Giants report card: How we graded Big Blue in Week 2 loss to Commanders

The New York Giants fell to 0-2 as they were defeated by the Washington Commanders on Sunday afternoon.

The Commanders won, 21-18, without scoring a single touchdown. A Graham Gano injury on the first play of the game left the Giants without a kicker resulting in no extra points being converted. This led to the Giants scoring three touchdowns but failing to score 20 points. New York now resides in last in the NFC East.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what we saw during the game and how we graded the Giants in this loss.

Offense: C+

The offense looked a lot better in Week 2 but still left much to be desired.

It started with Daniel Jones, who played much better as he finished the day with 178 passing yards, two touchdowns, and a 100.0 passer rating. He was also a threat in the ground game, finishing with five carries for 32 yards. This could have been a bigger day for Jones but he dealt with at least four drops, one of which came from Malik Nabers on a potential game-winning drive.

Jones still needs to improve on his accuracy but this was a big step up from Week 1, especially in the department of his connection with the star rookie. The sixth overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft finished with 10 catches for 127 yards and his first career touchdown.

The run game also looked better on Sunday. Devin Singletary finished with 95 yards and a rushing touchdown averaging 5.9 yards per carry. His vision and elusiveness looked good but a costly fumble ruined what could have been a great breakout game as a Giant.

The team was a couple of conversions away from having an amazing day but could not make the plays when it matters most.

Defense: C

Big Blue’s defense took the saying “bend but don’t break” too seriously.

Starting with the positive, the pass rush looked better as they were able to sack Jayden Daniels five times, although none actually came off the edge. They also held the Commanders to no touchdowns, limiting them to field goals on each of their red zone trips.

However, this also meant that the Giants allowed a score on seven of eight drives and the only drive that they did not score was a kneel at the end of the first half. Many of the red zone stops were also due to Washington penalties rather than New York’s defensive prowess.

The main problem was the run defense. They allowed 6.1 yards per carry for a total of 215 rushing yards. The rushing lanes were wide open and the Commanders took full advantage of it.

The unit could also not make the big plays. An example of this was Jason Pinnock, who had a great day with two sacks but missed a big opportunity on a pick when he was outmuscled by Zach Ertz. And across the board, they could not force incompletions (the rookie completed 79 percent of his passes) or make tackles. A recipe for disaster.

Special Teams: C-

The special teams unit had a very average day but gets dinged for a PAT miss by Jamie Gillan.

There was also a penalty on the kickoff. Outside of that, Eric Gray had a modest day returning the ball as he totaled 128 yards on one attempt. Gillan also pinned one of two punts inside of the 20.

Coaching: D-

Brian Daboll is firmly on the hot seat after two straight awful coaching outings. The only positive is that the team looked more motivated to play football. Outside that, the whole coaching staff could not do anything right.

Daboll’s play-calling was mundane and predictable. He could not dial up anything special when the Giants needed to convert resulting in some promising drives being ended too early. The designed quarterback runs were also uninspiring as Daboll could definitely do a better job using Jones’ athleticism.

On the other side of the ball, Shane Bowen called an awful game. The defense was not put in places to succeed and the scheme allowed them to get gashed in the run game. The Commanders are one of the worst offenses at protecting the quarterback in the NFL and even with five sacks on the day the edge rush was underwhelming. The Cleveland Browns will be a good opportunity to right the ship on defense but the outlook does not look good.

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This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: Giants report card: How we graded Big Blue in Week 2 loss to Commanders