MetLife Stadium—The NY Giants know they have a lot things to clean up on a defense before their Philadelphia Eagles Thursday night match up.
The Giants (1-5) slid past Washington (1-5) 20-19 in Sunday’s afternoon game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ.
The G-Men missed 14 tackles on defense in space, allowed 10 pressures on Daniel Jones in 21 dropbacks, and Washington backup quarterback Kyle Allen nearly came back to beat them.
Daniel Jones displayed his athletic abilities as a rusher last season he rushed for 279 yards on 45 carries, averaging 6.2 yards per carry, and scored two touchdowns. With six games into the 2020 season, Jones has been willing to create some things with his legs.
“I knew he could run,” Darius Slayton said after the game. “I thought it was Daniel Jackson there for a second. He stretched out a good bit. It’s definitely huge having his ability to run to keep defenses off balance.”
The victory wasn’t pretty for New York. They squandered an early 13-3 lead and made some costly plays throughout the game, including a ill advise interception thrown in the end zone late in the third quarter by Jones off his back foot with pressure in his face.
Jones now has turned the ball over at least once in 17 of 18 career starts. He did throw his first touchdown pass — 23 yards to wide out Darius Slayton in the first quarter.
Christmas came a little early for the Giants with a fumble returned for a touchdown. NY Kyler Fackrell made a huge play for the G-Men, sacking Allen and forcing the fumble that Tae Crowder took for 43 yards for a score to give the Giants the lead for good with 3:29 remaining in the game.
Washington coach Ron Rivera gave Judge and the Giants a little heartburn late in regulation for taking a risk. Rivera went for the win instead of an extra point to tie it after a nice catch by Cam Sims scoring from 22-yards out from Kyle Allen. But on the ensuing conversion attempt, Allen’s pass attempt hit the turf after he scrambled out of the pocket with the Giants’ defenders bearing down on him.
“I want to win. I’m playing to win. I’m trying to get our players to understand this is how we do things. We do things to the max. We play to win games,” Rivera said. “It bugs me because we lost. It pisses me off; I want to win games. I don’t care that it’s my first year here. I don’t care that we have a group of young guys that have to learn. They will learn how to win.”
It took six weeks, but this was exactly what Judge needed to give his program some confidence. Judge said he was proud of his team and happy they got to see tangible results from their hard work.
“We finally got our win,” Giants defensive lineman Leonard Williams said. “We’ve been working hard and finally got to see some of the fruits to our labor. It was obviously an ugly win though.”