John Harbaugh had watched the tape by Friday afternoon, and he did not dodge the second-guessing. The New York Giants lost 24-21 to the Commanders on Thursday night at MetLife Stadium after twice getting the ball back with a lead late in the fourth quarter. On Friday, Harbaugh took questions about the play calls on those drives, his rookie kicker, a fourth-down sneak, the last throws of the night and the hard stretch of the schedule ahead.
The Giants are 5-3-1 and still lead the NFC East, but Washington now holds the head-to-head edge after the teams tied 27-27 in October. The Giants posted the full session.
“A good pass there might have been good, too”
After each of the Giants’ two fourth-quarter interceptions, the offense ran the ball and went three-and-out. Asked whether he wishes the team had been more aggressive, Harbaugh said, “Sure. Yeah, we could have thrown the ball.” He said the staff thought the runs could get the first down and also force Washington to burn its timeouts. “But looking back on it, I think a good pass there might have been good, too,” he said. “If you throw the ball and you throw three incompletions or whatever, the question is flipped. … Being successful really is the bottom line. It’s not like we’re trying to, you know, play it safe or anything like that. We’re not afraid to throw the ball there.”
He said the last run, a designed quarterback run by J.J. McCarthy that lost two yards, “has got a chance to crack them” and could have been blocked better. Asked whether the calls had anything to do with McCarthy still being new to the team, Harbaugh said no. “I think he’s proven that he’s capable of winning games and making the plays, and I probably feel more strongly about that now than ever,” he said. “He’s earned that right. And I’m excited about where he’s going going forward.” What bothered him most, he said, was that “we had a chance to close the game out on offense twice. … We didn’t do it.”
Zvada: “A technique issue there with his plant foot”
Rookie kicker Dominic Zvada missed a 33-yard field goal wide left in the first quarter. A reporter pointed out that all of his misses this season seem to have come from the right hash. Harbaugh agreed. “There’s a technique issue there with his plant foot that we’re kind of looking at, and he needs to clean that up from a consistency standpoint,” he said. “It popped up again in that kick there. I had a chance to watch it this morning. So there is an issue on the right hash. No question.”
Harbaugh was also asked whether Zvada’s struggles were part of the reason the Giants punted on several fourth downs near the edge of field goal range. He said those kicks would all have been in the 50s on a windy night. “It’s kind of a risk-reward,” he said. “Not saying that he can’t make those kicks, but … sometimes it’s better to play a field position game. So those were toss-up kind of calls, probably at least leaning toward punting.” He said the Giants may be “more aggressive in the future than we were.”
“That wasn’t a tush push”
On a fourth-down sneak by Jameis Winston, running back Cam Skattebo appeared to hesitate before moving up behind the quarterback. Harbaugh said that was by design. “That wasn’t a tush push,” he said. “It was a normal quarterback sneak. Had a certain check involved in it. … He wasn’t supposed to be up there pushing.” He said the Giants have “four or five of those different types of calls and motions and pushes.”
Later, a reporter read him Skattebo’s comment that he may have “killed the trust” with his fumble in the first game against Washington, and that he would understand if that was why he did not get the ball late. Harbaugh asked to hear the exact quote first. “Words are important here,” he said. Asked whether he kept the ball away from Skattebo because of that game, he answered: “No.”
“Who Let the Dogs Out”
Harbaugh brought up one more fourth down on his own: a fourth-and-1 deep in Giants territory, where the offense stayed on the field and tried to draw Washington offside with a “Who Let the Dogs Out” snap count before punting. He said he had heard it in practice and did not mind it. “It doesn’t matter if you say hut or what you say. It’s a reaction,” he said. But he would not do it again. “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t even try to do it, because, you know, they’re not probably going to jump there,” he said, adding that he did not want to back up the punt team. “Maybe we should have just gone for that one, too. … We could have gone for that one, and that would have been gutsy.”
Nabers and the last throws
Washington sent zero blitzes on McCarthy’s last throws, and the final one, a deep ball to Malik Nabers, was intercepted. Harbaugh said the drive was not mismanaged. “There were short routes and deep routes in both of those,” he said. “The ball’s got to come out fast. You don’t have everybody blocked. … Those aren’t really high percentage throws necessarily, but they can be backbreakers, and that’s just the way it went.” Asked whether Nabers could have knocked the last ball down, he said: “He’s running down the field trying to make a play. … I don’t think there’s anything willful about not doing it. That’s for sure.” Nabers spoke to reporters on Friday after missing the postgame locker room session.
“We don’t live in that scared world”
The Giants’ next four games include Jacksonville, San Francisco and Seattle. Asked how confident he is that his team can beat the league’s best, Harbaugh said, “High. … I don’t have a ranking for it, but it’s high.” When a reporter said a win would have made those games less urgent, he pushed back. “Yeah, we don’t live in that scared world,” he said. “The so-called heavyweights, I’ve seen them play bad games, too. … There’s no perfect team in this league. … And I know our guys, nobody’s going to outfight us. That’s for sure.”
He also praised the offensive line, which he said played “a real good game,” better than the week before against Philadelphia. Left tackle Andrew Thomas had put the failed four-minute drives on the line, and Harbaugh said he appreciated that. “They want the game on their shoulders, for sure,” he said. He said the Giants came out of Thursday without injuries that should linger. How the game turned, drive by drive, is in our look at Thursday night, step by step.
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