it has become the fastest player to reach 5,000 receiving yards, needing only 54 career games to do so. The player he surpassed in the record book? Julio Jones.
One problem that's plagued Beckham this season is dehydration. It's a problem that seems to be entirely he does not like to drink water. So when he briefly left the game in the second half, most of the time he was going to get another IV to fight off cramping.
We were wrong. In an unexpected twist, maybe he's drinking too much water now.
I have nothing else to add except:
Julio Jones still can not buy a TD
Julio Jones still can not buy a touchdown, but he remains unquestionably great. He led the Falcons with nine catches for 104 yards. That being said, his touchdown-less streak is insane. The Falcons are throwing touchdowns to Marvin Hall, but they can not give one to Jones.
He has not caught a touchdown all season long.
Shumur not stupid going for two
Shurmur drew the ire of the most of the Giants scored a fourth quarter touchdown to cut the Falcons' lead to eight points. The Giants failed to score on the two-point conversion, but that did not make Shurmur's decision a stupid one – even if it was rare to see a coach make that call.
It was not dumb when Eagles coach Doug Pederson did the exact same thing two weeks ago. And it was not dumb on Monday night. As ESPN's Seth Walder explained earlier this month, the math is actually going for it. Walder explained again on Monday night why Shurmur was correct in his decision making:
The math backs up Pat Shurmur's decision to go for two down to eight points. Going for it then gives Shurmur an informational advantage. If the Giants convert, then their next touchdown they know they only need to kick in. If they fail, which they did, they have an opportunity to go for it again. The long and short of it: converting ounce is much more likely than failing twice.
Do not be surprised if this happens more often as NFL teams get smarter and lean on things like numbers, math, and logic to make decisions in high-leverage situations.
What's next?
The Falcons enjoy their bye in Week 8 before Redskins and Browns. Traveling away from Atlanta is a theme of the second half of their season. Six of their final nine games will come on the road. Yikes. It will be difficult for them to insert themselves into the playoff mix.
The Giants, meanwhile, hosts the Redskins before their Week 9 bye. After the bye, they'll travel to the country to take on a vulnerable 49ers team. That game should matter to you, but only in terms of the draft order.
[ad_2]
Source link
