The New York Giants have been one of the most undisciplined teams in the NFL across the last couple of seasons. They ranked fourth in penalties (128) and penalty yards (1,075) last season, and part of why they hired John Harbaugh is because they were hoping he would remedy that issue.
The Super Bowl-winning head coach is known to be great at whipping teams into shape, almost sort of like a modern-day Tom Coughlin. Harbs is known to be one of the best disciplinarians in football, but right now, his old-school approach isn't exactly yielding the results most fans were expecting.
The NY Post's Ryan Dunleavy reported that New York committed 14 penalties by his count in their first day of practices with pads on. Even in the pouring rain, there is no excuse for that gross lack of discipline, especially when Harbaugh was meant to be the head coach to bring discipline back to the facility.
The New York Giants had a penalty-riddled day of practice on Monday
The practice itself was brutal for Big Blue, as the offense couldn't get anything going, but the penalties were the tip of the iceberg. Harbaugh's squad committed nine penalties on offensive and five on defense in what was likely the sloppiest practice session we've seen in quite some time. Jaxson Dart has struggled thus far, which has been compounded by the entire offense.
The unfortunate part of this is that the Giants were hoping their penalty woes would take a step in the right direction under new leadership. Practices have been longer and more rigorous, so the expectation is that stricter practices would translate to more discipline, which hasn't been the case.
Most Giants beat reporters have noted that most of the flags were pre-snap like offsides and false start calls, which is even worse. These are penalties that are incredibly avoidable, so knowing the there isn't enough cohesion on either side of the football at this stage of training camp isn't ideal.
The G-Men should know better by now. Harbaugh has made several changes in the months since he was hired, but apparently it isn't enough. We know he's been harping on the importance of discipline since that was where he hung his hat in Baltimore, but something was clearly lost in translation.
The Giants were banking on John Harbaugh to change the narratives that plagued this team under Brian Daboll, but right now, it appears that nothing's changed. As long as these penalty concerns aren't cleaned up before the season, we may as well kiss any playoff hopes this team has goodbye.
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