New York Giants 29, Seattle 20: In numbers

The New York Giants have shown that they can be a dangerous team when they're firing on all cylinders, as they did in their 29-20 win over Seattle this weekend. While some will argue that the game was much closer than it should have been, the Giants still managed to deliver a devastating blow to a Seahawks team that was the clear favorite to win this week.

With the help of NextGen Stats, here are seven takeaways from the Giants' performance this week.

Banks are money against DK Metcalf

It's not very often that a member of the New York Giants coaching staff publicly calls out a player for poor performance, but perhaps they should do it a little more often after seeing what it did for second-year cornerback Deonte Banks , has meant.

Banks, who was challenged by Jerome Henderson, the team's defensive backs coach, for his poor performance against Dallas receiver CeeDee Lamb on a 55-yard touchdown catch, responded in this week's 29-20 win over the Seattle Seahawks great.

Banks, who pulled receiver DK Metcalfe on 35 of his 47 carries, held the receiver to just two receptions on four targets for 24 yards in his quietest game of the year.

No Nabers? No problem

Just when it seemed like the sky was about to fall for the Giants' offense because rookie receiver Malik Nabers, the team's leading pass catcher and yard generator, was declared out due to a concussion, Darius Slayton arrived to make the day save.

Fans may remember Slayton as the man almost every major media outlet consistently suggests the Giants would try to trade before the deadline. And once again, despite his bad right thumb, Slayton showed why it would be stupid to trade him.

Slayton finished the season with eight passes on 11 targets for 122 yards and one touchdown, his sixth career game with over 100 receiving yards and his third-highest total.

Slayton's +58 receiving yards above expectations is the second most in a game of his career.

Slayton did his best to fill the void left by the dynamic Nabers, accounting for 73.3% of the Giants' air yards this week, the second-highest mark by a Giants receiver this season.

The clever giants

What's notable in the mix of the Giants' strong offensive performance is that receiver Jalin Hyatt didn't have a single target thrown his way this week.

The Giants' coaches led us to believe all week that Hyatt, who has only scored three goals (no balls) in five games, might increase his passing targets if Nabers didn't play.

But that wasn't the case, as quarterback Daniel Jones ended up throwing only five pass targets: receivers Slayton and Wan'Dale Robinson, running backs Eric Gray and Tyrone Tracy, and tight end Theo Johnson.

Speaking of Johnson, his five pass targets surpassed his career-high of four in Week 1 against the Vikings.

Running with the wind

Giants rookie running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. finished with 129 rushing yards on 18 carries, his first NFL 100+ yard rushing performance.

He posted a positive EPA (expected points added) on eight of his rushing attempts for a 44.4% success rate.

Tracy's +47 rushing yards above expectations were the most by a Giants running back since Week 11, 2023 (Saquon Barkley, +48).

Daniel is having a day

Quarterback Daniel Jones continues to do everything he can to quell the critics calling for him to be cut from the team.

After struggling with the deep ball against the Cowboys in Week 4 this week, he completed both deep pass attempts (20+ air yards) for 71 yards and a touchdown, his first game since Week 2, 2023 he completed several deep pass attempts.

The Giants also relied more on play-action this week, posting a season-high 35.9% dropbacks. Jones completed 9 of 12 pass attempts for 101 yards and two touchdowns on play-action attempts. This game was the first in his six-year career in which he threw multiple touchdowns on play-action attempts.

Lose weight

One of the main problems during the first four games of the Giants' season was that they largely relied on “heavy” personnel packages consisting of 12 (one running back, two tight ends) and 13 personnel (one running back, three tight ends).

This week, the Giants drastically reduced their strong personnel, instead favoring 11 personnel (one defensive back, one tight end). New York had 12 employees five times and 13 employees six times.

Last week they played Dallas 19 times with 12 players and three times with 13 players. As mentioned, Johnson, the rookie tight end, recorded the most pass targets of his young career this week as the Giants had him more involved in passes over the middle.

Dee-fense! Dee-fense!

Since Week 2, the Giants' defense has held opponents to 20 points or fewer. This week they held the Seahawks' offense to just 13 points (the other seven came from a fumble and scored a touchdown).

League stats show the Giants' defense has allowed 20.8 points per game through five games this season. Subtract 14 points due to two offensive turnovers returned for touchdowns (Minnesota Week 1 and Seattle Week 5), and the Giants defense is only giving up 18 points per game.

That's good enough to qualify for the top ten in this statistical category, and depending on how the remaining games turn out, possibly good enough for a top five finish.