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

With the help of NextGen Stats, here are seven insights from this week’s Giants performance.

Banks are money against DK Metcalf

It’s not often that a member of the New York Giants coaching staff publicly berates a player for a poor performance, but maybe they should do that more often after seeing what it did for second-year cornerback Deonte Banks.

Banks, who was called out by the team’s defensive backs coach Jerome Henderson for his poor effort against Dallas receiver CeeDee Lamb on a 55-yard touchdown catch, responded in a big way in this week’s 29-20 win over the Seattle Seahawks.

Banks, who drew receiver DK Metcalfe on 35 of his 47 routes, 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 falling for the Giants’ offense because rookie receiver Malik Nabers, the team’s leading pass catcher and yardage generator, was out with a concussion, Darius Slayton came along to save the day.

Fans may remember Slayton as the guy who almost every major media outlet keeps suggesting the Giants want to trade before the deadline. And once again, Slayton, bad right thumb and all, showed why trading with him would be foolish.

Slayton finished with a season-high eight passes on 11 targets for 122 yards and a touchdown, his sixth career game with more than 100 receiving yards and his third-highest total.

Slayton’s +58 receiving yards over expectation is the second highest in a game in his career.

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

The clever giants

What gets lost in the Giants’ strong showing on offense is that receiver Jalin Hyatt didn’t face a single target this week.

All week, the Giants’ coaches led us to believe that Hyatt, who has just three goals in five games (no receptions), could see an uptick in his passing targets if Nabers didn’t play.

But that wasn’t the case, as quarterback Daniel Jones ended up throwing to just 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.

On eight of his carries, he generated a positive EPA (expected points added) on eight of his rushing attempts, which achieved 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 his expulsion from the team.

After battling 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 with multiple deep passes since Week 2, 2023.

The Giants also leaned more on play action this week, posting a season-high dropbacks of 35.9%. Jones completed 9 of 12 pass attempts for 101 yards and two touchdowns on play-action. 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 issues during the Giants’ first four games of the season has been their largely heavy reliance 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 heavy headcount, instead favoring 11 personnel (one back, one tight end). New York had 12 staff members five times and 13 staff members six times.

Last week against Dallas they had 12 men 19 times and 13 men three times. As noted, Johnson, the starting tight end, saw the most pass targets of his young career this week as the Giants got 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 less. This week, they held the Seahawks offense to just 13 points (the other seven came on a fumble return for a touchdown).

League stats will show that the Giants defense has allowed 20.8 points per game through five games this season. However, subtract 14 points due to two turnovers by the offense that were returned for touchdowns (Minnesota Week 1 and Seattle Week 5), and the Giants defense is giving up just 18 points per game.

That’s good enough to place in the top ten in that statistical category and, depending on how the rest of the games end, possibly good enough for a top five ranking.