Malik Nabers got used to quarterback changes as a Giants rookie last season. So he knows from experience that Jaxson Dart will look at him first when he drops back to pass on Sunday.
“They’re going to find a way to get one the ball,” Nabers said with a smile Wednesday.
But Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka did not find ways to get Nabers the ball in last Sunday’s 22-9 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Nabers shockingly saw no targets in the Giants‘ first 15 plays, had no catches on three targets through three quarters and finished with career lows of two catches for 13 yards on seven targets.
Kafka admitted Thursday that the Giants’ coaching staff has to create a “better plan” to prioritize and find Nabers. But what exactly should that look like?
A film review of the Giants-Chiefs game shows that a combination of reactive coaching, poor quarterback play, defensive scheme and Nabers’ own route-running contributed to his disappointing day.
On the bright side, the film also shows that changing quarterbacks might address a lot of those issues.
“I got a couple of routes to get the ball,” Nabers said Wednesday. “Things always happen, whether it’s the line, whether it’s the defensive scheme. They did a great job of keeping me in front of them. The safeties did a great job. Corners did a great job of forcing to their leverage. They just did a great job of overall the defensive scheme to limit me.”
“I had a couple of great routes,” he added. “It’s a lot of plays that I wish I could get back just to help my quarterback. But [I] had a pretty good route tree, just didn’t live up to the plan.”
Start with the coaching and game plan: Nabers was Russell Wilson’s first read only once on the Giants’ first six passing plays and only three times on their first 10 drop backs. That’s not acceptable.
Nabers also faced two deep safeties from Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo on 27 of his 32 routes run, which meant there was almost always a second defender waiting over top of Nabers.
But Daboll and Kafka still forced 11 Nabers “go” (nine) and “post” (two) routes straight downfield for a grand total of zero catches and a Wilson interception on five targets, per NFL NextGen Stats.
Even worse, their adjustment when the go balls didn’t work was to send Nabers on seven “hitch” routes, keeping him way too far underneath, making him more easily coverable and eliminating his explosive after the catch threat.
Nabers was most open when he ran a few deep stop routes and deep ins about 15 yards downfield into the second level of the defense, but Wilson didn’t show any poise in the pocket to take advantage.
Wilson looked off an open Nabers coming back to the ball on the Giants’ eighth pass play, before launching his first interception deep into two-high coverage intended for Wan’Dale Robinson.
Then Wilson bailed out of a clean pocket to the right on the Giants’ 17th pass play against a single safety look while Nabers was coming open on a deep in cut. The quarterback instead raced outside, creating a pressure out of nothing, and tried to force something on the boundary to Robinson.
Two players stood out as overmatched on the Giants’ offense while watching the film: Wilson and rookie left tackle Marcus Mbow.
Andrew Thomas had better stay healthy, because the Giants can’t trust swing tackle James Hudson anymore and Mbow (nine pressures allowed vs. Chiefs) is not ready.
Wilson, meanwhile, let the Giants down all day.
Darius Slayton was open on an early Giants fourth down, sprinting up the seam with no one over top of him, because the Chiefs were in man coverage and one of their safeties crashed down to defend Tyrone Tracy Jr. out of the backfield.
But Wilson panicked, tried to throw short and had the pass batted down.
Wilson also threw the ball late on his deep interception intended for Nabers in the second quarter against single safety man coverage.
The quarterback looked off an open Nabers on a slant route before turtling and taking a sack on another play.
Then Wilson bailed from a clean pocket in the red zone in the fourth quarter when he might have been able to lead Slayton for a near-touchdown if it hadn’t taken Wilson so long to deliver the ball.
The only explanation on that play might have been that Wilson was having trouble seeing over his line.
Daboll, Kafka and Wilson as a group, meanwhile, fell victim to reacting to Spagnuolo’s scheme rather than adjusting and attacking it differently.
They simply allowed the Chiefs’ deep zone to take away their deep passes and remained content to run the ball and dump it underneath.
That can be smart football to a point, but the Giants can’t passively allow a defense to take the ball completely out of their best player’s hands.
They have to be prepared for that and present solutions.
Kansas City’s defense also was just more disciplined than the Giants’ offense. The safeties and corners disguised their coverage frequently, showing single high safety and then dropping two at the snap.
They played some match zone, with man to man showing up in certain windows unexpectedly. And they did not blow assignments.
Spagnuolo also schooled Kafka in the red zone in the fourth quarter. He lined up the Chiefs’ defensive backs across the goal line on one snap to meet the Giants’ unimaginative hitch routes across the board in man.
Then he dropped two safeties into a zone on the next snap and had Nabers double-teamed on a fade route.
Kafka eventually tried one crosser, sprinting Nabers across the field, but they didn’t use that until the fourth quarter in the red zone. And the play design was going the other way.
Nabers is not without blame for his career-worst day.
He often does not run his routes with enthusiasm on plays when he knows he isn’t getting the ball.
Early on, he looped a couple of his in-cuts right into the dropping linebacker in the Chiefs’ zone, rather than finding space.
And he did not make enough of an effort on the ball on deep throws: the second quarter interception and a fourth quarter deep shot down the left sideline in double coverage.
Still, there were opportunities to get the ball in Nabers’ hands. And there is no excuse for not doing so.
Now the Giants not only have to improve their game plan to feature Nabers against the Chargers on Sunday. They also have to put Dart and Nabers on the fast track to develop chemistry.
Because the rookie QB hasn’t thrown to Nabers much. Wilson has taken all those reps.
It will be a fire drill to make sure it all comes together by Sunday.
“I think that when you have a guy that’s as elite as him, you’re definitely able to make up that ground a little bit quicker,” Dart said. “Because a lot of times, he’s going to make me right based on my throw, just because of his skill set and his ability. But I would say the biggest thing is when I was the backup and taking reps behind, I was constantly trying to do my footwork on each progression, each play and trying to time up with those guys’ routes.”
“So I kind of have that in my mental bank of just the timing and kind of the depth,” the rookie QB continued. “I’ve also seen him play a ton. And then I saw him cook my team in college [when LSU played Ole Miss]. I just know his ability, and I know that if there are 50-50 balls or him one-on-one or different situations, I have all the confidence in the world to get him the ball.”
