A Not So Happy Giant New Year

Well, it’s a new year and the blog is back. To kick it off an excruciatingly long look at the now dearly departed New York Football Giants.

OVERVIEW
After winning their final game, to go 10-6, but missing the play-offs anyway (due to Green Bay beating a Chicago team that despite having nothing to play for ran out all their starters for the entire game) Giants ownership immediately announced that Tom Coughlin would not be fired. It’s an interesting decision since after a devastating finish to last year’s season (starting 5-0 only to finish 8-8 and miss the playoffs) this was widely considered a proverbial make or break year for the head coach. And one does not generally make it by missing the play-offs.

On the other hand, a 10-6 record is usually good enough to get the job done. It’s hard to look at that record and not view the season as a success, especially when considering that the team that achieved it was largely the same as the one that collapsed last season, other than a new defensive coordinator (and regrettably a new punter…but we’ll get to that). So, the question then is what was actually different year over year? Did the players play better? Did the coaches coach better? And, is the two game improvement enough to definitively say that Coughlin deserves to be back (when taking into account that before 09 Tom Coughlin had by everybody’s estimation been an extremely successful coach with the New York Giants making the playoffs every year since 2005).

The easiest explanation is that the Giant had a much easier schedule this season than last. If you look at the Giants ten wins, only two of them came against playoff teams (Chicago, and Seattle). And obviously Seattle doesn’t count. Don’t believe me, ask Nate Silver (insert link). Of the other eight wins only Jacksonville finished with a better record than 6-10 (they finished at 8-8). Now let’s look at the Giants six losses this year. Two of them were “bad” losses, losing to the 6-10 Cowboys and the 6-10 Titans. The other four were against Green Bay, Indianapolis, and twice against Philadelphia (once in historically, painfully, brutal fashion). So, looking back on the 2010 season it seems accurate to say they beat one team that was better than them in the Chicago Bears, and lost to two teams that were worse than them in the Tennessee Titans and Dallas Cowboys. That one game differential ends up being the difference between making the playoffs and not.

Now let’s compare that with 2009. The Giants won eight games, of which five were against teams with five wins or less (Wash twice, KC, Oak, TB), two were against a playoff team in Dallas, and one was against the 9-7 Falcons. Now, the eight losses: Six of them were against playoff teams with at least ten wins (Philadelphia twice, New Orleans, Arizona, San Diego, and Minnesota). The other two were against 8-8 Denver, and 8-8 Carolina. So, in 2009 the Giants lost to precisely zero teams that ended up with a worse record than them and beat three teams that had a better record. While in 2010 the Giants beat one team that ended up above them in the standings, and lost to two that they were by all accounts demonstrably better than. Even if we count Denver and Carolina as teams the Giants should have beaten in 2009 we would then have to count Atlanta as a team they should have beaten (which given the way the season played out is probably fair) then in 2009 they lost two games they should have won, and won two they should have lost, which is still a better job than they did in 2010. Oops.

Obviously the comparatively easier schedule can’t tell the whole story. After-all when the Giants lost to the Titans in week three this season it seemed like Tennessee was going to be a contending team, and the same was true when they beat Houston in week five. And in 2009, when they lost to Denver it was a much worse loss than just losing to an 8-8 team when considering the Giants were one of only two teams that Denver beat in the second half of the season. It can be incredibly misleading to judge end of year records as final arbiters of anything in the NFL (other than who makes the playoffs). So, next up we (and by we, I mean me, and maybe if I’m lucky my immediate family members who are still reading this) will attempt to determine if the Giants players are actually any good, and thus whether or not they achieved the coaches holy grail and…drum roll please…..over achieved.

THE OFFENSE

Is the offense any good? It’s a fair question to ask. All that anybody could talk about this season was how often the Giants turned the ball over, and with good reason. Eli led the league in picks with 25 (although in the true Jekyll and Hyde fashion of this offense he was also fourth in TD passes with 31). Ahmad Bradshaw, despite being a top ten running back in the league and rushing for over 1,000 yards lost more fumbles than any other running back in the league except Peyton Hillis. And the offensive line, long the Giants pillar of stability started six different combinations of players over the course of the season as they dealt with injuries. So, with that is the back drop…were they any good?

