The New York Giants’ season is not going as planned. Now sitting at 2-5 after their Week 7 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, they’re trying to figure out what went wrong.
A good place to start is by going over what we learned in Sunday’s loss.
Pat Shurmur is struggling as much as his players
Two weeks and two losses into the season, Pat Shurmer made the decision to bench Eli Manning in favor of Daniel Jones. Jones started strong with two wins, but has lost the last three.
Shurmur is now realizing that his quarterback was never the problem. Not having Saquon Barkley wasn’t the problem. Injuries overall are not the problem. The problem starts with him. The play calling, the decision-making — it’s all bad. And until Shurmur realizes that all of the team’s problems start with him, nothing is going to change.
Daniel Jones may be a turnover machine
In his four games as a starter, Jones has thrown seven interceptions and had five fumbles.
Dave Gettleman and Pat Shurmur wanted Jones, who was being compared to Eli, and they got exactly what they wanted. No, the interceptions may not be all his fault, much like Eli, passes get tipped and receivers miss passes, but the stat goes on the passer. The fumbles, though… those are controllable.
Making faster decisions before the pocket collapses is helpful, throwing it away or simply holding on to the ball when being tackled are all correctable. Those are the things Jones needs to work on in practice to keep the turnover ratio down.
The O-line has regressed
Over the first six games, the offensive line allowed 12 sacks and 45 quarterback hits, an average of two sacks and 7.5 hits per game. Against the Cardinals, they allowed eight sacks and 12 hits alone. And that doesn’t account for the number of times Jones was pressured and flushed out of the pocket.
The offensive line has to protect the quarterback if the Giants have any hope of getting down the field, let alone winning a game. Their regression accounts for Jones’ continued turnover problem as the rookie isn’t experienced enough to know when he has to get rid of the ball or hold on for dear life.
The offensive line is one of the most important pieces of any football team, so this regression has to stop or the Giants are in more trouble than they realize.
Losing is becoming commonplace
The last time the Giants had a winning season was 2016, and before that it was 2012. All other seasons in between are losing seasons. The last time they did anything in the post-season was their 2011 Super Bowl run. That was eight years ago. They have just four winning seasons in the last decade, so yes, losing is becoming commonplace.
No one likes to lose, so it’s time for the Giants to figure out the ultimate cause of these losing seasons and fix it. The Giants have a lengthy history of producing quality teams, but their recent drought has fans disgruntled.
John Mara and Steve Tisch need to put their heads together to figure out how to turn this team around. The talent is certainly there, so it’s clear something else has to give.
