It was a miserable night all around for Jason Garrett and the Giants offense during their 30-10 loss to the Buccaneers, but one play in particular highlighted the team’s ineptitude – and appeared to break ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky in the process.
In the second quarter, with the Giants down 10-3, Garrett called a play that appeared to have no chance from the second the ball was snapped. Daniel Jones lined up in shotgun and took the snap against a zone defense, and three of his receivers converged in the middle of the field – all in the same spot, nearly tackling each other and making it impossible for Jones to throw the ball to any of them.
Jones had nowhere to go, and the ball skipped to the turf.
Orlovsky highlighted the play in a snippet on his Twitter account, giving an impassioned rebuke of the play call.
“I mean, what is this?” Orlovsky said. “Where do you want him to throw the football? Three dudes are right here. This is a disaster, New York Giants. You practice this play? This is a disaster! Who do you want him to throw the ball to?”
Brian Baldinger, of the NFL Network, gave a similar analysis of the play.
“The Giants are running man-beaters against zone coverage. So, it looks awful. There’s really no place for Daniel Jones to go when three receivers all conveniently just corral themselves right in the middle of that zone,” Baldinger said.
“There’s no place for Daniel Jones to go. How is that possible?”
To add insult to injury, the Buccaneers only sent three pass rushers, and still got to Jones with ease as the Giants’ offensive line puts up almost no resistance on the play.
The Giants finished with only 217 total yards on the game, barely more than half of the Bucs’ output (402 yards). The game plan and play designs were surely a big reason why.