New York Giants can’t even compete with 49ers second-stringers

The New York Giants weren’t competitive against San Francisco’s backups.

Heading into their Week 3 matchup against San Francisco, the New York Giants were well aware of the injury list that the 49ers were bringing with them. With most of their starters out, particularly quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, the 49ers turned to backup Nick Mullens as their leader for their second straight game at MetLife stadium.

Though Mullens tossed for 343 yards, it was the ground game of San Francisco that registered three rushing touchdowns by three different players that helped the 49ers leave East Rutherford with a 36-9 victory.

The Giants meanwhile proved a sad but true fact. Without Saquon Barkley, New York has no place to go in the 2020 season.

It’s the truth. As a matter of fact, even with Barkley, they didn’t perform well this season. Monday night in Week 1 is enough of an example as Barkley was held to six yards on 15 carries before he suffered a season-ending ACL injury the following week against the Bears in a loss.

The New York Giants are in no man’s land right now.

Now the Giants are 0-3 and are living with the fact that the backups on the  49ers dominated their starting lineup. If the starters had been healthy, the score might have gotten worse.

In fairness, this is the first season under head coach Joe Judge and with no real expectations outside of playing in the largest media market in the world, there was no reason to believe that the Giants would be more than a team put on television strictly because of their location.

The offensive line was supposed to be strengthened through the draft and yet it still resembles the past. With no running game and a heavy reliance on the pass, that only put up 179 yards through the air, there was a heavy lack of balance. Newcomer Devonta Freeman had five carries for 10 yards. A short week or not, replacing Barkley in the backfield is in and of itself a heavy challenge.

The defense, while having sacks of their own, we’re primarily going against inexperience. The secondary continued to get beat in coverage as did the linebackers. The Giants know that they are in trouble, and general manager Dave Gettleman might be on his way out of the Big Apple sooner rather than later.