10 quick thoughts from Week 13 as Commanders and NY Giants settle for tie
By Jerry Trotta
7. Benjamin St-Juste is a bigger loss than people thought.
This isn’t to say folks scoffed at St-Juste’s injury. But with the defense clicking on all cylinders, it was theorized they’d be able to tread water without the second-year corner. While it hasn’t been a disaster without St-Juste, rookie Christian Holmes was exposed on more than one occasion vs the Giants.
The deep pass to Slayton was one thing, but Holmes delivered a woeful tackle attempt on Isaiah Hodgins on third down (Kam Curl didn’t cover himself in glory either), allowing the Giants tight end to muscle his way for a first down, and got beat for by Hodgins for a touchdown early in the third quarter.
On top of applying sticky coverage, St-Juste has been really strong defending the run and wrapping up in the open field. Need him back after the bye.
8. Why is John Bates blocking Azeez Ojulari?
This was probably the play of the game.
With the game nodded at 13 to start the second half, Washington had John Bates lined up against Azeez Ojulari. As expected, Ojulari, who set the Giants rookie sack record in 2021, breezed past the tight end before a sorry pass-blocking rep from Antonio Gibson allowed Ojulari to strip-sack Heinicke.
The way Heinicke went sprinting after the ball suggests he thought this was a fumble. Refs call it as such and Giants get the ball pic.twitter.com/Az0r2GRwlM
— Mark Bullock (@MarkBullockNFL) December 4, 2022
If you’re going to have a tight end block an edge rusher, either send a double team or have a running back chip him before running a route. This is a middle-school blunder and it flipped the game on its head as the Giants capitalized with a touchdown minutes later to take a 20-13 lead after trailing 10-0.