Tired was not an option.
Playing every single snap in a game is not easy. Most games, the entire offensive line stays in every play, if possible. On defense, a player or two in the secondary never comes off the field. The Giants were desperate to win Sunday and, as a result, five of their starters on defense played all 68 snaps, going in and staying in during the 27-22 victory over the Texans inside climate-controlled NRG Stadium.
Defensive coordinator James Bettcher clearly did not want to make a bunch of moves but he was short-handed, with Eli Apple out with a strained groin. Depth in the defensive backfield was going to be an issue, chasing around DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller. Bettcher kept his starters on the field and hoped they could endure. They did. All four starters, cornerbacks Janoris Jenkins and B.W. Webb, plus both safeties, Landon Collins and Curtis Riley, played all 68 defensive snaps. This is highly unusual.
Sometimes the plan goes away as soon as someone turns an ankle or tweaks a hamstring. Not this time. No wonder the guys running around in the defensive backfield looked a little gassed coming down the stretch, trying to contain Deshaun Watson’s legs as he scrambled out of trouble and, trailing, fired the ball here and there. Another defensive player, inside linebacker Alec Ogletree, stayed in for all 68 snaps. The Giants said they needed a three-down linebacker when they traded for Ogletree and, despite some shortcomings in coverage — although he did come away with an end-zone interception — they got one in Ogletree.
The only other two players to get snaps in the secondary were Donte Deayon (45, filling the nickel-back role) and safety Michael Thomas (23 snaps). Bettcher moved his big guys up front, with starters Damon “Snacks” Harrison (35), Dalvin Tomlinson (31) and B.J. Hill (14) all liberally rotated out.
Last week, Bettcher said it all started with him and he needed to do a better job in his first year as the Giants’ coordinator. This was a good game for him, helped along by impressive durability displayed by several of his key starters.
More that came out of the first victory of the season for the Giants:
— Eli Manning pointed, and it almost looked as if he was so excited to get the ball in his hands that he could barely contain himself waiting for the shotgun snap from center John Greco. Manning noticed a linebacker, Zach Cunningham, split out wide on Saquon Barkley and did not see any available help.
“He had a go-route, beat him right off the line of scrimmage,” Manning said. “So, threw it out, gave him a shot.”
The result was a 21-yard catch-and-run to set up the clinching touchdown. The result was also precisely why the Giants were so taken with Barkley prior to the draft. They imagined these mismatches in their sleep. Now, they are becoming reality.
— Manning has been around so long, it is easy to forget sometimes how much older he is than so many of his teammates and how unfamiliar some of them are with what he has accomplished. Oh, they know about the two Super Bowls, but do not have down the intricate details of how Manning operates down the stretch of close games. It was his calmness late in the fourth quarter of a game in danger of unraveling that several Giants new on the scene noticed from their 37-year-old quarterback.“It helps when you have a great leader like Eli come in and make sure everybody is on the same page,” rookie guard Will Hernandez said. “He came in, talked to the huddle, made sure we were well aware of the situation and made sure we all got our job down.”
— Pat Shurmur was making the rounds in the visiting locker room for the first time as a winning Giants head coach when he stopped by the locker occupied by Rhett Ellison. The two have a history, as Ellison was with the Vikings when Shurmur ran the offense in Minnesota. Ellison is the sort of player almost every coach needs and appreciates.
“Good job, Rhett,” Shurmur said as the two embraced.
Before parting, Shurmur looked directly at Ellison, smiled and said, “Tough guys win games.” The sentiment was obvious. At times in the game, Shurmur asked Ellison to block J.J. Watt by himself, which is extremely heavy lifting for anyone, much less a tight end.
— No one has to worry about under-usage for Barkley. He had 117 yards from scrimmage, 82 on the ground and 35 via receptions. He is the first player in franchise history with more than 100 yards from scrimmage in the first three games of his NFL career.
— Ereck Flowers was benched but he did play in the game. He filled the backup offensive lineman role and was on the field blocking for extra points and field goals. That amounted to five snaps. The five offensive linemen, including new starters Chad Wheeler at right tackle and Greco at center, played all 62 offensive snaps.
— When things are going badly, when losing sets in, rarely, if ever, does a coach say, “I think we need to make the offense more complicated.” It is always about getting down to basics, streamlining the playbook, concentrating on what you do best and doing it more often. And so, it comes as no surprise that Manning said the offense was “condensed” this week. Less thinking, more reacting, more freedom, less paralysis by analysis.
“I feel like we cut down on some of the stuff this week,” receiver Sterling Shepard said. “Guys were pretty fresh, ready to go. It was fine-tuning some things. Everybody was freaking out about the two games, but we remained calm as a team.”
— Manning’s completion percentage of 86.2 (he connected on 25-of-29 passes) was the second-highest of his career. He hit on 87.1 percent of his passes Dec. 14, 2015, in a 31-24 victory over the Dolphins. Manning’s passer rating of 132.3 was the highest since that game three seasons ago, when he had a passer rating of 151.5.
— The Giants studied for a week but now will not concern themselves any longer with the Texans. No one can devalue this first victory for the Giants, but already the Texans, at 0-3, are a team headed for trouble. It just might be the Giants took care of one of the league’s bottom-feeders.
“Obviously you don’t expect anybody outside of the building to believe in you, rightfully so,” Watt said. “None of us expected us to be here, none of us wanted to be here, but the reality is we’re here. This sucks.”
— At halftime, the Giants had 20 points and were on their way to scoring 30 points for the first time in 35 games — since the 2015 regular-season finale. It did not happen. Still, their 27 points is the most scored by the Giants in a victory since beating the Browns in Cleveland 27-12 back on Nov. 27, 2016.