With 6:25 remaining in Thursday night’s game, the Giants held a three-point lead and had possession on the Washington 43. They went for the jugular.
Receiver Darius Slayton got behind the defense. Quarterback Daniel Jones saw him. The ball flew Slayton’s way. It bounced off his hand and fell incomplete.
Joe Buck of Fox called it a drop. And while there’s a school of thought that any NFL-level receiver who gets a hand on the ball should catch it, it’s fair to ask whether Jones put just a little too much on the ball.
There’s a difference between a classic drop and a failure to make a catch. Slayton failed to make the catch. It wasn’t a classic drop. It would have been if Jones had hit Slayton in stride, if the ball had hit him in both hands, and if he’d then dropped it.
Regardless of the proper label, it was a missed opportunity to deliver a knockout punch. Good teams usually don’t blow those chances. Not-good teams routinely do. The Giants, in recent years, have clearly been not good.
With a record of 18-48 since 2017, the Giants are now not just not good. They have the worst record in football during that stretch.
The Darius Slayton misfire: Dropped pass or less-than-perfect throw? originally appeared on Pro Football Talk