New York Giants: Monday Night Football Recap

The New York Giants shined on Monday Night Football and took down the Miami Dolphins 31-24 to keep pace in the flawed NFC East.

Before New York pulled away, there were five lead changes in what was an offensive shootout. The Dolphins couldn’t stop Eli Manning, and the Giants couldn’t tackle. Miami scored touchdowns on two Lamar Miller runs and Odell Beckham had a 6-yard score, then later added an 84-yard touchdown that gave the Giants a 31-24 lead in the fourth quarter.

There were 792 combined offensive yards between the two teams, with the Giants high tempo offense and the Dolphins deep passing mixed with some read option. Miami blinked first.

The Giants had many opportunities to ice the game midway through the fourth. After taking a seven-point lead on Beckham’s 84 yard go-ahead touchdown catch, they forced a punt after an eight-play Dolphins drive. The next drive for New York went three and out to give the ball back to the Miami in Giants’ territory.

Big Blue’s defense came up clutch by forcing the fourth straight Dolphins punt to get the ball back with about 4 minutes left in the ballgame. Rashad Jennings, who put together a great game, helped the Giants run out some of the clock (and Miami’s remaining timeouts) but then came a pivotal third and 3. Instead of running the ball, which has seen some failure, Tom Coughlin and the Giants went with a pass to Beckham, who secured the ball to seal the game.

“It was a must-win game. The rest of them are playoff games for us.”- Odell Beckham JR.

Beckham had yet another monster game, hauling in seven catches for 166 yards and two touchdowns, including the 84-yarder. It’s Beckham’s sixth straight game with more than 100 receiving yards, and he has eight touchdowns in those six games. Eli Manning completed 27 of 31 passes (87%) for 337 yards and four touchdowns, and set a New York Giants passing percentage record in a single game.

The Dolphins were killed by penalties. In total, they committed 12 penalties for 123 yards and gave the Giants four first downs on defensive penalties. However, the biggest one was on offense when Jarvis Landry takes a dumb personal foul penalty on first-and-10 at the Giants’ 48 with 5:50 left. That put them in a second-and-25 situation.

The one note, and reason for Giants fans to panic, was the inability to tackle. Lamar Miller has 61 rush yards after contact, the most in a game in his career. Two big plays highlighted by missed tackles was Jason Pierre Paul inability to wrap up the running back with the club on his hand, linebacker J.T. Thomas had Miller run right through his body on a 14-yard score.