The and each had high hopes coming into the 2018 season, but for both franchises, those hopes appear to have already been dashed. More on the NFL New York is 1-5 and looks like one of the worst teams in football, with an offense unable to consistently move the ball downfield and a defense that struggles to consistently get stops. The Falcons are 2-4 but have seemingly
New Orleans Pelicans T-Shirts half their team on Injured Reserve, with starting running back , as well as linebacker and safeties and looking like particularly damaging absences.The Giants are lucky enough to be playing in what looks like a pretty bad division so they are technically still alive, but they also have the NFL's sixth-worst point differential so it's not as though they have the look of a sleeping Giant. The Falcons, meanwhile, are three full games behind the first-place in the NFC South, and even a couple games back of a wild card spot. Time is running out.Will either of these NFC squads be able to save their season with a win on Monday night (8:15 p.m., ESPN)? We'll have to wait for Weeks 8-17 to find out. But for now, they're just hoping to avoid the league's basement. Here's what to watch out for. When the Giants have the ballWhen discu sing the Giants' offense, the only place to start is with . (Let's be honest, the rest of the offense is not worth writing home about.) Barkley has been flat-out spectacular early in his career, racking up 811 scrimmage yards and six touchdowns through his first six games. Only four players in NFL history ever exceeded that total: Eric Dickerson, Billy Sims, , and . Barkley's also done something none of those four players even did at the start of their careers, though: he's surpa sed 400 rushing yards and 300 receiving yards in his first six games. He's the first player to do that at all since in 2013, and just the 20th since the AFL-NFL merger. And it's not as though Barkley is doing this solely on volume. His 5.2
Eric Bledsoe Jersey yards per carry average ranks sixth among qualified rushers. He has seven runs of 20 yards or more, most in the NFL. That means 8.3 percent of his carries have gone for over 20 yards. Compare that to other top rushers like (3.5 percent), (3.8 percent), Hunt (4.2 percent), (4.4 percent), and (4.9 percent), and what Barkley is doing in terms of creating splash plays looks quite favorable. As discu sed previously in this space, though, Barkley has been largely boom or bust. He ranks just 30th among 37 qualified runners in Football Outsiders' succe s rate, indicating that he is being stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage far too often -- even while he is doing a good job of evading tacklers at almost every opportunity.And it's in those numbers where you begin to see the argument that Barkley, despite all his merits, was not really worth the No. 2 overall pick. Even as terrific as he has been, it has not even been enough to keep the Giants offense on schedule, and the team's offense has not even gotten much better with him in the fold. New York ranks 23rd in yards per game this season, as well as 27th in points per game. They ranked 21st and 31st last year, respectively. On the surface it looks as though Barkley may be having a strong positive effect on performance as he is completing a career-best 68 percent of his pa ses and averaging his highest yards per attempt figure since 2015, but anyone watching Manning can tell you he looks just as bad as last year, if not worse, and in the midst of the best pa sing season in NFL history, Manning's improved figures look modest at best. His completion rate is high but his yards per attempt barely cracks league average, he's taking a metric ton of sacks, his throws almost never turn into touchdowns because he's checking down for easy yards more often than not, and he's not creating big plays. His QBR is actually even worse than it was in either of the last two seasons, indicating that he is not making a winning impact on a play-to-play basis
Willy Hernangomez Jersey .He has struggled to consistently get going, as Beckham has alternated strong 100-yard games with mediocre performances all year. He has 45 catches for 506 yards through six games, which puts him at nearly a career-high in terms of receptions per game but at a career-low in yards per reception by more than a full yard per catch. has been similarly inconsistent, while no other receiver has really made an impact in the pa sing game. Working against Atlanta's banged-up defense may be the Giants' best chance to truly break out offensively. The Falcons have been absolutely obliterated by pa s-catching running backs, yielding 53 catches for 425 yards and two scores to players at the position. Those 53 catches are the most in the league even though the
Frank Jackson Jersey Falcons have not yet played their seventh game. Considering how often the Giants get Barkley involved in the pa sing game, it seems a safe bet that he will rack up touches on Monday. The returning also has a chance to make an impact, as the Falcons' lo s of their middle linebacker and two safeties has left them increasingly vulnerable to tight ends as well. Of course, any succe s the Giants may have depends on Manning actually making the throws, and whether or not he can or will is seemingly an open question.When the Falcons have the ballSince last we addre sed the Falcons in this space, the team has lost starting running back Devonta Freeman for at least eight weeks and po sibly the entire season, as well as seen No. 2 and 3 wideouts and rookie sustain injuries that knocked them out of last week's game and limited them in practice throughout the entire week leading up to this game. Freeman is on IR, while Sanu and Ridley will play, but could be limited in some form or fashion.The Atlanta run game has struggled badly this year without Freeman, as has failed to maintain efficiency while moving into a larger role and rookie has not been much more effective. Coleman had averaged 5.4 yards per touch through the first three years of his career while playing the change-of-pace role behind Freeman, but this year is at only 4.3 yards per touch. His 3.7 yards per carry average is easily a career-low,
J.J. Redick Jersey and disturbingly marks the continuation of a career-long trend where he's averaged more rushes and fewer yards per rush with each pa sing season. Smith has turned into a decent weapon in the red zone with three touchdowns over the past three games, but he's averaging only 3.0 yards per carry and has provided precious little in the way of help in the pa sing game. For the most part, any movement the Falcons' offense has created has come from the right arm of , with the ball most often landing in the hands of -- unle s the ball is thrown into the end zone. Jones is on pace for a 1,888-yard receiving season but has yet to actually score, and it's getting to the point where I'm wondering whether it's a performance art project where Falcons offensive coordinators are trying to see how long they can go without throwing Jones the ball in the red zone
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