Rookie Report: Evaluating the Giants rookies through the first four weeks

The New York Giants are a quarter of the way through the 2018 regular season already. While the 1-3 record is a bit of a disappointment Authentic Odell Beckham Jr Jersey , there’s been some optimism around the rookie class. With that in mind, we can take a look at how each of the Giants’ rookies have performed through the first four weeks of the season.Saquon BarkleySo far the second overall pick has been as advertised. Barkley has been able to break a big play, but the Giants also have the fourth-highest rate of runs that have gained negative yards. He’s fifth in the league in touches and seventh in yards from scrimmage.Barkley is second in Football Outsiders’ rushing DYAR and sixth in DVOA, while the Giants’ offensive line ranks 31st in adjusted line yards and averages just 2.0 rushing yards before contact. His standard success rate, which uses the percentage of yards needed that were gained, is 43 percent per Football Outsiders, which ranks 23rd among 38 running backs with at least 32 carries. Barkley’s success rate by EPA — the percentage of runs that have positive expected points added — is just 35.6 percent.Through four weeks, the repeated sentiment from the offseason has held true — Barkley has been excellent, but it doesn’t matter without other pieces of a functional offense. He has at least 100 yards from scrimmage in all four games this season, but those yards haven’t been able to spark the offense single-handedly. Barkley’s win probability added totals negative-8.6 percent on running plays and just 3.9 percent on passing plays. He’s been worth minus-2.21 expected points added on the ground just 2.0 through the air.One place where Barkley’s usage could continue to improve is how he’s used in the passing game. If he’s used more in the slot or the outside or even just in front of the line of scrimmage, he could be put in more space to do more damage. Over half of Barkley’s targets have come behind the line of scrimmage and 83 percent of his targets have come no further than two yards down the field. That’s fine for a normal running back, but Barkley wasn’t drafted to be a normal running back. Instead of running the ball with Barkley on first down, throw it to him.These issues aren’t the fault of Barkley, but they come with trying to get the most efficient use out of a running back picked second overall.Will HernandezHernandez has gotten better each week. He was at fault for some of the pressures against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 1, but that could be said of all five offensive linemen who played in that game. Hernandez was expected to be a force in the run game, and that’s come already. Per Sharp Football Stats Color Rush Jon Halapio Jersey , Barkley’s highest success rate has come running behind the left guard.source: Sharp Football StatsThis holds up by EPA, too. Among the run gaps, Barkley only has positive EPA behind the right and left guards. But he’s been much better behind the left guard — eight carries, 6.1 EPA (0.76 average), and 62.5 percent success rate — than right guard — 10 carries, 1.17 EPA (0.12 average), and 40 percent success rate.But where he’s really developed is in the passing game, a welcome addition to a line that desperately needed it. Hernandez has been able to use his strength to keep defenders away from the quarterback, but his situational awareness has also been an important factor to his early success. He never looks lost on a play, again a welcome trait along this line.Take this play here against the Saints this past week. There’s pre-snap communication between Manning, Hernandez, center John Greco, and left tackle Nate Solder. They recognize a blitz is probably coming from No. 24 and they adjust the protection for it. At the snap, Hernandez kicked to his left — where two rushers are likely to come from, and they do — but he also prepared himself to adjust in case the defensive tackle to his right came at him. Still, he was able to take the defensive end who looped to him and kept him away from the quarterback.It’s something relatively simple — having clear communication and knowing the assignment — but there’s a low bar to be judged against for this offensive line. Though even without grading on a curve Color Rush Curtis Riley Jersey , Hernandez has continued to be excellent. Lorenzo CarterLorenzo Carter has been given a bigger role than previously expected because of the injury to Olivier Vernon through the first four weeks of the season. Carter has played 40.6 percent of the defensive snaps as the No. 3 edge rusher behind Kareem Martin and Connor Barwin.Carter has always been a good athlete — he had the No. 2 speed score and was No. 1 in SPARQ among this year’s class of edge rushers — but he hasn’t always been able to translate that athleticism into production. That was