Giants report card: How we graded Big Blue in Week 3 preseason loss

The New York Giants closed out their preseason slate in disheartening and underwhelming fashion on Saturday night at MetLife Stadium, falling to the New York Jets, 10-6, in a game that wasn’t that close.

It was a disastrous showing for head coach Brian Daboll’s largely reserve unit. They were beaten in all three phases of the game and in adding injury to insult, nearly a dozen players left the field hurt.

Now comes the hard part for the Giants: Whittling their roster down to 53 men by Tuesday afternoon. But before we look ahead, allow us to look back.

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

Offense: D-

The Giants couldn’t get much going offensively, plagued by the same pass protection issues that have become a staple of this franchise dating back to the days of Eli Manning.

Quarterback Tommy DeVito was sacked eight times and hit 13, but remarkably stayed in the game. He was the sacrificial lamb with Daniel Jones and Drew Lock (hip) sidelined throughout the contest.

To DeVito’s credit, he hung in there and did the best he could given the circumstances but his frustration was evident.

Running backs Dante Miller and Joshua Kelley produced on the ground, but even that was a slog at times. Still, coupled with DeVito’s scrambling, the Giants finished the night by averaging 5.1 yards per carry. That’s probably the sole offensive positive to take away from the loss.

None of the receivers or tight ends stood out. John Jiles made an electric leaping play late in the game but overall, those two units failed to produce.

Defense: B

The defense could have earned a higher grade and even generated more significant praise if not for allowing several big plays (45, 39, 20). Tackling was the key issue on those Jets gains, one of which ended in a touchdown — what ultimately proved to be the game-winning touchdown.

Those three plays aside, the defense, led by rookie linebacker K.J. Cloyd, was solid enough. There were a few third-down stops that were missed, but they held Gang Green to 8-of-17 on third down, 0-1 on fourth down, and 0-2 in the red zone.

A turnover would have been nice, but that wasn’t in the cards on Saturday night.

The front seven also created good pressure, especially late in the late, recording seven QB hits, 3.0 sacks, and six tackles for a loss.

Special teams: C+

It was a mixed bag on special teams for the Giants on Saturday night, beginning with the opening kickoff of the game.

Wide receiver Ayir Asante fielded the kick and weaved his way through traffic for an impressive 42-yard gain only to have the ball stripped, leading to a takeaway for the Giants. Nine plays later and the bad guys had a 3-0 lead.

Wide receiver Isaiah McKenzie muffed a punt (recovered) and bobbled a second punt later in the game. It was sketchy and concerning, but he avoided disaster. He also bailed out fellow wide receiver Bryce Ford-Wheaton, who muffed a punt of his own and nearly turned the ball over.

Kicker Jude McAtamney connected on both of his field goal attempts, including a long of 43, but both of his kickoffs went into the endzone for touchbacks. That may have been by design but it’s contrary to what the Giants had done over the first two preseason games.

Jamie Gillan punted six times for 296 yards (49.3) with one being down inside the 20. A second would have been downed inside the 20 but the Giants missed a tackle (are you sensing a theme here?).

Coaching: C-

The Giants were playing most of their reserves and there wasn’t much game-planning, but the offensive performance was ugly and there’s no way around that. DeVito routinely had to yell at his teammates and tell them where they were supposed to be lining up, which is a concern at this stage of the summer.

If the players were having those issues on the field on Saturday night, it also means they were having those issues in practice. The onus would fall on head coach Brian Daboll to lead the correction of those issues or, perhaps, simplify his play calls.

That’s not to absolve the players themselves, who have to learn the playbook, but it wasn’t just a one-off on Saturday. It was happening frequently.

Mike Kafka. What did he do? We still don’t know.

Defensive coordinator Shane Bowen called a solid game. The tackling issues are out of his control on gameday but something he needs to work on in practice. There were too many avoidable big plays spurred on by multiple missed tackles.

Bowen called a few blitzes but nothing overly exotic. It was a pretty simple, straightforward approach.

Special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial has his work cut out for him. We have no idea how he’ll approach kickoffs in the regular season but he needs to ensure that his return men are more sure-handed. That could become a game-changing issue.

Overall: C-

It was an ugly, boring performance to close out the preseason. Not much could have been expected given which players took the bulk of the snaps, but it was still a far cry from how the reserves played in joint practices and Week 1 of the preseason against the Detroit Lions.

How many of these players make the final roster remains to be seen, but it’s still a black eye for general manager Joe Schoen. The team is entirely too thin and you have to come away from the preseason concerned that if one notable starter goes down, the house of cards will fall.

This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: Giants report card: How we graded Big Blue in Week 3 preseason loss