The New York Giants went aggressive against the Pittsburgh Steelers Monday night after cutting their deficit to one possession. Trailing by 14, they opted for a two-point try following a touchdown to make it a six-point game. The logic is that if you go for two and make it, you can go for the win on a second touchdown. If you go for two and don’t get it, you can still make it up on the second try.
Well, the Giants never got to that second try, fortunately, but the play still caused some amusement. Many talked about it being one of the worst calls in recent memory, but the Giants felt like Dennis Green. They had the Steelers where they wanted them, but they let them off the hook.
“We’ve been working on that for a while”, Giants HC Brian Daboll revealed after the game about the two-point play they ran. “Daniel [Jones] saw the look that we needed to get to where we were just gonna throw the ball to Malik [Nabers]. We had a bunch of blockers, but [Devin Singletary] was talking to the official when Daniel snapped it and threw it out there. And they only had two guys out there and the guy blew by him”.
“The guy” in question is Alex Highsmith, who broke up the screen to the receiver Nabers like he called the play himself. It was part of one of the best games of the Steelers outside linebacker’s career, which also featured two sacks. The Giants receiver in question also explained how they botched the play.
“[The Steelers] had four guys lined up across our line, so I knew I was getting the ball”, Nabers said. “I was really anxious to like, ‘DJ, hurry up and snap the ball’, because they don’t have as many people lined up. We had what we wanted. We just missed the opportunity on it”.
As both Daboll and Nabers explained, the Giants were not set. You can see this is an unusual play with some of the linemen lined up unorthodoxly to the left of the formation to set up for the screen. But linemen are not used to playing out there and can’t anticipate the snap as easily. And when you’re running a play designed to snap as quickly as possible, that’s a problem.
“Running the play in practice, they don’t have enough guys line up across from our alignment”, Nabers said. The Giants had at least a one-to-one ratio of blockers to alert defenders, if not better. “It was just a miscue that all the linemen didn’t see the ball snap. Just another miscue that we’ve got to have”.
Unfortunately, what works in practice won’t always look as smooth in a primetime game in a road setting. The Giants’ linemen didn’t anticipate the quick snap, letting Highsmith blow by them and break up the play. The Steelers preserved an eight-point lead over the Giants, which might have been valuable down the stretch.
Fortunately, that extra point never came into play, and the Steelers beat the Giants, 26-18. They are now 6-2 heading into their bye, sending the Giants to 2-6. And it’s plays like this and how they execute them that often separates such teams.
