The Giants threatened to pull a comeback Monday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers, but, as he so often does, T.J. Watt thwarted New York's chance.
Following a Russell Wilson fumble, the Giants got the ball in Steelers territory down eight points. Big Blue faced third-and-7 when Watt came screaming off the right edge like a wrecking ball, smashed the pigskin out of Daniel Jones' hand, and recovered it. Threat neutralized.
Pittsburgh would go on to win, 26-18.
After the Giants did a stellar job on Watt early, often throwing an extra blocking tight end his way in the first half, it was stunning that the Defensive Player of the Year candidate was single-blocked by right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor. It turns out that wasn't the plan.
"We had a shift with the tight end to get back over to Watt, and we didn't get the shift," head coach Brian Daboll said after the loss, via the New York Post. "We talked about it. D.J. feels terrible. He was kind of surveying the coverage, deciding what he wanted to do, and we didn't get the shift."
Jones took the blame for the miscue.
"I needed to shift," the quarterback said. "Tight end\] [Theo \[Johnson\] was looking at the coverage, and I didn't shift him, and Jermaine expected my chip, and he didn't get that. That's my fault."
Miscues and brain cramps have characterized the Giants' season. Once again, they couldn't get out of their own way on Monday night, getting called for pre-snap penalties, called poor plays, missed blocks, missed tackles, and Jones made several poor throws and reads. The QB ended the game with an interception to seal Big Blue's third consecutive loss.
Mistakes on the road against a better team will get you beat every time. When the blunders come against an All-Universe player like Watt, it's even more of a problem.
"I saw the tight end over with me and I saw Watt\] one on one with \[Eluemunor\] and thought, 'He's about to make a play,' and he did," Steelers linebacker [Alex Highsmith said. "He got the ball. That's what he does. That's why he's the best in the world."
Watt generated two sacks and six QB pressures on Monday night. Highsmith added two sacks and a whopping 12 pressures against a banged-up, porous Giants offensive line.
The loss pushed the Giants to 2-6 on the season.
Big Blue fell to 0-3 in prime-time games in 2024. Jones is 1-15 in prime time in his career, the worst win percentage in the NFL since 1970 (minimum 10 starts), per NFL Research. He's 0-8 in his career on Monday Night Football, with 12 career interceptions. It's the most QB losses and INTs on MNF since Jones entered the league in 2019.