Defense a Soft Spot For The New York Giants
The New York Giants are currently on a four game losing streak and there is plenty of blame to go around the locker room. It is safe to say that aside from Odell Beckham Jr. and Eli Manning, there are no healthy play makers on the Giants offense which has led to too many stalled drives and missed opportunities. To call their special teams poor would be a compliment aside from Steve Weatherford who has been solid despite having suffered four torn ligaments in one ankle.
The team and it’s front office have acted very uncharacteristically this year by making bold statements to the media instead of addressing them in the locker room. There have been players like Antrel Rolle and Jason Pierre-Paul questioning their teammate’s heart and desire to play hard. This has been amplified by playing undisciplined football by committing costly penalties and turnovers that have been a rarity under a team coached by Tom Coughlin.
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The biggest issue for the Giants so far though has been their defense led by coordinator Perry Fewell. Yes, there have been many key injuries to this defensive unit but there is still enough talent on the field to play better than they have over the last four games where they have been outscored 109 to 62.
Statistically, the Giants currently have the worst defense in the league worse than the Jacksonville Jaguars, Oakland Raiders, and even the New York Jets.
After watching the Giants give up 350 rushing yards last week to the Seattle Seahawks, the question everyone is asking is what has happened to a Giants team that built it’s legacy on having a feared hard-nosed defense? All of a sudden the Giants look confused on defense constantly missing assignments as well as failures to contain the edges.
They constantly miss tackles to the point that I myself have lost count of how many times they have missed bringing down quarterbacks in the backfield. The most telling characteristic of this Giants defense is their inability to stop the run. A team’s toughness and physicality can always be judged by how well they battle in the trenches and stop opposing running backs from reaching the secondary.
The Giants cannot seem to make blocks since they take bad angles and they get fooled too easily on play fakes. There is also a huge blatant lack of communication which has lead to many breakdowns in coverage.
The bottom line is that this Giants defense is playing soft and everybody in the league knows it. They get manhandled week after week and still say the same speech about how they’re going to figure it out and play better. If this defense wants to play better, then the need to be more aggressive and play like they actually want to win a game and not roll over and die in the face of adversity. If not, then there will be many more new faces on the field next year than there are this year for the Giants.