New York Giants at Seattle Seahawks: Week 5 Storylines

Sometimes, a break in the action is good, particularly for a football team coming off a loss.

That’s where the New York Giants currently stand. They came up short last Thursday night against the Dallas Cowboys, a 20-15 disheartening gut punch of a loss in which they dropped to 1-3 on the year after failing for the second time this year to score touchdowns just four days after recording a huge win, their first against the Cleveland Browns the Sunday prior.

The Giants were given a long weekend off, a chance to clear their heads, rest their bodies, and reset for what will be the start of a grueling month of football in October, beginning with a trip out west to face the Seattle Seahawks.

In the coming week, much will be learned about this Giants team and what they are truly made of. Will they come out swinging after their time away, or will they follow the lead of the New York Jets, who, coming off their Thursday night game, followed that up with a flat performance in a loss against the Denver Broncos on Sunday?

They had better hope to avoid the latter scenario for Big Blue’s sake. On Wednesday, when the Giants return after a day off to start their work week before making the cross-country flight to Seattle, head coach Brian Daboll will want his players to be locked into the task at hand.

“Playing that Sunday-Thursday back-to-back is a very short window in which to play football, so it’s nice to have the time for your body to recover,” receiver Darius Slayton said on Monday. 

“I think it’s important to stay mentally locked in if not fully physically locked in. It helps to get treatment or watch extra film or stretch, do Pilates, whatever it is you like to do to keep your body right in this time to try to keep yourself mentally into it, keep your body into it, but not fully relax.” 

Offensive tackle Jermaine Eluemunor welcomed the break to get himself right physically and reflect on what has transpired thus far.

“I think the biggest thing is it gives you time to self-reflect and see what you’re doing better than other teams and things that you’re not doing better than other teams. It allows you to dive into things you can do better and things you need to work on. A lot of times, getting a little break like that can be good for teams that need to hone in on certain things and get better in certain areas of their team. So, I can’t speak on how that went for the Jets, but I think that will benefit us. It will help us dive into those little things and get that corrected for Seattle.”

Speaking of Seattle, their unbeaten streak ended Monday night against the Detroit Lions, 42-29. But even in defeat, it was quite impressive that Seattle still managed to post 29 points and a whopping 38 first downs. 

Seattle is averaging 25.5 points per game, which will be a good test for a Giants defense that has allowed just 21 points per game thus far.

That assumes the Giants don’t fall into the post-bye rut and come out flat.

Here are some other storylines to watch for the Giants in Week 5.

When we last left Malik Nabers, the Giants’ amazing rookie receiver, he had just suffered a concussion that landed him in the protocol.

It won’t be known where Nabers is in the protocol until Wednesday’s injury report comes out, but there is optimism that, thanks to the additional time off, he should be ready to go against the Seattle Seahawks this weekend.

The good news is that the extra time off gives NAbers plenty of time to recover from his injury. 

“He’s doing well,” receiver Darius Slayton told reporters on Monday. “I saw him today for the first time since Friday, but he was in good spirits. He’s doing what he needs to do.”

It’s not out of the question for Nabers to be back in the lineup without missing much of a beat–Slayton himself did so earlier this year. 

But everyone recovers differently, and as far as the Giants are concerned, they’re hoping that Nabers, whose team-leading 386 receiving yards account for 32.5% of the Giants’ total yardage on offense, follows suit.

Speaking of injuries, the Giants are hopeful of having cornerbacks Dru Phillips and Adoree’ Jackson back. Both were scratched for the Thursday game with calf issues. 

To say they missed those two would be an understatement. Phillips, their slot cornerback, has been solid, notching a team-best (out of three eligible corners ) 79.6 coverage rating. 

Cor’Dale Flott, who has played the second most snaps in the slot behind Phillips, has a 158.3 coverage rating, allowing one touchdown and three out of three pass targets to be completed for 46 yards. (Phillips has allowed seven out of nine pass targets to be complete for 28 yards.)

The veteran, Jackson, has (85.4) among the Giants corners, behind Phillips. Getting one or, better yet, both of those corners back will help contain D.K. Metcalf, Jaxson Smith-Njigba, and Tyler Lockett.

The Seahawks defense has been solid against the run, allowing 116.3 yards per game. Conversely, the Giants have struggled to run the ball, boasting the third-worst rushing attack (85.3 yards per carry) and the worst average per rushing play (3.44 yards per attempt).

With Seattle’s top-10 pass defense–they’re allowing 167.5 passing yards per game, which is seventh in the league–if there was ever a time for the Giants’ run game to come alive, this week would be it. 

Seattles’ Lumen Field is a mighty tough place for any visiting team, let alone a struggling team like the Giants. 

Seattle boasts one of the loudest fan environments in the league, and expecting them to tone it down when the opposing team is on offense just isn’t going to happen.

As a result, the Giants will likely practice a lot this week, with pumped-in crowd noise and silent counts to counter the disadvantages of a boisterous crowd. 

The Giants have 26 penalties this year, five of which are false starts, and coming against right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor. 

Simply put, the Giants can ill-afford to have false starts on scoring drives that begin to show promise.