The Giants are on their first winning streak in a long time and it couldn’t come at a better time. At 5-7 they are last in the NFC East, however, they still have a shot at the NFC Wildcard spot as long as they continue their winning ways. Week 14 brought the Washington Football Team into town and they have been a team that had the Giants number last season. Coach Burn came into this game with the game plan of containing one of the best rookie quarterbacks.
The Giants came out into this game with a defensive first mindset. They were going to let their defense dictate the game with their offense playing a simple yet effective gameplan. Coach Burn wanted to get the run game going so he started with Barkley, however, it was rookie running back Ealy who had the most success in the game. The game moved in the Giants favor from start to finish as they were able to score early on and keep the lead throughout the game to a final score of 30-10.
Daniel Jones played as a great game manager who didn’t turn the ball over. It’s amazing what a team can do when they don’t turn the ball over and Daniel Jones has had a fantastic few weeks throwing the football and making great decisions. Jones threw 29 interceptions from weeks 3 -9. The Giants lost all of these games. He threw only 3 interceptions from weeks 10-14. The Giants won three out of four of these games. It’s pretty clear that if Jones doesn’t turnover the football then the Giants have a great shot at winning the game.
All the talk about how Jones has progressed with the amount of interceptions he threw early in the year to now all didn’t matter in week 15 versus the Dallas Cowboys. After the Cowboys went down the field and scored, Jones on his very first drive thew a bad interception. For whatever reason, Jones thought that it was all on him in the game and reverted back to his reckless gunslinger type of play and it cost the Giants a potential playoff spot. The Cowboys were able to take advantage of every single turnover, including two of the three fumbles by Jones. They scored on mostly every drive and the Giants had no answer on offense or defense. You will never win a game by throwing 4 interceptions, however, adding three fumbles to that will lead to a disaster and that was exactly the outcome of this game as the final score ended in a blowout of 62-10.
All that hard work and determination was outdone by one game. Jones was disappointed in himself after the game but Coach Burn talked with him and assured him that he is the quarterback of the future and needs to shake this game and this season off. Jones was reminded of the play that he is capable of and vowed that going forward he won’t feel the need to play the gunslinger anymore. With this loss the Giants are now in official panic mode with a record of 6-8. Officially they aren’t out of the playoff race, however, they need to win the rest of their remaining games while hoping that their competition loses every game.
