Sorry Giants fans; there ain’t no silver lining … Not surprisingly, in the wake of yet another miserable start to another season, we’ve received literally dozens of emails from our Giants’ fan friends asking if we, the eternal optimists who can almost always find the silver lining, see any hope for the rest of the season. Unfortunately, the simple answer is: not much as even we, the eternal optimists, don’t see much of a silver lining. Indeed, maybe the only positive we have seen to date is that the Giants’ rookies have played pretty well. WR Malik Nabers, for example, has been every bit of advertised, CB Dru Phillips has arguably been the team’s best defensive player to date, and their other rookies have all contributed. Unfortunately. though, the rookies have been pretty much the only Giants to have distinguished themselves through the first two weeks of the season.
However, while it would be easy to blame this player or that guy for the Giants’ dismal start, we believe that in the end it falls squarely on the shoulders of Brian Daboll. For starters, there is just no excuse for any team in the NFL to lose their home opener by more than 3 touchdowns to a 7-win Minnesota team with frigging Sam Darnold at QB! None! The Giants were totally unprepared to play emotionally that day. They were totally unprepared physically and they were totally unprepared to compete strategically. In fact, we quipped to ourselves that the Giants’ staff had 4 months to put together a game plan for the Vikings – a game they really just had to win – and that’s what they came up with! Obviously, the Giants were a lot closer to a win this past Sunday, but only because Washington, which outgained the Giants by over 100 yards, controlled the ball for over 37 minutes, and never had to punt, couldn’t score a TD.
We believe the art of coaching in any sport is not being able to devise a system and trying to make that system work, but being able to evaluate the talent you have (and don’t have) and building a game plan that maximizes the talent you have and minimizes your weaknesses. Brian Daboll hasn’t done that. Brian Daboll has coached scared and on both sides of the ball the Giants are playing primary not to lose. On offence, the operative principle appears to be don’t turn the ball over. And on defence, its don’t give up the big play. Which, despite all the ballyhooed changes this year, is pretty much what they did last year.
The whole concept is particularly puzzling on offence as the Giants went out and finally got some weapons for QB Daniel Jones, but really haven’t used them, or at least used them anywhere their fullest impact. Instead, they’ve pretty much run the same old run-first, two-TE base offence even though Saquon Barkley was allowed to walk off to the Eagles. To me, the most telling stat on the season so far may be that TE Chris Manhertz, who does nothing but block, has had almost twice as many snaps as WR Jalin Hyatt thru the first two games of the year. And I suppose a case can be made that keeping an extra blocker in on just about every down helps with the blocking, but it also just allows the defence to bring more bodies to the line of scrimmage.
At the same time we’d like to see a show of hands from those that see any major difference in the Giants’ defensive schemes this year compared to last even with the change in co-ordinators. Its still the same 4-man front, two ILBs lined up 5 yards off the ball, and the secondary 10 yards off the ball keeping everything in front of them. Bottom line is they just don’t have enough people near the LOS and they certainly don’t appear to make much of an attempt to disguise their defence or try and confuse the opposing QB. And if the Giants give up one more third and long on which they play soft such that the other team runs off the coverage and then dumps the ball off to a back leaking out of the backfield who runs runs for the first down without a defender even showing up (or in the case of Washington’s Daniels who just ran for 2 or 3 literally untouched) I will tear out the little hair that I have remaining.
Can the Giants turn this thing around? Probably not particularly given the remaining schedule and certainly not playing the extremely conservative, vanilla style that’s been the MO so far. The Giants do have a real potential strength on offence, for example, in that they have one of the fastest WR quartets in the league. USE THEM! Spread the field, get the ball in the playmakers hands and make the defence defend the whole field. I just don’t believe there are that many teams in the league that have 4 corners that can match across the board. Plus, put Slayton and Hyatt out wide and Nabers and Robinson in the slots and they’re going to almost by definition have to drop their safeties and that should open things underneath as well as for the run game. Again, if it were me I’m up burning the midnight oil scheming how to get the ball in the hands of my wideouts and let them run with it.
Defensively, the Giants just have to get more aggressive. Get more guys to the line of scrimmage, attack and make the other make plays. There is nothing more deflating for players and fans alike when you have the other team in 3rd and long with the crowd, which was raised watching LT wreak havoc, in an uproar, and the other guys convert playing pitch and catch against a 4-man rush and soft, safety-first coverage. Again and again and again! In the end, football is a very emotional game and you build that emotion thru big plays. But big plays just don’t happen. You have to make them happen. Or go home!
