Best Plays
5. Tom Brady completes a 12-yard pass to Danny Amendola on 4th and 10 on the final drive (+3.1 EPA). Brady looked awful to start this drive, but Amendola made play after play to help rescue the team.
4. Tom Brady completes a 54-yard pass to Brandon LaFell in the 4th quarter (+3.58 EPA). Anyone else liking these deep shots to LaFell, and how nervous are you every time you see the ball get chucked up?
3. Chandler Jones strip sacks Eli Manning inside the red zone and Justin Coleman recovers (+4.37 EPA). I'd like to nominate Jones for potential Defensive Player of the Year contention. He won't (and shouldn't) win it, but he's definitely one of the five or ten most disruptive defenders in the entire league.
2. Danny Amendola returns a punt 82 yards before Duron Harmon makes the tackle (+5.34 EPA). Amendola could've made it all the way, but Harmon accidentally tripped up the returnman's legs and stopped him short of the end zone.
1. Tom Brady completes a 76-yard touchdown to Rob Gronkowski (+6.46 EPA). The Patriots needed this in the biggest of ways and took a 24-23 lead.
Worst Plays
5. Eli Manning completes a deep 28-yard pass to Myles White on 3rd and 8 (-2.96 EPA). Who?
4. Eli Manning completes a 31-yard pass to Will Tye to the goal line with 39 seconds in the first half (-3.52 EPA). The Giants scored two plays later and the Giants received the second half kick off for a double-whammy attempt. This one hurt.
3. Tom Brady is strip-sacked by Jasper Brinkley and the ball is recovered and returned by the Giants to the Patriots 31-yard line (-4.71 EPA). This is well within field goal range, by Rob Ninkovich forced a 13-yard sack on the Giants drive to push them out of field goal range. Huge play by Ninkovich.
2. Tom Brady is intercepted on the goal line by Trumaine McBride with 6:10 left in the game (-4.77 EPA). This changed an assured touchdown to no points and the Giants just needed to milk the clock and to score a field goal. If the Patriots made it, do you think they would have gone for two to try and make it a two-score game?
1. Eli Manning throws an 87-yard touchdown pass to Odell Beckham Jr. (-7.48 EPA). This will go down as one of the worst plays on the season as it was worth more than a touchdown. Teams in this field position often yield more points than they score. Devin McCourty deserved an earful for his angle, but he was fine the rest of the day.