the case in college when he had just 14.5 sacks in four years and it still remains something to work on in the NFL.At Georgia, Carter had a role that was more of a traditional linebacker who could rush the passer. But so far with the Giants, Carter has transitioned to full-time edge rusher — he has just three snaps in coverage against the pass this season. When Carter can use his speed, good things can happen.Against the Houston Texans, Carter had a pressure by lining up in a wide-9 technique, running full speed at right tackle Julie’n Davenport and flushing Dashaun Waston out of the pocket.He got his lone sack of the season by fighting Davenport to the outside, then beating him around the edge.But there are still times when he doesn’t really have a move and can easily be stopped by an opposing tackle like he was in many cases against the New Orleans— here against Ryan Ramczyk.Carter is second on the team with three quarterback hits and he’s already matched his four-year college total with one pass breakup. He wasn’t supposed to get this much time on the field this early and we’ll see how or if his role changes with the return of Vernon, but there have been signs of development in this time with room for much more. B.J. HillThroughout training camp, Hill was a breakout star. He was treated as a clear-cut starter in the preseason and played limited snaps. He hasn’t really been given that role in the regular season, though. Through four games, he’s played just 32.8 percent of the defensive snaps.But, Hill has made an impact when he’s on the field. He leads the team with two sacks — one each of the past two weeks — and he’s done it from the interior and the edge. He also moves extremely well for a 300-plus pound lineman. Against the Saints, he got his sack when he and Dalvin Tomlinson were 2-on-1 against the center which eventually gave Hill a clear run to Drew Brees. It wasn’t beating a blocker like his sack on the edge against Houston, but there are not many interior defenders who would have been able to close on Brees as Hill did.Like Carter, Hill could see his playing time decrease even more with the addition of Josh Mauro, who is returning from a four-game suspension. But while that scenario could help Carter with his development Youth Odell Beckham Jr Jersey , Hill has already shown he should be getting more playing time than what he’s already been given.The othersKyle Lauletta, the Giants’ fourth-round pick, has not been on the active game day roster yet, so he’s no immediate threat to take over at quarterback. But should the Giants continue to struggle on offense, it would not be a surprise to see him get a look during the second half of the season.Fifth-round pick R.J. McIntosh has been on the reserve/non-football illness list since the beginning of September. He likely won’t see any action until 2019.Sean Chandler, an undrafted rookie safety out of Temple, was a surprise player to make the roster out of training camp. He’s only been in on one defensive snap (he made a tackle) but has played over half of the team’s special teams snaps.Tae Davis, an undrafted linebacker out of Tennessee-Chatanooga, has not seen the field on defense, but has played on 36 special teams snaps. After a chalky, mostly uneventful stretch of playoff games, the conference championship games delivered. We saw overtime from both the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs. In the end, the Patriots and Rams will meet in the Super Bowl on February 3. Let’s look at a few things we can take away from Sunday’s games.Costly callsLet’s just get this out of the way up top. Yes, there were some terrible, game-changing calls in these two games. The most obvious being the non-call on Nickell Robey-Coleman’s hit on Tommylee Lewis. But there was also a missed face mask on Jared Goff earlier in that game near the goal line. A phantom roughing the passer call on Tom Brady gave the Patriots a new set of downs when the Chiefs could have taken control. Pass interference was a coin flip call in either game. Though as poor as the officiating was, there were still opportunities for each team to win the game. For example Color Rush Patrick Omameh Jersey , if New Orleans was able to convert on either of their first two drives for a touchdown rather than a field goal, the Saints might be looking at a blowout win and they don’t have to try to score late in the fourth quarter. The calls were bad — they need to be fixed — but there were many other plays in these games that also mattered.It wasn’t about the runThe Patriots ran for 176 yards against the Chiefs and the other three teams ran for a combined 166 yards. Still, the games featured plenty of points and no team was out of it because of the lack of a run game. Even New England wasn’t exactly efficient on the ground — those 176 yards came on 48 carries. The Patriots came out early in the game