I should put a disclaimer on the following paragraphs. I am an unabashed Eli Manning apologist. So, while leading the league in interceptions is not a good thing, I am now going to spend god knows how many words telling you why it’s not his fault. Although I will concede that frequently Eli just tries to do too much. He has visions of David Tyree and the helmet catch dancing around in his head like the Sugar Plum Fairies. For a line that at times was a patchwork of second and third stringers Eli just didn’t get sacked enough, only 16 times which tied with the other Manning for the league lead. It seems like an odd thing so say, but as a QB who spends the vast majority of his time in the pocket he needs to stop making desperate left hand flips to avoid sacks and just take the medicine.

Ok, now onto why it’s everybody else’s fault. First, the Giant’s wide receivers are not nearly as good as everybody wants to believe. Physical ability which Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham have in spades is only one part of what it takes to be a good receiver. Running routes, recognizing blitzes, and when and how to cut off what was called that’s equally as important. And Steve Smith who missed most of the last third of the season is the only Giant receiver who gets that right. That leaves Manning consistently hung out to dry. Second, the Giants are a big play offense. Running or passing they thrive on getting large chunks of yards. But, they aren’t a big play team like say Philadelphia or Green Bay is a big play team. They don’t have the physical superiority to just run by you or make 17 guys miss and take a little slant 80 yards to the house. The Giants rely on matchups. They want to make you try and cover three wide receivers and a run possibility and then when you can’t, pick the option that you’ve left open and exploit it. And as the 31 touchdowns, and 1000 yard rusher show, it works most of the time. Here’s when it doesn’t work. When you are in third and 11 and everybody and their cousin know you’re throwing the ball. That’s when you need precision routes, and route combinations. That’s when you need excellent timing, that’s when you need an offensive line that can stop a defense dedicated to rushing the passer. That’s when you need a whole bunch of things the Giants don’t have.

That brings me to the Giants offensive line-- It’s always tempting to focus on what professional athletes can’t do, so let’s start with the positive. Despite injuries the line played well. They gave up 16 sacks all season, blocked for a 1,000 yard rusher in Bradshaw, and an 800 yard rusher in Jacobs. By all accounts that’s a successful season. In addition lots of credit has to go to offensive line coach Pat Flaherty who has consistently coached up a deep group of versatile athletic playmakers since he got here in 2004. Now, here’s what the line couldn’t do this year. They couldn’t physically dominate. In a situation where the defense knew the Giants were passing, they couldn’t stop the pass rush. On obvious running downs, they couldn’t get a push up front. Versatility is good, but it only gets you so far. The Giants consistently failed to kill off games because they couldn’t run the ball, and when you have running backs as talented as the Giants do the fault falls squarely on the o-lines shoulders.

Those running backs, though, talented as they may be, also deserve a heavy dose of the credit/blame split, as do the coordinators for how they were used. There seems to be this belief that Brandon Jacobs needs to run inside the tackles because he is bigger than two of Ahmad Bradshaw put together. Where this came from I’m not sure, and it’s just about the stupidest thing on the planet. Here’s an idea, Jacobs is bigger than nine of the eleven guys on the defensive side of the ball, let’s run him right into the other two. It makes no sense. Jacobs is an excellent runner outside the tackles. He has nimble feet, and he just destroys defensive backs at the point of attack. It lets him fully leverage his size and get a head of steam going downfield. Bradshaw conversely is a great runner inside. He has much better body control than Jacobs and flits through all sorts of cracks and crevices that Jacobs couldn’t get his left thigh through. The Giants don’t use them that way enough. Of course, none of that matters for either of them if they don’t learn to hold onto the damn ball.

So, what’s the moral of the offensive story? The offensive scheme is built on being in manageable down and distances to make the defense have to cover everything, thus making them easier to exploit for a big play. This puts pressure on Eli in two fairly obvious ways. The first, he can’t take sacks because they don’t have the personnel for a drive to recover. The second, if you think you have a big play, take it. Throw the ball downfield to the matchup you like and depend on you receiver to make a play. The problem? Both of those edicts create high likelihoods of interceptions if you make a mistake. How do you fix it? Steve Smith helps a lot, in that when he’s healthy Eli has a good safe target to go to, but even when he was there the Giants turned the ball over way too much. Philosophically if they can’t stop making mistakes they need to become more conservative, but in order to do that effectively you need a more physically dominant offensive line which again depends on health. And while the current crew has been great over the past five years, they certainly aren’t getting any younger. So, surprise surprise, there are no easy answers. To me, that indicates that the coaching staff is doing a pretty good job of maximizing a physically talented, but not necessarily great personnel group.

Up next, defense and special teams.