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"I don't see how Washington wins." Giants reporter Paul Dottino delivers a brutal reality check on the Commanders' passing attack.

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Transcript
00:00Welcome in Paul Dottino, Giants reporter for WFAN.
00:05We've had him on many times before.
00:07Good to have him back.
00:08What's up, Paul?
00:09Good morning.
00:10Hey, guys.
00:11Good to talk to you.
00:12Although I hear this nasty rainstorm that's heading into the Meadowlands area tonight
00:17is going to make things very, very sloppy.
00:19Yeah.
00:19What are they saying?
00:20When's it going to start?
00:21Give us the latest from the eye of the storm.
00:23Well, a little bit after lunchtime, apparently, it's going to start,
00:27and it's going to be pretty heavy and nasty throughout the day into the evening.
00:31Wow.
00:31So we're looking at maybe wind gusts of about 20 miles an hour.
00:35Suffice it to say, it's going to be a lot nastier than it was when the Giants were down in
00:40Washington
00:40about a month ago.
00:41Yep.
00:41You guys remember that day.
00:43It was like a heavy mist throughout the course of the game,
00:46but I don't think it's going to be anything like that.
00:50This seems to be like it'll be worse.
00:53Paul, give us your honest opinion on this.
00:57How surprised are you that the Giants sit atop the NFC East at 5-2-1 through eight games?
01:04Did you think that this was possible during spring and heading into OTAs and training camp
01:09over the summer?
01:11I'll answer that in two ways.
01:12I thought the moment that they hired John Harbaugh that he would certainly turn the direction
01:18of the franchise around.
01:19And I told people right away, because I believe head coaches and staffs are worth a lot more
01:24in terms of wins in football than they are in other sports.
01:29So I figured that Harbaugh would give the Giants, if you go with a bowling or a golfing handicap,
01:35he'd be worth at least two, maybe three wins by the end of the season.
01:40I just believe that.
01:42I've been around this game far too long to underestimate the value of an outstanding coach
01:48and an outstanding coaching staff.
01:50So did I think the Giants would be a lot better?
01:53Yes, I did.
01:55But to say that they'd be all low in first place with a cushion?
01:58No.
01:59I did not anticipate the division being as miserable as it is.
02:03And it is bad.
02:04The NFC least has really gone back to the 2020 season.
02:10You remember then, you know, Washington wound up winning the division with a sub-500 record.
02:16And that only happened because Philadelphia tanked the last game of the season
02:21so that the Giants couldn't win the tiebreaker.
02:24But the division was miserable that year.
02:28And I don't know that it's a whole lot better right now.
02:30But the Giants, because of Harbaugh and what he has been able to instill in this team,
02:36a belief and a fight, somehow, someway, they're the team that's got the winning record.
02:42So good for them.
02:44So I guess that's the best and most honest way I could answer you.
02:47Paul, are Giants fans that you talked to on the fan up there,
02:51are they excited about J.J. McCarthy?
02:53Or would they rather still see Jameis Winston flinging it around
02:56since he loves to throw it to neighbors unlikely?
03:00Well, no, I think, to be honest, they're very excited about McCarthy
03:04because anyone who's a realist understands that there's the law of diminishing returns
03:09with Jameis Winston.
03:10He's a very talented player.
03:13Obviously been in this league for longer than a decade.
03:15And he's put up some great numbers.
03:17But there's always the good and the bad.
03:20You know, with Jameis, it's a roll of the dice
03:22because for every terrific play or two that he makes,
03:25chances are there's going to be a bad one around the corner.
03:28So I think Jameis Winston is an excellent backup if you're looking for short-term.
03:34In other words, you bring him in relief,
03:36like he had to come in for two series against Philadelphia
03:38and led a beautiful touchdown drive the other day.
03:42And then after the two series, McCarthy said it was okay.
03:45He came back in and he finished the game.
03:47If you want Jameis to be spot duty and relief on a given week, fine.
03:52If you want him to play two or three games during the course of the season, fine.
03:58But the more that you play Jameis Winston,
04:01the more the ugly side and the mistake-filled side seems to rear its head.
04:06And that's the problem.
04:08And I equate it to baseball.
04:10When you have a platoon player who bats 320 with 15 home runs by the all-star break
04:16because he's a platoon player,
04:18and then people say, well, why isn't he playing all the time?
04:21And then you play him full-time and his average drops to 240
04:25and he hits two homers the rest of the year.
04:27You guys know what I'm talking about.
04:29It's the law of diminishing returns.
04:31The more the guy plays,
04:33the more the nasty stuff creeps in and he gets exposed.
04:37And I think people understand here
04:39that J.J. McCarthy has true upside.
04:42Now, whether or not it's totally realized by the end of this season, who knows?
04:47But at least there's upside there.
