In today’s matchup at Metlife, both teams planned to use their star running back to get this must needed win if the New York Giants or Tennessee Titans still want to make playoffs. Derrick Henry showed up today while Saquon Barkley had his worst game of the season.
First half was all Henry.
When Derrick Henry finally received more touches and got 238 yard game against the Jaguars, the Titans wanted more of that. Henry had 17 carries in that Jaguars game and just in the first half against the Giants, Henry destroyed the field with 21 touches for 127 yards and a touchdown.
For Giants running back, not so much. Titans defense knew the main threat with Odell Beckham Jr. out was Saquon Barkley. In the first half, they left star rookie with no breathing room and Barkley suffered with 19 rushing yards and 2 receiving yards. His biggest gain of the first half was a 17 yarder in the second quarter.
Barkley spoke about how Titans shut him out. “They did a lot of different things. Different movements, try to create movement up there to confuse us but you know we just got to execute there and that’s the moral of the story – what we didn’t do.”
However, the Giants were still in the game down by 7 at half. Even though Henry had 127 yards, the Titans were 38% on third down conversions and only 62 passing yards.
Giants received the ball in the beginning of the third quarter with some liveliness going down field. Instead, Giants quarterback Eli Manning had two turnovers in back-to-back drives – an interception and a fumble that put the Titans in the red zone with 5:16 in the third. After defensive lineman Josh Mauro got called for a facemask on Titans 3rd and goal, Henry rushed to the right for a 1 yard touchdown, his second touchdown of the game putting Titans up 14 to 0.
With 5:09 left in the fourth and after Titans Ryan Succop’s scored a 22 yard field goal, Manning got his team to Titans 33 and threw a 25 yard pass to Bennie Fowler setting up for a 1st and goal. After four incomplete passes from Manning, Titans win 17 to 0.
Manning talked about the Giants performance with zero points to show for it. “They played well when we didn’t. We didnt execute well enough, we didnt make the plays we need to make. They outplayed us.” That they did. Barkley has his worst game of the season with 31 rushing yards and 25 receiving yards. Manning had 229 yards, 1 interception and 1 fumble.
The execution from the Titans shatters playoff dreams for the Giants with only two games left.
“It hurts,” said Manning, “we didn’t play well enough earlier in the year to put ourselves in a good position.”
Giants play the Colts next week and NFC East rivals, the Dallas Cowboys, for the last game.
See what Barkley had to say about missing playoffs on the next page.