Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
The 2014 New York football Giants now have three preseason games under their belt, and have even wrapped up the public portion of their training camp. Over the past few weeks there have certainly been good and bad moments from the Giants. Let’s take a look at some of the pre-season trends.
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Ben McAdoo’s new look west coast offense – McAdoo himself has opened up about the pre-season struggles of his Giants offense, and Giants’ fans are beginning to get very impatient. The starters have looked downright bad, accumulating just 216 total yards on 11 drives in 3 games (4.2 yards per play). If you take out the Rashad Jennings 73 yard run against the Steelers, the numbers look even more terrifying. McAdoo’s boss, Tom Coughlin, also seems to be frustrated with the lack of offensive cohesion:
“We think we’ve got to work on a lot of things. We’ve got to basically work on everything”
With only two pre-season games left, the Giants better get their offense figured out, and quickly. If not, Giants’ fans might have to suffer through another rough early season.
Jerrel Jernigan – The former third round pick has had a rough start to his Giants career. However, he was very good in the last three games of last season, hauling in 19 catches for 237 yards and a touchdown. These promising signs even drew the attention of Giants co-owner, John Mara, who stated at the end of last season:
“”I’m not sure why it took us three years to find out Jerrel Jernigan can play. We finally put him in the game and he starts making plays. Sometimes you have to put young players in the game and give them a chance to fail or succeed. That’s true not only with him but other guys, too.”
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Well, Jernigan has gone back to looking downright awful so far in pre-season. He has a total of 3 catches for 19 yards. To me, it seems like the Giants keep trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, when it comes to Jernigan. With his small stature and quick speed, he is more suited to the slot than the outside. However, as long as Victor Cruz is around, he will find it hard to see time at his more natural position.
Where’s the pressure, man? – The Giants recent Super Bowl teams were built around generating pressure with their front four. Last year, the Giants finished tied 25th in the league with a paltry 34 sacks. Long time defensive end, Justin Tuck, has moved onto Oakland and Jason Pierre-Paul will now be given the opportunity to be the leader of the defensive front. Well, so far, things seem very familiar to last season. The Giants starters have yet to record a sack. A few times they have been close, but unable to finish the job, something Giants’ fans are getting sick and tired of witnessing. Although the Giants spent a lot of money revamping their secondary, all of that will be wasted if the Giants front four gives the quarterback all day to sit in the pocket.