Giants get high marks in red zone by analytics site
The Giants are getting the green light in the red zone.
The respected analytics site Football Outsiders ranks the Giants as the second-most efficient offense inside the 20-yard line, according to its DVOA statistic that measures a team by comparing success on every play to a league average based on situation and opponent.
“Generally speaking, you want to try and find a tendency on what [defenses] do in a coverage standpoint and then try to find a way to create an advantage there in the run game and the pass game, whether it’s shifting, motioning, influencing the defense to maybe expand a little bit more,” offensive coordinator Mike Kafka said.
“They’re not defending the depth of the field, so now you have to use the width of it. You try to maybe expand it to run inside or to condense it to run outside. We’ll run guys back and forth across the formation to create some space. There’s a lot of things that we look at.”
The Giants have scored touchdowns on 61.9 percent of their red-zone trips this season, up from 44.7 percent last season without many significant personnel upgrades.
“First and foremost, the players have done a good job executing their assignments with great attention to detail and fundamentals and techniques down there,” Kafka said.
➤ DT Dexter Lawrence was a full participant Thursday after his nowweekly rest day on Wednesdays, as a way of managing his heavy game-day workloads.
CB Adoree’ Jackson (knee), OLB Azeez Ojulari and DL Leonard Williams (neck) were limited participants. Williams is expected to play, while head coach Brian Daboll said Jackson and Ojulari are “making progress” and “there’s a chance.”
➤ TE Chris Myarick cleared waivers and is expected to return to the practice squad. A roster loophole will allow the Giants to elevate Myarick for the final two regular-season games, as each practice-squad player can be bumped up three times. Myarick has played in all 15 games with eight starts but is behind Daniel Bellinger and Nick Vannett on the depth chart.