The Giants are walking into Sunday’s matchup with the Texans carrying a pile of questions, and the noise around the building has only gotten louder. After a 34-27 loss to the Saints, the team is dealing with issues on offense, special teams, and in the running game, while the coaching staff and players keep searching for something that sticks.
One of the biggest concerns has been penalties, and the Giants’ coaches know it. Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy pointed to the staff’s need to look inward as the team tries to clean up its mistakes.
The Giants have the 13th-most penalties in the league, and no one has been hit harder than their pre-snap offense. That problem was on full display against New Orleans, when back-to-back false starts by Tyrone Tracy and Andrew Thomas turned a third-and-8 into a third-and-18 in the third quarter.
The offense is also trying to find the right shape around its quarterback situation. Nagy said the playbook can open up now that J.J.
McCarthy is in place as the starter, and that the game plan no longer has to be built around a heavily restricted package. “Maybe now 20 percent of that 30 that was gone is back,” Nagy said.
“For us, what does he do well? You’ve seen some of the packages he’s done, but that can become predictable.
We don’t want to be predictable. Now that he’s the starter, it probably benefits us some that he’s just not always coming in to do predictable QB-driven runs.”
He added that the staff has gained a lot more confidence in what McCarthy can handle. “Just the confidence of him being able to, in practice, talk to us about the scheme, where his eyes are going in the pass game, where he’s snapping the ball with a motion or a shift,” Nagy said.
“If there was a shoestring with Jameis or he got hurt, he could go in and function. Whereas the first two weeks, I had a highlighted [play] call sheet that, if something happened and he was in, these were the plays.
It was probably 50 percent. Last week, it was probably 90 percent.
Now this week, it’s going to be 100 percent.”
Harbaugh, meanwhile, brushed off the idea that the coming bye week should factor into quarterback timing. Asked whether it can be better to make a change before the bye instead of waiting, he answered plainly: “I just never thought of it that way.
I never considered whether the bye week is coming up and that’d be a better time. To be honest with you, it never even crossed my mind.
I’m just thinking about what was the best thing for the next game and was he ready. It really wasn’t all that.
I mean, it’s good to think about. Now that people have brought it up, I’m like, I didn’t really care about that.”
The backfield remains unsettled too, and John Harbaugh’s preference for a dominant single-back approach keeps the pressure on Cam Skattebo. Skattebo said he feels he’s learned from the recent stretch and is ready to go again.
“It’s been good, you know. I think I got taught a lesson,” Skattebo said.
“I don’t know if that’s from them or from myself, but I kind of had to step back and look at it and figure out why I was doing the things I was doing, what was happening. Came to practice, corrected those things, worked on them.
Ready to go back out there and play ball.”
He knows the situation still isn’t settled. “I didn’t do anything yet,” Skattebo said. “I took care of the ball during practice, and whatever my role is on Sunday is going to be my role and I’m going to give it everything I’ve got.”
There’s also the possibility of more change before the Nov. 10 deadline. Skattebo acknowledged that a trade for the Colts’ Jonathan Taylor can’t be dismissed, especially with Harbaugh pursuing a broader vision for the offense in East Rutherford.
At the same time, the Giants’ skill players are pushing for better execution on the ground. Malik Nabers said the offense needs to do a better job setting up the run so defenses can’t key on the pass every snap.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve got to do a better job on offense of getting the ball -- I mean, making sure we want to run the ball well, finding good runs for the running back that just hearing their thoughts on what runs that they like, too,” Nabers told reporters on Thursday. “Trying to do a better job of asking them, asking the O-line of what specific runs that they like, where they feel like we can gain a lot of yards off of to just help the whole offense.”
Nabers has his own matchup worth watching against Houston, where he’ll see Derek Stingley Jr. after already looking sharp again following his ACL tear. Per PFF, Nabers has an 81.7 overall grade, tied for sixth in first downs with 23, and has posted at least 2.88 yards per route run in three games, including Week 6 against the Saints.
Stingley, though, has not been as locked down in 2026 as usual, allowing a 101.8 passer rating into his coverage and 40 or more yards in three of six games. Houston has leaned heavily on zone, which could help Nabers, since he’s been more productive against those looks while Stingley’s zone grade has lagged.
The Giants also have a major special teams issue to sort out, and the overall picture is clear: this team is under pressure in just about every phase as it heads to Houston. Tremaine Edmunds is reportedly headed to injured reserve, adding another complication to a roster already trying to steady itself.
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One of the more intriguing options is LSU safety Ty Benefield, whose hybrid safety-slot skill set is the kind of flexible profile teams covet when they want multiple answers in the secondary. Tennessee defensive tackle Xavier Gilliam is also climbing quickly, and the buzz around him suggests he could be in the conversation as the first player at his position selected. For a Giants team always weighing how to add speed and toughness to the front and back ends of the defense, both names are the sort that can move from background chatter to real draft-board discussion fast. [Read more 🡒]