New York Giants Week 2 Preview: vs Detroit Lions

After an uninspiring Week 1 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Giants look to change their luck on Monday Night Football in their home opener against the Detroit Lions.

After more than a week to prepare with game film, the Giants had plenty to study from last week and how to avoid heading down that path again.

Here’s what to keep an eye on in Monday night’s match-up.

Will Beckham Play? Part II

Prior to Week 1, Beckham’s status was up in the air, but was expected to play. However, Giants head coach Ben McAdoo chose against playing him after pregame warm ups in Dallas.

Now, New York enters Week 2 waiting to see if Beckham will take the field. With news reports alleging that Beckham had been dancing in a New York night club the Thursday prior to the season opener, all the criticism is following the fourth-year receiver once again.

The Giants have now listed Beckham as “questionable” entering MetLife Stadium on Monday, but reports have said that the likelihood of the star receiver playing is, “50-50.” Expect a bevy of Beckham game status updates about an hour before the start of New York’s match-up against the Lions.

Will the Offensive Play Calling Show Up This Week?

The main story coming out of last week’s loss to the Cowboys was the lack of offense from the Giants. Having just 223 yards of total offense (198 yards passing and 35 yards rushing) was not going to give the Giants to win, or any team for that matter.

The lack of offense could be attributed to many things. McAdoo’s play calling was highly questionable. Long yardage situations were answered with short slant and slot routes. Throwing a goal-line fade pass to the running back instead of the notorious red-zone wide receiver, Brandon Marshall.

With McAdoo being called “the offensive guru,” a lot of his plays are the same ones that Giants fans have been seeing for the past fifteen years. McAdoo will have to reach into his bag of tricks in order to trick Detroit’s defense.

Will the O-Line Continue to Hinder the Giants Offense?

The offensive line also played a major factor in the Week 1 loss as well. Quarterback Eli Manning was constantly under pressure against a weakened Dallas defense and New York’s running backs could barely cross the line of scrimmage. The offensive line, the least addressed position in the offseason, showed that this will be a recurring problem for the Giants, despite all of the offensive pieces they added.

Bobby Hart (ankle) status is still up in the air, despite fully participating in practice on Saturday and D.J. Fluker (shin) is questionable for Monday, as he did not participate in practice all week.  With the weak depth on the o-line, injuries will only add to the problem.

The Giants offense has enough game film to go against the Lions, who are in the middle of the pack in opposing yards allowed per game (308 yards/game).

How Will the Giants Defense Stop Stafford and the Lions’ Offense?

Despite allowing 19 points to the Cowboys, the Giants defensive effort was very strong, being able to hold Dak Prescott to a slightly above average performance, and cornerback Janoris Jenkins holding Dez Bryant to two receptions for 43 yards. Not only that, but sophomore starting middle linebacker B.J. Goodson racked up 18 total tackles. The score could have been a lot worse than it was, as the defense was able to keep the Giants in the game up until the fourth quarter.

Now the Giants will look to build off of the strong performance against the Lions and the $135 million dollar man, Matthew Stafford. The current highest paid player in the NFL had himself a heck of a start in Week 1 against the Arizona Cardinals, completing 29 of 41 pass attempts for 292 yards, four touchdowns, and just one interception. One thing to note is that the four touchdowns came after the interception which was thrown on his first pass of the game.

Stafford has himself a plethora of options to throw to on the offense in Golden Tate, Marvin Jones, Eric Ebron, and rookie Kenny Golladay. Tate hauled in ten receptions for 107 yards in Week 1. Jones had two receptions for 37 yards and a touchdown.

Golladay, a red-zone specialist in college, had a truly impressive performance in his NFL debut, as he hauled in four receptions for 69 yards and two touchdowns. This all came against a stout Arizona Cardinals pass defense.

The New York pass defense will certainly have their hands full on Monday night, but they have all of the talent and depth to slow down the pass heavy Detroit offense. If the Giants can do that, it will be a key contributor in them earning their first win of the season.

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Will last week’s Giants show up on Monday night? Or will the much talked about and hyped up Giants this offseason make their season debut in front of the New York/New Jersey faithful? We will find out on Monday Night if Jekyll or Hyde will appear.