Injuries can make or break a season, and the Giants were lucky that they didn’t have any coming into the season. In week one the defensive line which played so well sustained 4 week injuries to starters Danny Shelton and Dexter Lawrence. Also, breakout rookie from last season Toney got hurt for four weeks on a run play in which he shouldn’t have even been in the game. With Golladay’s suspension into effect this puts the Giants down 2 of their 6 receivers. In this week’s game plan and practice, they decided to use half pads and split the reps for starters and backups except for the wide receiver position where it was only backups. This should have resulted in no to few injuries, with the fatigue levels in the starters staying mainly the same, however, this was not the case. John Ross was injured for the week in practice, which left the Giants with only three viable receivers for their game. The Giants were forced to place their new rookie Khalil Shakir into the starting lineup while supplementing the final three spots with tight ends.
This changed the game plan for the Giants, who had planned on coming into the game and throwing the ball deep to take advantage of the Bears secondary. The Giants still came out throwing, however, Jones threw two bad interceptions to start the game giving the Bears a perfect opportunity to take the lead. The Bears ran through the Giants defense and at one point held a three score lead. Jones. Barkley, and the rag tag new york receiving core had enough of this abuse and came up with a game plan that forced the Bears to retreat. Instead of focusing on their receiving core, the Giants took advantage of Barkley and Engrams mismatches, which resulted in long touchdowns in a quick amount of time. This led to a Giant comeback that was cemented by linebacker Ojulari when he intercepted Fields pass up 8 late in the fourth quarter. The Giants would run it out and win the game 45-37.
Jones started the game cold, however, ended it hot. After throwing the interceptions he would go on to score 3 touchdowns while throwing for 407 yards on 17 completions. With his receiving core depleted, he took advantage of the mismatches he had which will lead to some shake ups in the game planning going forward. As with week one, Barkley is showing why he’s the one that the offense goes through, amassing over 200 all purpose yards and scoring 4 touchdowns. Coach Burn was asked why the change in gameplanning from last year and he was quick to remark, “I was stupid last season, end of story.”
The defense was put in a bad spot with the turnovers early in the game, however, it didn’t help that they couldn’t stop a nosebleed. The Bears did whatever they wanted earlier on and the defense looked more like the group from last season then last week. They changed their gameplan at the half, and came out stronger than ever. They sacked the ever elusive Fields three times, while forcing two interceptions. It doesn’t matter how many points the offense can score if the defense can’t make a stop. For the Giants, they were lucky that their game plan worked out as it looked like Fields would have a field day on them.
A 2-0 start is exactly what is needed for the Giants as of next week they start a hard part in their schedule. For their next four opponents, they will play the Titans, Packers, Eagles, Eagles. The Titans and Packers are both playoff teams from a season ago and the Eagles just showed the league that they could keep up with and almost beat the reigning Superbowl champs. After this stretch is over we will see where the Giants truly stand.
