EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ -- Lose like the Giants are losing -- big leads wasted, collapses late all around, strengths wilted into weaknesses -- and criticism mounts. Doubt creeps. Frustration brews.
Not even the Giants know what happened to their offense
The Giants entered the season with a goal of scoring 30 points per game. They’ve managed to do that in four of their 12 games. What happened?
This is where the Giants are after leading the Jets 20-10 entering the fourth quarter here at MetLife Stadium only to lose 23-20 in overtime. This is who they are after falling to a 5-7 record, sputtering and underachieving and spinning toward oblivion.
The Jets have the opposite record, 7-5, and playoff hopes.
Almost comically, the Giants do, too. Washington (5-6) leads the NFC East but is not capable of winning its final five games. Yes, the playoff door will remain open for the Giants.
But they look like a team unable to walk through it. They look ill-prepared, unconnected, uncertain and spooked. It’s a trickle-down thing.
I don’t think management believes in the Tom Coughlin style or effect anymore. I don’t think Coughlin believes in his second-year offensive coordinator, Ben McAdoo, and McAdoo’s ability to win big in big moments. I don’t think McAdoo is happy with many of the on-field decisions and play of his quarterback, Eli Manning. I don’t think Coughlin or McAdoo or Manning trusts their defense to do anything major late in a game that matters.
Everybody is looking over their shoulders here. Playing that way, too.
What else could you expect with a season so full of goofball moments and sheer inexcusable choices, a sinking season that, in part, was on full display here with the way the Giants handled this game.
Let’s look first at the way the game turned upside down on a Giants fourth-and-2 offensive failure and on a Jets fourth-and-6 offensive triumph.
It’s Giants ball, opening fourth-quarter drive, they’ve had the ball for nearly six minutes, driving from their 37 to the Jets 4. It is fourth-and-2. The Giants lead 20-10. Coughlin decides he will go for it. He wants a three-possession lead. Manning throws a pass that is intercepted by safety Rontez Miles.
Was Miles surprised?
“I was,” he said. “I thought they would kick a field goal, honestly. Everybody was saying it could change the game. We rallied up together.”
The Jets took the ball, scored a field goal, stopped the Giants offense cold with a three-and-out and then the Jets scored the tying touchdown with :27 seconds left. That touchdown drive featured a Jets fourth-and-6 play from the Giants 21. Fitzpatrick scrambled 15 yards for the first down.
So, the Giants fourth-down call was a high-risk, under-pressure Manning pass.
The Jets fourth-down call was a Fitzpatrick low-risk, up-the-gut, high-percentage run.
“Fitzpatrick is really smart,” Giants cornerback Prince Amukamara said. “We were running downfield matched up on receivers. We were not expecting him at all to run.”
Another Giants miscalculation. Another Giants malfunction. Amukamara had plenty of them, too, as he and all of the Giants defensive backs were mauled and whipped by Jets receiver Brandon Marshall (12 catches, 131 yards, 1 TD).
These Giants were built to score 30 points a game. The money is on the offensive side of the ball. The emphasis is on the offensive side of the ball. This was the goal -- average 30 points a game -- of the Giants offense from the first day of training camp. This was their blueprint.
I think it means something when Coughlin early in his news conference starts explaining another dud, another disaster by saying, “I do think you’ve got to score more than 20 points to win in this league ...” And when talking about the Giants three-and-out series between the Jets’ fourth-quarter scores, Coughlin said: “So, we have a four-minute offense, we’re expected to end the game with the ball in our hands, we haven’t done that. We end up kicking the ball back and the other team scores.”
After the Jets scored a field goal in overtime, the Giants blew their shot, a 48-yarder, the first miss all season for Giants kicker Josh Brown.
It still revolves around the Giants offense. This bunch has scored 30 or more points in only four of its 12 games this season. It is 3-1 in those games. The Giants are built to win with offense. But McAdoo is not winning. Manning is not winning (Fitzpatrick beat him in passing yards 390 to 297, in touchdown passes 2 to 1 and in quarterback rating 107.9 to 80.1). Receiver Reuben Randle is not winning. This eclectic offensive line is not winning. Running back Rashad Jennings is not winning. The tight ends are not winning. Oh, they all do on certain plays and in certain spots. There are moments where every component of this offense looks brilliant.
But give it to Jets defensive end Sheldon Richardson for this clarity: “They (Giants) played a lot better than what we had seen of them on film.”
Really, I asked Richardson alone later. What does that mean?
“I mean,” he said, “in that Washington game, they were getting beat all around and across the board. We had a handle on them. And they came out with some fight against us. But all they are is a down-the-field team. It is either big play with them or that’s it. They are not a 12-play drive team. And we knew if we took the big plays away, we could control things.”
Richardson is on to something. The Giants scored on 72-yard Odell Beckham, Jr. catch. They scored on two field goals.
All of that came in the second quarter. Special teams provided their other touchdown: an 80-yard punt return by Dwayne Harris.
Thus, the Giants offense managed only 13 points in this game. All in the second quarter.
The Giants went scoreless in this game in the first, third and fourth quarters and in overtime.
That is a losing offense.
And when Tom Coughlin turned to it on fourth-and-2, it failed him. He should have known better. He should have shaken the whole thing up even more long ago and had even more imprint on this Giants offense. He may have to do that to salvage this season and his job. Coughlin is feeling pressure. All of the Giants are feeling it. Coughlin admitted it by saying he went for that fourth-down play, in part, “to try to take the pressure off of everybody ...”
The pressure of losing. The pressure of time ticking on this intolerable Giants season.
“Anybody who knows anything about getting to the playoffs knows that even in Game 12, you are still building,” Giants linebacker J.T. Thomas III said. “You just have to continue to win the small battles and not overlook the small things before they turn into big things. Everyone knows the urgency here. You don’t want to let things implode.”
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