04:50We haven't really seen the negative of J.J. McCarthy so far.
04:54He's played about two and a half games
04:57and he's been better than anything that the Vikings saw
05:00when he was in Minnesota for two years.
05:02Well, hopefully it's coming tonight, the negative.
05:04So, Paul, you know, obviously in that first game that you watched
05:09and we watched, it was a horrific collapse from the Commanders.
05:12They had a 14-point lead with eight minutes to play.
05:15And then, obviously, we saw what happened there in the overtime for the tie.
05:21But can we talk about the defensive attacks that Denard Wilson came up with,
05:27especially in the second half?
05:29He blitzed J.J. Daniels 62%, and it certainly affected them.
05:33Do you expect that to happen again tonight?
05:38Boy, that's a really million-dollar question.
05:40You see, I think that J.J. Daniels' legs are the only way the Commanders
05:45can even compete in this game tonight.
05:46I just don't see how they should be in the game.
05:50But Daniels, who ran for the 100-plus yards and two touchdowns
05:54and was basically not only the engine but the carburetor and everything else
05:59to the Commanders' attack that day,
06:02he's the guy that's got to be stopped, and it's his legs.
06:05It's that simple.
06:06And what the Giants did a lot of that day, and you're right,
06:10Denard Wilson, he is absolutely going to want to unleash a lot of pressure.
06:16But I wonder if that may not be the way to go against Daniels,
06:20because I did a little research here.
06:21And Daniels has never lost to the Giants in his four starts.
06:25And, in fact, his average 10 carries for 60 yards a game on the ground.
06:30Now, you guys probably know, and for you listeners who don't know,
06:3524 of his 31 rushes this year have been scrambles.
06:39He's only had seven design runs.
06:41And those scrambles, that's tied for third in the NFL,
06:44and his 250 scramble yards leads the National Football League.
06:49So he's all about his legs.
06:51And that's where the Giants tend to get burned,
06:54because all year long they've had trouble with scrambling quarterbacks
06:58because they get over-aggressive, they lose their rush lanes,
07:02and because they play so much man coverage,
07:05their guys are being sucked downfield by the receivers,
07:08and then the quarterback who has really good legs
07:11and has good athleticism, he's able to run for scramble yardage.
07:15See, that's the poison that can hurt the Giants.
07:18I think Denard Wilson's going to say to himself,
07:21look, that's what we did last time.
07:23You know, I still think he's going to blitz a bunch.
07:26But here's the one thing that I think might change.
07:29In that game, the Giants used a lot of Arvel Reese as a spy.
07:34And Arvel Reese was taken out of his game.
07:38They actually de-caught and defanged him.
07:41Arvel Reese is going to be, I believe, the defensive rookie of the year
07:45this year in the NFL.
07:47And Sonny Stiles is going to be right there behind him
07:50because he's had a terrific year himself.
07:52And why wouldn't they, the Ohio State teammates?
07:55But the point is that Arvel Reese is at his best when he's allowed to play
08:01downhill, instinctive, use his athleticism,
08:05and basically wreak havoc on the other team's offense.
08:08When you assign him some spy duties, you're basically handcuffing him.
08:13You're restricting what he can do.
08:15You're putting him in a box.
08:17And the Giants did that a lot with him against Daniels,
08:21more so than they did against any other team this year.
08:24And I think it hurt.
08:26Now, I believe you'd have to go back.
08:28Reese had like nine tackles and a sack in that game.
08:30So the stat line looked pretty good.
08:33But what the stat line doesn't show you is that there were times when Daniels
08:38did his scrambling stuff.
08:39And because Arvel Reese was not as aggressive as he usually is,
08:44he was too busy trying to spy, he got caught flat-footed.
08:48And Daniels ran off chunks and chunks of yardage.
08:52So I think that's the big change you're going to see tonight.
08:55The Giants know that Daniels' legs is the only way the commanders are in the game.
08:59So why would you play into that and spy Reese,
09:04declawing him and letting Daniels do what he does with his feet?
09:08We would all agree with you about J.D. that he's got to run.
09:18And I don't know if the defenses are just game-planning him differently.
09:22Since he ran for 103 yards against you guys,
09:26he's run a total of 10 times for 49 yards.
09:30A total in the last three games.
09:32He just hasn't been running.
09:35Well, again, I looked at the four games against the Giants.
09:38He's run a minimum of eight times over his four opportunities against the Giants.
09:44Because I think he pretty much understands that,
09:47okay, I know what they do with their pass rush,
09:50and I know how they defend me.
09:51Although, again, Denard Wilson's only had a shot at him once.
09:55And he saw how he made the mistake.
09:58I think the Giants are still going to do a bunch of blitzing because that is their nature.
10:03But I think they'll pull it back some.
10:05You're not going to see 60%.
