5 Main culprits for recent downfall of the NY Giants

5. Pat Shurmur

It’s difficult to put a lot of the blame of the lack of success of a franchise on a head coach. After all, they are restricted to coaching the level of talent that is available on their roster. It is fair to acknowledge that during most of head coach Pat Shurmur’s tenure with the Giants, they have been engaged in a rebuild process and he has had a roster that is bursting at the seams with rookie and second-year talent.

While recognizing that is a difficult situation for any head coach to find success, there are certainly underlying reasons to believe that Shurmur is partly at fault for the last two losing seasons.

It has been well documented that Shurmur’s unwillingness to relinquish the offensive play-calling duties for the Giants has been an issue. His play-calling has lacked any real innovation and has frequently left rookie quarterback in precarious situations and has left him open to criticism for his apparent inability to call plays that properly utilize the freakish athletic ability of superstar running back Saquon Barkley.

Perhaps more egregious is how Shurmur’s game management abilities have seemingly suffered because he seems to have placed his focus on his play-calling duties. On numerous occasions, Shurmur has made perplexing decisions regarding when to take timeouts, when to go for it on fourth down, as well as his well-documented inability to challenge pass interference penalties. His inability to perform menial game management tasks have cost the Giants opportunities to win multiple games, which is unacceptable.

Another area where Shurmur seems deficient is his ability to have his team progress in a positive fashion. Giants ownership and fans alike, would likely be more inclined to give Shurmur support if the Giants were losing, but seemed to get better from week-to-week. However, the team seems to make the same mistakes on a weekly basis and players have not progressed in a manner that would suggest that Shurmur is grooming this young core to become a successful team.

Instead, the Giants seem to lose in the same manner regularly and Giants fans are forced to listen to postgame press conferences from their head coach about how they just aren’t good enough to win yet, how the culture of the team is outstanding, or how he’s seen improvements in practice and the weight room that just haven’t translated to wins. Shurmur’s demeanor suggests nothing that would serve as a motivator to his team and regularly seems out of touch with reality.

As a result of all of these miscues and deficiencies, the Giants have a record of 9-22 under Shurmur. Of those nine wins, three have come against the Washington Redskins who have been equally as embarrassing as the Giants and two have come against the lowly Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In fact, the Giants have only one win against a winning team with Pat Shurmur as the head coach. That win was a 30-27 victory against the Chicago Bears in 2018, in a game that was started by backup QB Chase Daniel.

Due to this poor track record, Shurmur must shoulder some of the blame for the woeful play of the Giants, and their recent demise into becoming one of the worst teams in the entire NFL.