It seems that no matter who dons the head set for the New York Giants, the same deficiencies keep rearing their ugly head.
Surely, new head coach Pat Shurmur will accentuate the positives for his New York Giants, but that tells only part of the story of their 20-15 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the NFL season opener. The positive were very evident. This week, Odell Beckham was Odell Beckham, and it still wasn’t enough to carry the team to victory. And while rookie running back Saquon Barkley‘s 68-yard touchdown scamper was a thing of beauty, it was an outlier in the contest where the rookie halfback had few running lanes.
The proof was in the pudding as Barkley only gained 38 yards in his 17 other carries (2.2 yards per carry).
Translation: once again this season, the offensive line still isn’t where it should be, and needs to be, in order to protect the hand-picked quarterback, as well as provide running lanes for the dynamic rookie from Penn State. Watching Jacksonville’s Blake Bortles scamper 41-yards on a quarterback keeper in the first half, only served to further highlight Manning’s lack of mobility.
Again this season, Manning’s immobility, along with a leaky offensive line, provides a lethal combination which will make victories difficult to attain in an NFL that now requires nimble quarterback play. A cemented footed quarterback surrounded by a collapsible pocket is a sour tune that Big Blue has been singing for several seasons now.
New York Giants
If impediment of the offensive line wasn’t enough, when Big Blue needed a big play from their special teams unit, new recruit Kaelin Clay gave away the game with a careless muff on a punt return in the game’s final minute. All together, these chronic pains conspired together in the 20-15 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars at a rainy and wet MetLife Stadium.
Some folks will point out that the Jaguars are a win-now team, currently built for a title run, and that would be true. That reality means this game was a solid test to see how far Big Blue has come, as well as to see how far the team still needs go. Both questions were seemingly answered.
Jacksonville’s defensive front gave the Big Blue offensive line all it could handle and then some. Let there be no doubt that the New York Giants challenged the visitors from Jacksonville in every way, but the G-Men still came up short.
At least that’s how Shurmur saw it, per the team’s official website:
"“We’re talking about some close plays here, where if they go your way, it makes a big difference. But those are the if’s and but’s that you don’t worry about.”"
Clay’s punt return is correctable, but the jury is still out with regard to the offensive line play, and if that is correctable with the same players manning the same positions.
Beckham Dominates
Despite the loss, two building blocks showed up on the field turf.
First, the New York Giants defense held the Jacksonville Jaguars offense pointless in the second half. They were obviously helped by the Jaguars loss of running back Leonard Fournette to a hamstring injury in the first half. Fournette did not return.
Secondly, the return of star receiver Odell Beckham was a rousing success. Luckily for loud-mouth cornerback Jalen Ramsey, the Jags coaching staff wasn’t going allow the team to be beaten single handedly by OBJ. Ramsey benefitted from safety help nearly the entire game. Despite his bluster about being the best cover corner in the NFL, Ramsey was largely protected in a zone defense for much of the contest.
Even so, OBJ had 11 catches on 15 targets for 111 yards. Unfortunately, he could not get into the end zone for Big Blue. One missed connection between quarterback Eli Manning and Beckham would have resulted in a big play, but Manning was pressured and missed the open receiver.
And that was really the story of the game – the deficient play of the New York Giants offensive line and near misses. But don’t kid yourself, those two factors go hand-in-hand. Statistics will show that the G-Men had 115 yards on the ground, but 68 yards came via one Saquon Barkley run. Otherwise, the New York Giants averaged 2.0 yards per carry against the Jacksonville defense.
Manning was also sacked twice, but he rarely had a clean pocket. Jaguars linebacker Myles Jack returned a deflected pass for 32-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. On the play, Manning was hurried on the outside and had to step up into congestion. Jacksonville was able to take of newly installed right tackle Ereck Flowers on a regular basis.
High-priced left tackle Nate Solder also struggled with the Jaguar pass rush, as New York continued to be plagued by the same old problem. Shurmur tried to downplay events, but this has been a chronic issue with the franchise going back a number of years. It may be new to him, but the fanbase has obviously been around this tree many times in the past seven seasons.
When Shurmur was pressed about the pressure on Manning and missing some plays, he denied the correlation between pocket pressure and missed passes. According to Giants.com:
"“We threw a post to Odell and missed, didn’t connect. There’s no Hunt for Red October there.”"
That’s 100 percent inaccurate, but we can make an allocation for the fact that Jacksonville has one of the best defenses in the NFL. Remember, this is also the third set of coaches that has presided over Ereck Flowers playing tackle in the National Football League, and the results continue to be the exactly the same.
Finally, the team’s struggle with special teams continues to bite the squad at inopportune times. Newly signed Kaelin Clay put the final nail in the Giants coffin by muffing a punt and denying the offense one last shot at the Jags defense. A comeback was a longshot, at best, but an opportunity is still an opportunity.