They allowed Jones to scramble six times for 59 yards on his 11 pressured dropbacks. During the regular season, the Vikings allowed opposing quarterbacks to scramble on 18% of pressured dropbacks, the fourth-highest rate in the NFL. They absolutely could not deal with the threat Jones presented as a runner. It worked: Jefferson finished with just 7 receptions for 47 yards. Meanwhile, the most blitz-happy defensive coordinator in all of football was content to sit back and play coverage for much of the game, the better to minimize the chance of a big play to Vikings superstar Justin Jefferson. New York's offense was also electric on third and fourth downs, converting 7 of 13 in the formation situation and both of its opportunities in the latter. He repeatedly took off downfield, achieving a first down with four of his six scrambles. Jones has now started 54 career regular-season and playoff games, and this game ranked as his fourth-best by TruMedia's version of expected points added (EPA) per dropback. Why the Giants wonĭaniel Jones played one of the best games of his career, Wink Martindale threw a curveball with his defensive game plan, and the Giants executed in late-down situations. Osborn over the middle on third-and-8, and then Cousins checked down well short of the sticks to Hockenson on fourth down as Xavier McKinney brought him to the turf to end Minnesota's chance of victory. Defensive back Cordale Flott forced an incompletion on a tough pass to K.J. Minnesota did get one more chance with the ball late in the game, but even after benefiting from an extremely questionable roughing-the-passer call against Giants defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence, the Vikings stalled out near midfield. That set up a third-and-long on which Cousins threw incomplete to Cook, and the Giants were able to run a bunch of time off the clock on their ensuing possession. Hockenson (10-129), which combined to lose 1 yard. And yet, on a crucial fourth-quarter drive, the Vikings elected to call back-to-back screens to Dalvin Cook (6 catches, 10 yards) and T.J. Justin Jefferson ended the game with just 47 receiving yards on nine targets, after he averaged 10.8 targets and 106.4 receiving yards per game during the regular season.īecause New York sat back in coverage for most of the game, it struggled to get much pressure on Cousins, who was not sacked at all. He kept extra defenders in coverage to limit the number of downfield plays the Vikings had available to them, and indeed only four of Cousins' 39 pass attempts traveled at least 20 yards in the air. In this game, Martindale sent a blitz on only nine of Kirk Cousins' 40 dropbacks, a 22.5% rate. That's a rate far higher than the 26% league average. The Giants blitzed more often than any team in the NFL this season, sending at least one extra rusher after the quarterback on 44% of opponent dropbacks, according to TruMedia.

On the other side of the ball, Martindale played against type. He also had a rushing touchdown taken off the board in the second quarter by an illegal-motion penalty, so his game could have been even better.

He took three sacks on his 44 dropbacks, but was extremely effective as a scrambler to make up for it. Jones repeatedly hooked up with the likes of Isaiah Hodgins (8 catches, 105 yards, TD) and Darius Slayton (4-88) for big plays, and calmly worked his checkdowns to Saquon Barkley (5-56 receiving, 9-53 rushing) and Richie James (4-31) as well. The 379 total yards were the second-most in a game in Giants playoff history, and the 78 rushing yards were a Giants playoff record for a quarterback. In so doing, he became the first quarterback in NFL playoff history to throw for at least 300 yards and two touchdowns and also run for at least 70 yards. Jones completed 24 of 35 passes for 301 yards and two touchdowns, while adding 78 yards on 17 carries. In particular, it was one of the very best games of quarterback Daniel Jones' career. The coaching staff put its players in position to succeed, and the players responded by playing one of their best all-around games of the season.

New York's victory was a testament to the coaching job Brian Daboll, Mike Kafka, and Wink Martindale have done with this team throughout the entire season. They will take on their NFC East division rival Philadelphia Eagles, the NFC's No. The New York Giants are moving onto the divisional round of the playoffs after pulling off a 31-24 upset win against the Minnesota Vikings on the road.

Giants score