The Giants are 3-1, they won by 12, and the most useful thing to take from Sunday in Arizona is that this game was lost before it was won. Jacoby Brissett threw it 35 times for 166 yards and three interceptions while his running backs were going for 4.5 and 5.3 yards a carry. That's the whole story.
Brissett finished 21 of 35 for 166 yards, 4.7 per attempt, two touchdowns, three picks and a 55.2 passer rating, sacked twice for 19 yards. Jeremiyah Love got 14 carries for 63 yards, 4.5 a pop, long of 16. Tyler Allgeier got 8 carries for 42 yards, 5.3 a pop, a touchdown and a 22-yard long. Arizona had two backs producing on the ground and chose the 4.7-yards-per-attempt passing game anyway. New York didn't have to solve anything. It had to catch what Brissett threw.
The target distribution makes it worse. Michael Wilson earned 13 targets and converted them into 7 catches for 95 yards, long of 24. Trey McBride got nearly as much attention, 12 targets, and produced 7 catches for 31 yards at a 4.4 average with a long of 9. Twelve looks for 31 yards is a tight end being used as a checkdown valve, not a weapon. Marvin Harrison Jr. got 4 targets and caught 1 for 12 yards and a touchdown. Elijah Higgins caught both of his for 19 yards and a score. Two of those are scoring cameos and none of them fixes a passing game that couldn't move the chains.
Meanwhile the Giants' leaderboard reads Jameis Winston passing, Cam Skattebo, Najee Harris and Tyrone Tracy Jr. rushing, and Malik Nabers receiving. Four names for one backfield. That's a lineup that can hang 36 on a team giving away three possessions. It is not yet a lineup that hangs 36 on a team that doesn't.
The last points came on Dominic Zvada's 52-yard field goal at the 2:11 mark of the fourth, after Blake Gillikin's 44-yard punt was fair-caught by Charlie Jones at the 50 with 4:53 left. When a 52-yarder is the final punctuation, the margin was built somewhere else.
Arizona's defense actually showed up in spots. Zaven Collins had 3 tackles, a sack, a tackle for loss and a fumble recovery. Jack Gibbens made 8 tackles. Budda Baker broke up 2 passes. Lose by 12 with that on the sheet and the defense isn't the unit that has to answer for it. Arizona is 1-3 because its offense keeps handing games away, and three interceptions in a one-score-and-change loss is the entire audit.
My verdict: the Giants are 3-1 and I'm not taking the record away from them. But 36 points against a quarterback who throws three interceptions is the cheapest kind of 36, and it tells you more about Arizona's decision-making than about whether the Winston-to-Nabers operation is a real engine. I'll hold the Giants as a team that beats the teams that beat themselves until they do this to somebody who won't.