10:07And if they do decide to spy, again,
10:10I think Darius Washington is a pretty good idea of who they might use.
10:14Go with a three-safety package.
10:16You know, they've got Pinnock, and they've got Nubin,
10:19and they've got Holland as their top three safeties.
10:22And Darius Washington, you guys know him from when he played with the Ravens,
10:25he is a wild card.
10:27I would rather do that than handcuff Arvel Reese
10:31and take some of his aggressiveness out.
10:33I think if they do that, the Giants will be fine tonight.
10:37Paul, we all saw last week that the Giants really struggled to run the ball
10:41against the Philadelphia Eagles.
10:42They still got the win, but Devin Singletary had 21 carries for 31 yards.
10:47As a team, 31 carries for 80 yards.
10:49Cam Scadaboo had been dealing with a hamstring.
10:52He practiced in full.
10:54He should be a real shot in the arm for the rushing attack
10:56in what you mentioned could be a bad-weather game tonight.
11:00Yeah, Scadaboo comes off that game in Houston before the bye
11:04where he ran for a career high buck 24 and a touchdown on 17 tries.
11:10And he was a man possessed.
11:12You know, he had had that game against Washington,
11:14as you guys know where he fumbled in over time.
11:17I believe it was inside the Washington 30, and allowed the commanders
11:21one last chance to try to take the game.
11:24But Scadaboo talking this week, you know, he's healthy.
11:28He's ready to go.
11:29His last game, again, he just destroyed an outstanding Houston front seven
11:34by just bursting up the middle against those guys
11:37and really did a lot of damage to what is a very, very highly respected rush defense.
11:42So, he is motivated.
11:45He's loaded for bear.
11:46He remembers the fumble that was incredibly costly in that game down in D.C.
11:53So, I expect him to be triply revved up, and that guy's revved up as it is.
11:57I mean, if you know anything about him, he's got about as much electricity
12:01as a bolt of lightning on every single play.
12:03And now he's going to be really, really fired up.
12:07So, I do expect Scadaboo to do what he wants to do tonight,
12:12and I think the commanders are in for a long evening.
12:15All right.
12:16So, we know you think the Giants are going to win.
12:18So, what number do you think Jaden Daniels has to get to in the rushing?
12:22He's got to get to 60 yards for them to have a shot to win?
12:26Well, no, I think it's going to have to be more than that.
12:29More than that.
12:29You know, he ran for the 100-plus in two touchdowns last time,
12:33and the commanders were able to get a tie out of it.
12:35Now, I'm not going to tell you he's got to run for 150.
12:38I think his career high is like a 125,
12:41because the 100 yards he had against the Giants this past month was his second-highest total.
12:47So, you know, does he have to run for 100 again?
12:51I don't know.
12:51He's got to probably run for 80 or 90 to even give them a sniff of being in the game.
12:57But, you know, look, I think unless the Giants footed this game away with turnovers,
13:04I don't see how Washington wins, to be perfectly frank with you.
13:09Paul, thanks, as always, for the time.
13:11Be sure to bring your rain gear out to MetLife tonight for Giants-Commanders.
13:15We'll talk to you again soon.
13:17All right, guys.
13:17You'll be well.
13:18You too.
13:18All right, thanks, buddy.
13:19That's Paul Dettino, Giants reporter for WFAN.
13:22He doesn't think Jaden can throw the ball tonight.
13:25Well, he also thinks he needs to rush for 80-ish yards for the commanders to have a chance.
13:29That's what I'm saying.
13:31He doesn't think J.D. can throw the ball and beat the Giants throwing the ball.
13:35Well, we'll see.
13:36I'll say this.
13:37The Giants have been very good against the pass.
13:39They've been more vulnerable against the run than against the pass.
13:41They have a lot of talent on defense.
13:43That's obvious.
13:44They actually have some talent on offense, too.
13:46It scares you.
13:47And they have better coaching.
13:49Yeah, they've got a lot in their favor.
13:51They're 5-2-1 for a reason.
13:53You know, I was texting with Vinny about it.
13:54He's super confident.
13:55Now, he's always confident.
13:56Vinny's the type that thinks he's going to win every game.
13:58The Giants win.
13:59He's got to, like, literally every game.
14:01Mets, Giants, his high school team.
14:03He thinks they're going all.
14:04But he's like, it's amazing what a change, really, just a change in coaching has done
14:12for this team.
14:13Certainly.
14:13For the Giants.
14:14Not like they've had massive talent upgrades.
14:18I mean, likely is new.
14:21But, you know, they changed the head coach, the offensive coordinator, and defensive coordinator.
14:24And look at them.
14:26They had a couple first-round picks this year, though, right?
14:28I think they had the 5th and 10th pick in the draft, so that certainly helps.
14:32Yeah.

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