The New York Giants entered Sunday with nothing to play for in a Week 18 matchup with the Washington Football Team, who also had nothing to play for. With Jake Fromm starting, there weren’t any expectations for a Giants offensive bonanza, but typically in this situation, teams pull out all the stops and just go balls to the wall trying to score some points and created some kind of positivity.
Not Joe Judge, though, as the Giants head coach decided that, rather than dialing up some exotic plays like just about every other team in that situation on Sunday, New York would be doubling down on turtling up. This, naturally, was to the dismay of the sparsely filled MetLife Stadium, as Giants fans got to watch their team put up a robust 48 yards of offense in the first half, trailing the football team 3-0 at the break.
Fromm is not good, but the complete refusal from the Giants coaching staff to even try to move the ball through the air was honestly breathtaking, with the finest example coming on back-to-back quarterback sneaks on second and third down from inside their own five late in the first half.
The Giants just QB sneaked on 2nd & 3rd down. This is unbelievably soft. pic.twitter.com/4ziBxYI55A
— Bobby Skinner (@BobbySkinner_) January 9, 2022
Look at this! What are you doing? Why bother showing up today? Every other coach of a bad team is running wild trick plays and going for it on fourth downs, while Judge is out here running quarterback sneaks just to create an extra yard of space for his punter. The boo birds were very loud in MetLife, despite a light crowd, and they only got stronger after a draw play on 3rd and 8 on the ensuing drive.