3 takeaways from the New York Giants' victory over the Tennessee Titans as Saquon Barkley steals the show
In Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season, the New York Giants came away with a surprise 21-20 win against the Tennessee Titans. In a huge prove-it season, running back Saquon Barkley silenced his critics in emphatic fashion. Titans star running back Derrick Henry looked as powerful as ever, but Dontrell Hilliard found the endzone twice in his stead.
Here are my three biggest takeaways from the Giants-Titans game:
#1. New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley is back!
And this isn’t me saying he had one big game, like we see from some veterans at times who can light up in certain moments. This is legit. The burst is back, the wiggle is there and his cuts look dynamic. He’s running with balance again, which allows him to pull through wraps for extra yardage.
The 68-yard run on his first touch after halftime really opened my eyes. They ran GT power to the left and Barkley hit the crease between his two pulling linemen. Safety Amani Hooker was totally caught off guard by that speed out to the corner, he took a wrong angle and missed a diving tackle attempt before watching Barkley run down the sideline.
Is Saquon Barkley still explosive you ask?
https://t.co/jiI5ZTCZFU
When he came back onto the field, he really pressed the front-side A-gap before making a great cutback to the backside B-gap for a four-yard touchdown. I loved it when he was one-on-one in the flats with Hooker early in the fourth, who had him perfectly squared up. Barkley gave him a little wiggle before running right through him for a four-yard gain. He did get a bit lucky when he didn’t see the Kristian Fulton punching the ball out from behind at the end of another long run to put them in scoring position. This time cutting into of the guard who wrapped around on the power concept as the ball went out of bounds.
Saquon Barkley revenge tour.
164 yards, a touchdown and a potential game-winning two-point conversion https://t.co/Otj9FjQKUl
Finally, the game-winning two-point conversion was just awesome. They drew up a shovel pass off the sprint right option look and the Titans had two defenders in the backfield to deny him that lane up the middle. Barkley dips to the outside and lowers his pads to power through a DB at the goal-line. He finished with 164 rushing yards (on 18 attempts), along with another 30 yards through the air.
2. All my concerns for Tennessee came to fruition in the second half
Not that the Giants dominated the Titans on an every-down basis after the break, since the visitors were only able to tie the score at 13 thanks to those two explosive plays (that long Barkley run and when Kristian Fulton was caught napping on a backside alert fade route by Sterling Shephard). Other than Jeffery Simmons, their interior D-line lost a lot of quality bodies, allowing Barkley to average 9.1 yards per carry.
Daniel Jones was sacked five times on the day, but he also put up a passer rating of 115.9. We saw a lot of backups in the Titans secondary, which I warned about in terms of the overall lack of depth on the roster. Offensively, Tennessee's two new starting linemen had challenging days and were held to just 3.6 yards per carry as a team.
I’m not sure if they know who they really want to feature in the passing game now that they traded away A.J. Brown. Fifth-round rookie receiver Kyle Phillips and their number two running back Dontrell Hilliard combined for 13 targets, while their five starters in 11 personnel combined for just 12 targets. I love the potential of Chig Okwonkwo as their new Jonnu Smith. But to hand him the ball on a sweep at third-and-one when they needed to bleed out the clock, I’m just not sure.
We can argue that the decision to trade away Brown due to their cap situation down the road was the right one, but by doing so, they basically admitted they are in a re-tooling phase. They have to live with the results now. People who called me crazy for having the Titans 18th in my pre-season power rankings have to see what I was trying to warn them about to some degree now.
3. This new Giants regime gives off a completely different vibe and level of competency
Take this with a grain of salt if you will. Because if Barkley doesn’t get the two-point conversion with that extra effort or Titans kicker Randy Bullock doesn’t miss the 47-yard field goal (with the final seconds winding down), there’s probably a different vibe about this group.
Brian Daboll: Leader of men. https://t.co/W4e0qJFpNy
With that being said, there was a lot on display. Seeing the excitement for Barkley to finish off his first game of the redemption tour that will be his 2022 season, having the balls to make that two-point call and the confidence in his players to win the game right there, I believe Brian Daboll has already won over the locker room. You compare that to last season, when Joe Judge famously had them running a quarterback sneak on third-and-long because he didn’t trust his guys, this is day and night.
My only legit question is why the Giants refused to utilize Kadarius Toney, who played just seven snaps on Sunday and wasn’t targeted once. They did hand the ball to him twice, first ripping off 19 yards on a jet sweep and then getting five yards by making several defenders miss in the backfield (on what should have been an eight-yard loss trying to set up a wide receiver pass). It just seems strange as he looks to be the most dynamic WR on the Giants' roster.
Check out my piece on the full week one slate at halilsrealfootballtalk.com !