The Giants are sitting at 2-1, but nobody inside the building is pretending everything is settled. Sunday’s home game against the 2-1 Cardinals feels like one of those early-season turns where the whole mood can change in a hurry.
That’s the backdrop for a team that has one sack through three games, no touchdowns in its last two, and a quarterback situation that’s already getting attention. Jameis Winston is still the starter, but J.J.
McCarthy is now in the room, learning the offense and waiting for his chance. If that wasn’t enough, Harbaugh just cut Odell Beckham Jr. after MetLife Stadium chanted for “OBJ!”
without ever giving No. 13 a chance to help the team score.
Defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson, though, isn’t sounding the alarm about the pass rush. He pointed to what happened against Tennessee, when the Giants were shutting the Titans out until 5:35 remained in the fourth quarter of a 12-7 win.
“It’s all going to come together,” Wilson said Thursday. “It’s early.
It’s not like a catastrophe out here. I mean, we did play a game where a team we just faced only scored seven points.
We had six three-and-outs on the first possessions. They had 54 total yards in the first half.
“It’s there,” he said. “It’s going to come.
Be patient. And maybe the dam breaks this week.
You don’t know.”
Wilson’s message fits the larger picture, too. The Giants are tied with the teetering Philadelphia Eagles for the best record in the NFC East, but that doesn’t mean they’re cruising.
A win Sunday would keep John Harbaugh’s team in the mix heading into their Week 8 bye, with the record sitting anywhere between 5-1 and 3-4. A loss, though, would crank up the pressure fast before a Week 5 road trip to Washington.
The offense, in particular, has plenty to clean up. Malik Nabers said the group knows it has left too much on the field.
“I think everybody knows that even though we’re 2-1, we leave a lot of stuff out there on the field that we can take back, and one play will make something better,” Nabers said. “So I think we’re more focused on not leaving those plays out there, scoring more points. And we feel like some teams can’t keep up with us, and we should be able to extend the lead and show that.”
Nabers is still trying to look like himself after returning from a reconstructed right knee, and he admitted he’s not all the way there yet. He bounced back from his one-catch, one-yard Week 2 game in Los Angeles by catching six passes for 69 yards against Tennessee, but he still left yardage on the table. On a slant late in the second quarter, Alontae Taylor got him down almost immediately on a play Nabers normally would have turned into a much bigger gain.
“Overall [it’s about] just trusting my knee,” Nabers said, entering his fourth game back. “I think that’s the last thing everybody’s been talking to me about is you got to be able to trust your knee and just go out there, do exactly what I feel like I can do and do it like just do it… Like the slant I ran this past week, just overall, that’s one of those catches that I made before that I’m able to take 25, 30 yards, maybe even more. But I left a lot [out there].”
The Giants should get another steady dose of Cam Skattebo and Najee Harris, but the offense still has to hold up its end. Winston said the ball can get where it needs to go.
“I can make all the throws,” Winston assured.
On the other side, the Giants need Wilson to keep finding ways to create pressure without Brian Burns. If they can get to Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett early, it could take away Arizona’s play-action game and let the Giants focus more on slowing a backfield led by rookie Jeremiyah Love and veteran Tyler Allgeier.
“Early in the season it’s not where we want it,” Wilson said, “but there’s other things that we can do in terms of bringing extra pressures throughout the course of the game to manufacture some pressure. So we’re chasing it as coaches. We’re trying to just manufacture all that, package it together and make sure we work on one accord.”
The Giants haven’t folded after the season-ending injury to Dart and then scraping past Tennessee. They’re still standing, still 2-1, and still trying to make this thing look cleaner. But with McCarthy waiting, injuries piling up, and Arizona coming to town, this one has the feel of a game that could push the season in a very different direction.
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For a Giants defense dealing with injuries, the matchup comes at a tricky time. New York has done a decent job keeping opponents under control on the ground overall, but recent games have shown a weakness in the way yards are being given up, and Loves versatility creates the sort of test that can expose it if the front seven is a step slow. [Read more 🡒]