in an attempt to keep the number of possessions low with a run-heavy plan. It worked on the first drive with 15 plays that went 80 yards, ended in a touchdown, and took 8:05 off the clock.This was a good call against a Chiefs defense that was the worst in the league against the run during the regular season and was one of the few teams that running against made sense. That strategy was only good enough for a 7-0 lead until late in the second quarter when the Patriots needed a drive featuring a 30-yard pass to James White and a 29-yard touchdown pass to Phillip Dorsett to take a two-score lead. Once the Chiefs got into their groove on offense, the Patriots had to switch back to a pass-heavy offense and that’s where their points cameNew England won the game by converting 13-of-19 third downs and 11 of those attempts came through the air. The 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to win the game in overtime? The Patriots called eight passes to move the ball down the field before Rex Burkhead punched it in.In the earlier game, neither team was able to get anything going on the ground. But the Rams were still able to do damage with play-action despite any credible threat of a run game. A quick release and good o-line eliminates a pass rushKansas City ended the regular season seven in Adjusted Sack Rate per Football Outsiders, but they were barely able to get near Tom Brady in the AFC Championship Game. Part of that was because of how quickly Brady got rid of the ball when he dropped back to pass. Before New England’s final touchdown drive in regulation, Brady averaged just 2.33 seconds to throw per Next Gen Stats. During the regular season, only 10 sacks — a total of 10 sacks of 1,281 that happened this season — were faster than 2.33 seconds, which made a pass rush nearly impossible. Brady ended the day with 2.51 seconds to throw as he took more time in the pocket on the final drive of regulation and the overtime drive to let plays develop downfield. By that time, the New England offensive line took over and put up the best single-game performance ESPN has tracked with their Pass Rush Win Rate metric — a 91 percent team rate and each individual lineman well above average.That’s going to have to be the plan again against the Rams in the Super Bowl, who finished second as a team in Pass Rush Win Rate. Aaron Donald had a league-leading Pass Rush Win Rate of 46 percent, but the Saints double-teamed him on 78 percent of plays and held him to just an 18 percent Pass Rush Win Rate. The Rams are going to have to be more aggressiveSean McVay is a great offensive mind and play-caller Color Rush Nate Solder Jersey , but the one place he can improve as a head coach is with his aggressiveness and fourth down decision making. During the start of the game when the Los Angeles offense wasn’t quite clicking, the Rams tried too hard to manufacture plays rather than let them happen the way they have all season. There were numerous conservative third down play calls in the first half and Goff ended the game with his average throw going 1.4 yards behind the first down marker despite being one of eight quarterbacks to have an average pass past the sticks during the regular season, per Next Gen Stats.Then there was the decision to kick a field goal to tie the game on a 4th and goal from the New Orleans 1-yard line with just over six minutes remaining in the game. Los Angeles cost itself at least 10 percent win probability by deciding to kick — the exact number differs depending on where you look. But either way, as an underdog on the road, the move is to try to score. At the worst case, New Orleans has to drive 99 yards to ice the game.The move did end up working — the Rams are going to the Super Bowl — but they got bailed out by the Saints having to kick their own field goal on the next drive (a no-call on Nickell Robey-Coleman aided decision) and just enough time for the Rams to drive for another field goal of their own to end regulation. But against the Patriots, those types of conservative calls can be a killer and they’re the types of calls Bill Belichick and Co. have taken advantage of for years.We’re lucky Tony Romo is calling the Super BowlTony Romo is probably a polarizing figure around these parts, but he’s easily turned himself into one of the best announcers in broadcasting. It’s not just his penchant to call out plays before they happen, which is great, but he can quickly, concisely, and intelligently break down and explain everything happening on the field. Meanwhile, the other broadcast team was calling for a 63-yard field goal attempt as a smart strategy. Romo also very clearly has a joy for the game that just doesn’t always come through from others in the booth. This Super Bowl will be better because Romo will be calling it and there’s not a lot of current announcers in any sport you could say that about.