While the New York Giants lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week eight, they displayed a level of quality and grit that we hadn’t seen through the first seven weeks of the season.
However, there were some tumultuous performances and others that were stellar, but overall, competing against a team as good as Tampa should directly translate over to a far lesser opponent in the Washington Football Team. Theoretically, the Giants should walk over Washington this week, but it will take solid performances from their best players, which wasn’t the case last week, especially for quarterback Daniel Jones.
Three New York Giants players to watch against Washington in week 9:
1.) Shane LeMieux
The rise of Shane LeMieux has been fun to watch, despite his sample size being just one game. PFF graded him extremely poorly, giving him a 34.1 overall grade and 12.1 in pass blocking. After looking at his tape, his performance wasn’t nearly as bad as indicated, but he will be trying to build off a progressive rookie debut.
LeMieux brings a mean streak to his game, and he loves to get into the mix and hit people in the trenches. He’s a force in the running game but needs to work a bit on his pass protection technique and mirroring. He was hit with five pressures and four hurries but didn’t allow a sack against Tampa.
Washington represents a far worse defense, but their defensive line is one of the best in the NFL, so they represent another significant challenge for Lemieux.