Ranking NY Giants’ 5 biggest risks taken in 2021
Every NFL team makes difficult decisions in the best interest of their organization, and this offseason, the NY Giants have been no different.
The NY Giants and their fanbase should be feeling good about themselves.
New York positioned themselves to have a strong offseason. The Giants took advantage of an unusual market and they filled several holes at positions of need.
Although the NY Giants accomplished key business tasks, no NFL team ends up with no glaring needs or risks taken in the offseason. Teams often live and die from the risks they take in trades, free agency, and the NFL Draft.
The NY Giants have taken some calculated risks in 2021, here are some to look for this season:
Retaining Jason Garrett could end up as a Costly Mistake
The NY Giants bringing back offensive coordinator Jason Garrett might be the biggest risk taken in 2021.
Garrett joined the NY Giants last season. After a long run as the Cowboys’ Head Coach, Garrett latched onto Joe Judge’s staff as the Offensive Coordinator.
The move wasn’t necessarily the most awe-inspiring hire at the time. Garrett was hired to bring in professionalism to the offense and hopefully continue his offensive successes from Dallas.
However, Garrett’s offense struggled mightily in year one.
His Air Coryell offense did not pan out in New York as expected. Garrett’s reputation in Dallas took some major hits in his last few seasons. It was evident when watching Dallas games live on TV (or watching the All-22 film) that Garrett was not the main recipient of his team’s offensive successes.
When you have an all-time offensive line, a star running back from the start, a quarterback with poise and a confidence level beyond his years, and excellent receiving options, it didn’t seem like the Cowboys’ success was in credit to Jason Garrett.
They had very good players who consistently made plays and kept the chains going via Prescott, Zeke, Amari Cooper, Dez Bryant before him, and Jason Witten. These guys were all far more important than Garrett was to their offense and it started to show at the end.
Garrett is relatively bland and vanilla with his offensive scheme and playcalling. He seldom uses presnap motion, he didn’t use deception to free up players, and he rarely put his players in a position to succeed. Jones never called up “free” or “easy” plays that almost automatically create free yardage and/or space immediately after the snap.
Garrett coordinated the Giants’ offense to the league’s 2nd worst team in points and yards. It’s not much of a consolation prize only the lowly Jets were worse, who didn’t win a game until Week 15. It was the worst New York Giants’ offense by far of the last 25 years.
Garrett must show a lot more in 2021. He brought little to the table in 2021 and then provided the offense with no spark or scheming ability to win with less talented players.
The hot seat should be scorching red for Garrett. Judge already fired Garrett’s handpicked Offensive Linemen coach midseason last year. If Garrett’s offense doesn’t come alive in the first few four weeks, Joe Judge will have a complicated issue on his hand to replace Jason Garrett or not.