The Top 12 Worst Games of 2021: XII

Giants at Bears, Week 17: Giants Honor 100th Anniversary of NFL Football by Setting Offense Back Centuries

The NFL used to be called the “American Pro Football Association,” a clunky name that they ditched in 1922. There wasn’t a whole lot of extravagant fanfare around the league in 2021 honoring the 100th anniversary of the NFL being called the NFL, but the Giants put on a little ceremony of their own by rolling out a performance worthy of 1922. It was a thoughtful gesture, but it was revolting to behold.

There appears to be some disagreement as to just how far in the red the New York Giants’ passing offense dared to delve on January 2nd, 2022. Pro Football Reference, our database of record, lists the toxic total at -6 passing yards, courtesy of 5 sacks for 30 lost yards. But ProFootballTalk disputes this, listing the grand grotesque total at 4 sacks for -34 yards, putting Mike Glennon’s incredible numbers through the air at a round -10 yards, which feels like a nicer, more digestible total. Is it a huge deal if he threw for -6 or -10 yards? Would the extra 4 yards deleted in the ProFootballTalk calculation have altered the outcome of a game that ended 29-3? Maybe. (Probably not).

The question is, ultimately, academic, and would move the Giants’ unbelievable aerial atrocity from “a” bad game to THE worst passing performance of the 21st century (to find the last time a team did worse than -10 through the air, you have to go back to Ryan Leaf and the 1998 San Diego Chargers’ infamous first loss of the season versus Kansas City, which saw Leaf go an incredible 1 for 15 for -19 yards and then outdo his pathetic showing on the field with an even more egregious outburst the locker room – you know the vid we’re talking about. RIP Junior Seau). At the end of the day, the Giants put forward a memorably inept performance at every level, and the statistically ridiculous passing numbers were only one component part of this travesty. Almost as bad was the performance of Devontae Booker, who ran the ball 18 times for 46 yards (with a long run of 5 yards) and caught 2 passes for 0 yards. That’s 20 touches for an average of 2.3 yards per touch. And since the Giants only ran 55 plays, that means that a running back who was performing far beneath the informal Mendoza Line of 3 YPC made up 36% of New York’s offensive plays. Outrageous.

Saquon Barkley fared far better than the rest of his bush league backfield, tallying 102 yards on 21 carries. But this did essentially nothing in the grand scheme of things. And that’s one of the big issues with Saquon Barkley (and basically every running back not named Derrick Henry) – even when he plays well, his effect on the outcome of a game is pitifully minimal. He wasn’t even that good in 2021 – he and Devontae Booker both finished with precisely 593 rushing yards, and Booker actually managed to reach that total with 17 fewer rushes. For Joe Judge’s uninspiring gameplan – namely, continuously pounding the ball into a scrum of human wreckage and hoping one of your backs breaks a long one – to work, you need to have at least a semblance of a passing game, which the G-Men (G for Glennon) did not possess. It’s not all Glennon’s fault, of course, nor Barkley’s or Booker’s. Where the hell are these pass catchers we were told so much of? Kenny Golladay exists primarily as a concept on the Giants, barely averaging 2 catches per game in his disastrous first season with Big Blue (Big Blew?) and totaling 0 touchdowns. Rookie receiver Kadarius Toney, who was supposed to provide a desperately needed big-play threat to Daniel Jones and Co., also failed to reach paydirt in his first season with the Giants, meaning a whopping zero points emerged from the NYG’s supposed top two pass catchers. For perspective, no Giants player caught more than 3 touchdowns, and no wide receiver caught more than 2. All told, there were five wide receiver touchdown receptions by the Giants in 2021, a horrible season outing that just barely puts the ’21 Giants ahead of the 2014 Kansas City Chiefs for wideout disappointment (that team famously did not manage to record a wide receiver touchdown all year). It goes without saying that neither Golladay or Toney managed to register in a meaningful way in this game – Toney was inactive and Golladay was targeted once, not making the catch.

Though the box score was marginally more beautiful, the actual onfield product from Chicago was not much more palatable. That may sound surprising, given that they did end up scoring 29 points on offense, but that’s due in large part to the serial foot-shooting New York inflicted on themselves on offense. Chicago QB Andy Dalton played fine, more than fine enough to win going away, but this game was a classic example of Dalton “taking what the defense gave him” and not attempting anything of greater daring. His numbers say as much: 18 of 35 for 173 yards with one touchdown and one interception apiece for a passer rating of 63.2. That statline is more than bad enough to lose most NFL games, which is what has usually happened to Dalton when he’s played like that in the past. The difference with this game was that unlike in Cincinnati, this defense was good enough to propel his pedestrian passing to a victorious result.

And speaking of defense, was Chicago even that good on defense on this day? Not really. They only registered four QB hits on the day – it’s just that Glennon was positively magisterial at turning hits into play-ending sacks, going a perfect 4-for-4 in this dismaying department. They picked him off twice in 15 dropbacks, which is pretty bad, but the first of these was off of a tipped pass, which is usually a combination of bad luck and good defense. The Bears’ best defensive play of the game was probably their very first snap, when Trevis Gipson nailed Glennon for a sack-fumble that Bilal Nicholas returned to the Giants’ 2-yard line. Chicago promptly scored on a short David Montgomery touchdown run. On New York’s next series, Glennon threw aforementioned tipped interception – coincidentally, or perhaps understandably, the first and only time Glennon targeted Kenny Golladay. This pass was snagged by Gipson – Tashaun Gipson, that is (no relation to Trevis – sometimes there’s symmetry in football sorrow). The game was essentially over after Dalton turned this second Giants blunder into a touchdown pass to make it 14-0 CHI. Some other fun nonsense occurred, like a safety after Devontae Booker failed to escape the endzone on a handoff. But the silliest part of this game was the game’s final interception, which came, no joke, off of a halfback pass from David Montgomery on fourth down and four from the Giants’ 9-yard line with 1:55 left in the fourth quarter while the Bears were leading 29-3. I guess at 5-10 with your imminent firing a fait accompli, you might as well pull out all the stops, Matt Nagy.

Marquise Goodwin (left), Andy Dalton (middle) and David Montgomery (right) basking in the warmth of a very easy day on offense, with Dalton’s expression saying something to the effect of “Haha, this is cool.”