Giants vs. 49ers Full Team Grades

Pass Defense Grade: C-

Oct 11, 2015; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback

(7) throws the ball against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium. The Giants won 30-27. Mandatory Credit: Jim O

With how Colin Kaepernick looked coming into the game, the Giants defense had to be licking their chops. Kaepernick completed only half his passes the previous two games, and hadn’t thrown a touchdown with the score of the game within 20 points. You wouldn’t have known any of that with how well he played against the Giants.

Kaepernick ended up completing 23-of-35 (65.7 percent) for 262 yards and two touchdowns. Most encouraging for the 49ers was the fact that he didn’t throw an interception in the game. He limited his mistakes by not taking chances downfield into coverage. He should have had one ball intercepted by Landon Collins on their drive to take the lead late, but was bailed out when Collins dropped it. That was the only poor decision he made in the passing game, as he threw close to the line of scrimmage to open up downfield passes, two of which he completed to Anquan Boldin.

Boldin hurt the Giants throughout the night, as he hauled in eight receptions for 107 yards and one touchdown. When he lined up in the slot, the Giants had no chance as he beat Trumaine McBride and Trevin Wade with the same play from the slot. No other player caught more than two passes, which speaks volume to how safe the 49ers played it in the passing game.

The only positive takeaway for the Giants was the fact they picked up two sacks in the game, but even those weren’t very encouraging. One came on the final drive of the game as Kaepernick tried to keep a last play alive, and the other came when he was trying to do the same earlier in the game. The Giants weren’t getting much pressure as they allowed the normally skittish Kaepernick to get comfortable.

It was not an encouraging performance from the secondary against a lowly attack with a road test against the Eagles coming next week.

Next: Run Defense Grade