NY Giants: 5 takeaways from Sunday's 26-7 loss to Arizona and where Big Blue goes from here

The Giants were on a four-game run where their game plans were well-executed, well thought-out and everything seemingly worked.

And when they didn't, there were adjustments.

Yes, even coordinator Jason Garrett and the offense, despite being a punching bag for much of this season.

Yet in Sunday's 26-7 loss to the Cardinals, Arizona flipped the script, and it happens. Now the Giants have an opportunity to respond from a different end of the spectrum this week than where they were flying home from Seattle.

By virtue of Washington's win against San Francisco, the Giants have lost control of the NFC East. They are in second place and only a half-game ahead of the Eagles, so they're back in the Top 10 of the 2021 NFL Draft, too.

This was about one game Sunday, not the playoffs, which bring about an entirely different set of challenges. If the Giants were able to impose their will offensively up front against Arizona the way they did in the second half en route to their upset of Seattle, we might be talking about how they survived.

They did not, and give credit to Arizona for executing and playing as the far more desperate team to re-enter the NFC playoff picture as the third Wild Card team because of the outcome.

Here are five takeaways from the Giants' performance and where they go from here heading into Sunday night's game against the Cleveland Browns:

The Daniel Jones conundrum

If the Giants knew Daniel Jones was not going to be able to run Sunday, and that inability was going to compromise the game plan that much, they shouldn't have played him.

But stop with the "they were better off with Colt McCoy" stuff.

Arizona shut 'em down and exposed the weaknesses that apparently were not vanquished by the four-game winning streak.

Jones was healthy enough to play. He received medical clearance, but as Giants coach Joe Judge indicated when he went with McCoy the previous week, the lingering question will have to do with whether Jones' hamstring would limit his mobility and hold the offense back.

Now, with the way Jones left the field Sunday, clearing favoring something in his gait – whether it was a re-aggravation of his hamstring or something new – the Giants will have to make another decision on his availability for the game against the Browns.

It's unclear right now which direction the Giants will go, even with Jones saying after the game that he does not believe he jeopardized his chances of being out there against the Browns. The Giants will have to make that call, and you can bet it will be even more scrutinized that the one they made prior to the Arizona game, as it should be.

In a Zoom call Monday, Judge said Jones did not aggravate his hamstring injury in the game, and if the Giants clear him to play physically, he is going to play.

"I’d say the way he moved in the game was what we expected," Judge said. "We put him through enough in practice last week to make sure he was put in a position where he could protect himself. We knew that there were things that were going to come up in the game and some limitations that he was going to have throughout the game. We were willing to live with those. But in terms of the question, did we feel like he moved the same in practice as he did in the game, I would say the answer to that is yes. What we expected to see, we pretty much saw."

Not-so-special teams

An even bigger concern for the Giants over the last five games is the performance of the special teams coverage units. Not giving Dion Lewis a pass for the fumble on his kickoff return, but that was a fluke. Something's up, and they are well-coached with coordinator Thomas McGaughey. It's Judge's baby, too.

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The Cardinals' average starting field position Sunday was essentially midfield. The best defenses in the league would struggle to gain footing with such a condensed area of the field to defend. Conversely, the Giants' offense started at their own 18.

I'm not going to claim to be a special teams expert. But I've seen punts go down the middle of the field when this is a directional punting team. I've seen gunners overrun the play. That's execution. That's not necessarily coaching. But the onus is on McGaughey and Judge to fix this. It's a tenet of Judge's coaching principles, and the Giants are suffering because of the performance. It has to be better.

The patience of Kyler Murray

Kyler Murray did not put up gaudy stats on Sunday, but he was extremely effective.

The Giants appeared to be trying to play Murray a little differently than Russell Wilson, and while watching I got the sense that the defensive line was not as aggressive, fearing Murray's ability to tuck and run.

That's different than Wilson's desire to scramble and throw.

My belief is that the Giants expected Murray to show a lot less patience than he did, based on how he'd been playing recently. If they didn't chase him out of pocket and kept contain, I think they believed he'd force things and make mistakes. He did not, and the former No. 1 overall pick deserves credit for that.

That hesitation up front not only limited the pressure on Murray, but rendered some of what the Giants like to do up front ineffective. Obviously, the game plan didn't work. I think they had a plan, but the Cardinals' plan and the execution against it was better.

The Budda Baker effect

So if you watched Sunday's game, there's one player whose name was rarely mentioned, and he was rarely seen in the middle of the action: Cardinals safety Budda Baker.

Despite playing 92 percent of the defensive snaps, Baker was quiet while others such as Haason Reddick (five sacks, three forced fumbles) and former Giant Markus Golden made all the noise.

But don't mistake that for Baker having zero impact on the game. I'm willing to bet it was the opposite. He's the Cardinals' best defensive player. A guess as to why Baker was quiet relative to Reddick and Golden - he was a big part of the coverage on the back end and helped neutralize Giants tight end Evan Engram, and that hurt the Giants.

That would be another big difference between Seattle and Arizona. The Giants easily identified Jamal Adams and went after him, especially in the run game. Adams showed himself pre-snap, where he was and what he was going to do, against the run in particular. It was hard to find Baker against the Giants, which likely means one of the league's biggest defensive playmakers was in a role that was much greater than appearance on the surface would suggest.

What happened to the offensive line?

Once the dam seemingly broke on the game's first series when Golden plastered Jones for that sack and forced fumble, the offensive line appeared to be flailing to plug holes the rest of the way. Rookie left tackle Andrew Thomas took a step back in his progress, as he was beaten by Reddick twice for sacks. The more glaring concern was that, collectively, this was the worst performance for the line in more than a month.

Did the game plan and Jones' ineffectiveness play a part? Probably. But the feeling coming out of the Seattle game was that the Giants' offensive line could stand toe-to-toe with any pressure opponents would throw at them. When Arizona pushed them around early, that seemed to knock the Giants off their game and they never recovered. Finding a way to pick up the pieces after this one and get ready for a Browns' front that includes Myles Garrett and Olivier Vernon will be an even greater challenge.

Art Stapleton is the Giants beat writer for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to all Giants analysis, news, trades and more, please subscribe today and sign up for our NFC East newsletter.  

Email: stapleton@northjersey.com 

Twitter: @art_stapleton