Jonathan Bales will pick a big play from each week and break it down.

With the clock ticking down inside of 30 seconds left, the Giants — down by 19-17 — faced a second-and-9 at the Philadelphia Eagles’ 26-yard line on Sunday night. At this position on the field, N.F.L. kickers have made 78 percent of field goal tries over the past 10 years. With the probability of a successful kick dropping dramatically outside of the opponent’s 30-yard line, it was imperative for the Giants to limit the potential for a negative play.

The Giants’ offensive coordinator, Kevin Gilbride, called for “11” personnel: one running back, one tight end and three receivers. In a Trips Left formation, wide receivers Domenik Hixon and Victor Cruz lined up to the boundary with tight end Martellus Bennett. Ramses Barden (circled below) was isolated on the wide side of the field with cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha.

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You can see that Asmougha was the only defender lined up in a true press position. With free safety Nate Allen lined up deep in the middle of the field and strong safety Kurt Coleman stationed just seven yards off the ball to the wide side of the field, I think Eli Manning recognized that the Eagles were in Cover 3.

Cover 3 is characterized by three deep defenders — the outside cornerbacks and the free safety — each playing with “deep-third” responsibility. The job of Allen, Asomugha and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie on the play was to make sure no receivers beat them in their deep section of the field. If the receivers lined up in front of the cornerbacks were to threaten them vertically, their responsibility would basically turn into man coverage.

Even though Asomugha was lined up in a press position, the rest of the Eagles’ defenders gave away their intentions of playing Cover 3. The Eagles like to place Asomugha in a press position on a majority of snaps simply because he excels there. Actually, no cornerback in the N.F.L. has played more press coverage than Asomugha in 2012.

Asomugha’s pre-snap positioning let Manning know that the cornerback would most likely have his back turned to the line of scrimmage as the quarterback released the ball. Thus, with Barden running vertically, Manning decided to challenge Asomugha instead of a weaker cornerback playing in off coverage.

The Giants’ offensive line gave Manning plenty of time to throw. You can see that Manning released the ball with a very clean pocket. He wasn’t pressured and really went where he wanted to go with the ball.

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The throw wasn’t a poor one, but Asomugha played exceptional coverage on Barden. Below, you can see that Asomugha was able to get to Barden’s hip and turn to locate the football very quickly. From this position, Asomugha rode Barden toward the sideline. With his head turned back toward the ball, he was in a tremendous position to use his body to disrupt Barden’s route without being flagged for pass interference.

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Within a few yards, Asomugha was able to completely change the angle of Barden’s route. Moving Barden toward the sideline, Asomugha left Manning no window to fit the ball in to his receiver. Barden needed to do a better job to win at the line and maintain spacing between his route and the sideline to give Manning space to get him the ball. By the time the ball was thrown, Barden was in a position where he felt like he had to hold Asomugha to prevent the pass from being intercepted.

Nonetheless, I think Barden should have tried more rigorously to fight through Asomugha without holding him. The offensive pass interference was blatant, and I have a feeling Barden could have broken up the pass without committing such a flagrant foul.

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Once the penalty was assessed, the Giants faced a second-and-19 at the Eagles’ 36-yard line. There were still 21 seconds remaining on the clock, but the Giants failed to advance the ball after the penalty. Field goals of 54 yards — the length that was ultimately missed by Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes — have been successful around 60 percent of the time over the last decade. Thus, the Barden penalty turned out to be a dip of around 18 percent in terms of the Giants’ chances of winning the game.

Jonathan Bales is the author of Fantasy Football for Smart People: How to Dominate Your Draft. He also runs the “Running the Numbers” blog at DallasCowboys.com and writes for NBC, Pro Football Focus, and RotoWire.

You can follow him on Twitter @TheCowboysTimes.