LANDOVER, Md. — The actual drop was charged to K.J. Hamler, a Broncos receiver who let a touchdown pass slip through his fingers.
Dropping the ball, in the metaphorical sense, belonged to the vaunted Giants secondary. The lasting image of its season debut was Hamler streaking down the middle of the field with cornerback Adoree’ Jackson hustling to make up 9 yards of separation on an underthrow.
On a team with holes along the offensive line as well as major question marks at quarterback, running back and edge rusher, the cornerbacks and safeties were supposed to allow coach Joe Judge to sleep at night.
Instead, the secondary entered Thursday night’s game against Washington, led by gunslinging backup quarterback Taylor Heinicke, facing unexpected questions about possibly being overvalued, as former NFL general manager Michael Lombardi suggested on his “GM Shuffle” podcast.
“Put it on my back, put it on our back on the defensive side,” safety Logan Ryan said after his dominant individual debut stood out from the pack. “That’s how I prefer it. I’m confident that we can get it fixed, but it’s a journey and it’s a process. I think the biggest jumps you make as a team is from Week 1 to Week 2.”
The Giants are built defensively in the image of the Patriots — no surprise given the backgrounds of Judge and coordinator Patrick Graham.
The Patriots recycled schematic pass-rushers but committed to defensive backs Devin McCourty, Duron Harmon, Patrick Chung, Malcom Butler and Ryan during the post-2013 escalation of their dynasty. The versatile secondary combatted off-script quarterbacks and offense-favoring rules.
In the Judge-Graham era, the Giants added James Bradberry ($31.9 million guaranteed) Ryan ($23.5 million over two contracts) and Jackson ($24.5 million). They invested a second-round pick in Xavier McKinney, a third-rounder in Aaron Robinson, a fourth-rounder in Darnay Holmes and a sixth-rounder in Rodarius Williams. They traded a seventh-rounder for Isaac Yiadom, and later flipped Yiadom for Josh Jackson.
And that’s before accounting for inheriting Jabrill Peppers (reduced role in Week 1), Julian Love and Sam Beal.
The Giants are spending $38.7 million on defensive backs this season, according to Spotrac.com. That’s the fourth-highest total in the NFL, tied with the Patriots but well behind the pace-setting Dolphins (coached by Patriots disciple Brian Flores) at $50.6 million.
Bottom line: It’s too much to pay for the Giants-labeled “miscommunications” that led to easily converted third and fourth downs in Week 1.
It wasn’t just that Broncos quarterback Teddy Bridgewater had the highest QBR (97.5) throwing to targets like tight end Noah Fant and receiver Jerry Jeudy, who averaged a generous 3.2 and 3 yards of separation per route, respectively, according to NextGenStats.
Bridgewater also showed Heinicke, Week 3 opponent Matt Ryan and other quarterbacks that you can test the Giants’ big dogs by completing 6 of 7 passes thrown at Bradberry for 65 yards.
“I didn’t play my best,” Bradberry said. “I could play better in my all-around coverage. Some plays it was my technique, some plays I might’ve been thinking too much. They ran something different than I might’ve studied. Sometimes you just have a bad play.”
Bradberry tied for second in the league in passes defended in 2020, when he allowed more than four catches only once in 15 games. Same goes for more than 65 yards.
But the first-time Pro Bowler was slow to adjust to pre-snap motion when he allowed a 3-yard touchdown pass to Tim Patrick in Week 1. Was he caught off guard by the challenge and expecting the ball to go other places?
“It’s the NFL: You’ve got to be ready to have a target coming your way at any point throughout the game,” Bradberry said, “so I wasn’t surprised.”
Another big concern moving forward is the slot, where Holmes’ undisciplined personal foul and trailing coverage is a reminder of why the Giants drafted Robinson (sidelined by injury until at least Week 7) to take over.
These are issues the Giants didn’t expect to face in September. Asked before the season how good the secondary could be, Graham said, “As good as they want – as long as they don’t screw it up.”
Counting on dropped passes only lasts so long.