All good things must come to an end and in the case of the Giants that was their four-game winning streak. New York couldn’t pull off the fourth-quarter magic they had found in the previous weeks in their loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
The Giants are still an impressive 6-2 as they head into the bye week and with the trade deadline nearing they very well could make a move to bolster their receiving group. However, the loss did highlight the Giants’ need to find their offense much quicker than it has in the past few weeks.
Here are the studs and duds from the Week 8 loss.
Duds
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first, and there was a bit of it.
Richie James
Sunday will be a hard game for Richie James to recover from after fumbling two returns that cost the Giants significantly. In fact, the two missteps by the New York Returner led to 10 points for the Seahawks in a 27-13 loss. The effort is certainly going to have the Giants reevaluating whether or not they put James back on the field after they come out of the week off.
Saquon Barkley
The Giants have relied a lot on Saquon Barkley so far this year and there was no doubt he was going to need to play a big role on Sunday if New York was going to come away with a win over the surprising Seahawks. Instead, Barkley had just 53 rushing yards on 20 attempts against the third-worst run defense in the league. In fairness to Barkley, he did have a touchdown and as a group, the Giants had just 78 total yards on the ground.
Giants offense
The offensive issues went way beyond just Barkley on Sunday, stretching from the offensive line to Daniel Jones himself. They failed to convert on third downs — converting just six of 16 opportunities — and the offensive line allowed five sacks and eight QB hits on Jones. And speaking of the Giants quarterback, he struggled as well throwing just 176 yards with his longest pass being a 27-yarder to tight end Tanner Hudson in garbage time. He finished the game completing 17-of-31 passes.
Studs
Now for some good news.
Darius Slayton
The Giants’ wideout did what they needed him to do on Sunday when he pulled in five catches for 66 yards and averaged 13.2 yards per catch. His longest catch was 21-yard reception and it marked the second consecutive week he’s put up 58 or more receiving yards. Outside of the Oct. 16 meeting with the Green Bay Packers, Slayton has put up 58 or more receiving yards in three of his last four games for the Giants. Slayton has benefited from the Giants’ limited offensive targets as the season has progressed.
Jamie Gillan
It speaks a lot about the way things went against the Seahawks that the Giants punter is among this week’s studs, but here we are. Gillan averaged 53.7 yards per punt in Week 8 on six punts. His longest was a 69-yarder and he was able to pin two ins of the 20. He helped make up for what had been an otherwise ugly day for the Giants’ special teams.
