It is perfectly understandable to not know how to feel if you were pulling for the Giants coming out of the bizarre 27-27 tie with the Commanders. There is no doubt the Giants, after staging a strong, resilient comeback from down 14 points in the fourth quarter, wasted an opportunity to gain their first road victory of the season. There is also no doubt the Giants were incredibly fortunate that the Commanders in the final minute of overtime offered a What Not To Do tutorial to anyone watching who could not believe their eyes.
Here are some observations coming out of the 35th tie in Giants franchise history:
— After failing to generate much pressure and registering only one sack in the first three games trying to rely, primarily, on a four-man pass rush, defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson has completely altered his approach with Brian Burns (knee) out for the season. The two-word synopsis? Blitz happy. He is sending extra rushers more often than not. The Giants blitzed on 62 percent of the Commanders’ drop-backs, the highest pressure rate of the season thus far. This aggressive approach did get burned by Daniels using his legs to run for 103 yards. He is so fast he looks like he is gliding past defenders. Two of the blitzes were from cornerback Dru Phillips twice dropping Daniels — a part of the season-high five sacks for the Giants. Phillips is an excellent finisher as a blitzer.
— The overtime rules and timeouts and when the sudden victory possession begins are all curiosities to so many players. Most of them say they know all the rules. Few of them do. The Commanders looked completely clueless in the final 55 seconds. Judging from their lack of urgency after Daniels inexplicably took a sack, there is no way all or most of the players on offense knew the Commanders were out of timeouts. Daniels was supposed to look left and throw it short and quick to tight Ben Sinnott to pick up a few yards to make rookie Drew Stevens’ 42-yard field-goal attempt even closer. Of course, that kick never materialized. If Daniels knew his team was out of timeouts there is no explanation for why he did not simply throw the ball away once he saw Sinnott was covered by Kayvon Thibodeaux short and then picked up by Deonte Banks. As the final seconds ticked off, players on both sides were unsure what was going on. “I mean, even when the clock ran to zero, there was a second where I was like ‘Is it going to go into a second overtime?’ ” safety Jevon Holland said. “I don’t know if it was two overtimes or not. I’ve never been in an overtime tie like this. Yeah, it was crazy. They were like ‘Game’s over’ and I was like ‘Oh, sure.’ “
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