Giants’ notebook: Kayvon Thibodeaux’s off day, Week 4 leftovers, more

Tuesday is an off day for your New York Giants. Here are a few random notes about Kayvon Thibodeaux, potential roster moves, Daniel Jones and more.

Kayvon giving back

Giants’ rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux spent part of his off day on Tuesday packing boxes of food to donate to the hungry at the Community Food Bank of New Jersey as part of the “Chunky Sacks Hunger” campaign.

Thibodeaux grew up in South Los Angeles, a relatively impoverished area. He has always wanted to give back. Packing boxes of food to donate is just part of that.

“The biggest thing is really to shed light to those who struggle,” Thibodeaux said. “I don’t want to say those who struggle, because I was one of them and I’ve experienced the fight against hunger.

“For me it’s really being able to impact, being able to inspire and being able to give those families ... I guess to shed some light on them and try to make their time better.”

By the way, props to Thibodeaux for taking time away from packing boxes to spend about seven minutes on the phone with me Tuesday morning. I have asked dozens of times over the years for similar phone interviews with athletes doing charitable work or holding events. Almost always the answer is no. Thibodeaux took the time when he didn’t have to, and I wanted to recognize him for that.

Tae Crowder won’t gloat

Week after week Pro Football Focus gives Giants’ linebacker Tae Crowder awful grades. Week after week, Giants’ fans call for the team to find someone better than the 2020 Mr. Irrelevant to be an every-down inside linebacker.

After his best game of the season on Sunday and perhaps the best of his career (11 tackles, a sack, a tackle for loss, two quarterback hits) Crowder wasn’t gloating.

“I feel like I played a solid game,” he said on Monday. “Each week, I just want to go out and be better than the next week.

Crowder said the addition of Jaylon Smith didn’t push him to play better.

“No. I was just excited to add another piece to our defense,” Crowder said. “I’m glad he went out and had a solid game. Whenever you can get more help, you got to look at it in a positive way.”

The Giants, obviously, will take a lot more of what they got against the Chicago Bears from Crowder.

Roster stuff

It sounds like no Landon Collins signing is imminent. I figured this was the case on Monday when the Giants signed veteran linebacker A.J. Klein.

How bad is the Giants’ quarterback situations with the possibility that neither Daniel Jones nor Tyrod Taylor will be able to play Sunday against the Green Bay Packers? This bad.

Yeah, I get it. The idea of signing Jake Fromm doesn’t thrill you. In reality, though, it would make sense. It is impossible for a quarterback to learn enough of a team’s offense in two or three days to have a chance to play competently if called upon. Fromm played (well, practiced) for Brian Daboll for almost two seasons and should know a good portion of the Giants’ playbook.

Truthfully, there really are no great options at this point. Signing Fromm might at least give the Giants a chance to run their offense if he were to have to play against the Green Bay Packers.

Leftover film thoughts

I always leave the majority of the film study to Nick Falato and Chris Pflum. They are better at that than I am. I do re-watch games whenever possible. Here are a few leftover thoughts from re-watching the condensed version of Giants-Chicago Bears via NFL+.

• This is a give credit where it’s due comment. I thought FOX analyst Daryl Johnston couldn’t have timed the following comment any better as it came just as the Giants were snapping the ball on Daniel Jones’ 21-yard touchdown run:

“There’s been a couple of times Daniel Jones is coming out [of the pocket] and there is nobody there.”

That’s exactly what happened on that play.

• I thought Thibodeaux played with force. I know everyone is still waiting for sacks and splash plays, but I believe patience is appropriate right now. Thibodeaux practiced very little in the spring because of a hip issue and missed considerable time this summer with the MCL sprain. To justify being the No. 5 overall selection those splash plays have to come eventually. It isn’t time to be alarmed, though, because they haven’t come yet.
• It didn’t cost the Giants any points, but gunner Jason Pinnock’s 5-yard penalty for running out of bounds on his own while covering a punt cost the Giants 18 yards of field position. Little things like that make games harder to win.
• Here is a screenshot of the David Sills’ illegal formation penalty that negated a Jones to Sills 17-yard pass.

Sills was correctly, though it is incredibly slight, called for covering up the tight end. Notice the tiny difference in alignment from Sills at the top of the screen to Richie James at the bottom.

• On Graham Gano’s 37-yard doink, I thought Casey Kreiter’s snap was a little off. That’s two less than perfect snaps for Kreiter, a veteran snapper, in four games. Just something to monitor.

About that passing ‘attack’

This graphic from Marcus Mosher tells you everything you need to know about the Giants’ offense. It basically amounts to this: Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones running good, passing bad.

I keep being asked both about evaluating Daniel Jones and the reality is you can’t know fully what he is when he doesn’t have receivers who can help him out. He barely has anyone right now the Giants are comfortable dialing up plays for. You can only evaluate Jones on what he is being asked to do. The lack of a passing offense isn’t his fault, even though it reflects in his numbers.

Read Tony DelGenio’s fantastic work about this topic if you haven’t done so already.