Biggest Concerns After New York Giants' Week 1 Loss
The New York Giants will return to work on Wednesday, their focus on getting themselves ready for the 2015 regular-season home opener against the Atlanta Falcons.
On paper, the game shouldn’t be much of a contest for the Giants; however as we have seen thus far in this still young season, it’s not a wise idea to take anything for granted with this Giants team.
It’s still early, and the outcome of one regular-season game should in no way define whether a team is going to be successful or if it’s going to be a long year.
With that said, there were a few concerns that popped up in the Giants' 27-26 Week 1 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, concerns that if the Giants don’t get out in front of could potentially derail the rest of the season.
Let’s run down those concerns and look at how the Giants might be able to alleviate them moving forward.
The Passing Game
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Remember how just a few short weeks ago the Giants receiving corps looked so stacked and like such a strength on this team that trying to figure out which players beyond Victor Cruz, Odell Beckham Jr., Rueben Randle and Dwayne Harris would make the roster?
Suddenly, the so-called strongest unit on the team has a lot of unanswered questions.
Simply put, besides Beckham, there has yet to be a receiver who has stepped up to discourage opposing defenses from surrounding the Madden cover boy with Presidential-like attention. Dallas held Beckham to five receptions (out of eight pass targets) for 44 yards on Sunday night.
The Giants have also found out that Randle continues to be inconsistent and that Preston Parker is not the answer for the hobbled Cruz in the slot. On Sunday night, Randle was unable to gain any separation against the Cowboys, who limited him to three receptions (out of five pass targets) for 23 yards.
OK, so what can the Giants do to help correct this problem? One possibility would be to try running back Shane Vereen in the slot. Considering that the opposing team’s slot cornerback is usually not big, Vereen, a solid 5’10, 205-pound athlete, could create some mismatches in coverage.
The other possibility, albeit unlikely right now, would be to try 6’2”, 217-pound Geremy Davis in the slot. Davis, who primarily practiced as an outside receiver during training camp, did get the occasional look in the slot; however, receivers coach Sean Ryan told me that Davis’ best position, at least at the time, was on the outside.
The ideal scenario is to get Cruz back this week. Head coach Tom Coughlin didn’t have an update on Cruz’s status when he spoke to the media on Monday, so it could be a little while longer before Cruz is ready to return to action.
The Pass Rush
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On Sunday, the Giants defense mustered up one quarterback hit and zero sacks against Dallas’ all-World offensive line.
While that in itself shouldn’t be a surprised—again, the Cowboys do have one of the best offensive lines in football—the Giants pass rush has been invisible since the start of the preseason, and that’s a concern.
According to Pro Football Focus, the Giants defense managed eight quarterback hurries, five of which were posted by defensive end Robert Ayers Jr. Otherwise, the rest of the defensive hurries came from the back end of the defense on blitzes.
So what can the Giants do up front?
If they’re not going to be able to penetrate and disrupt the passer, they can at least try to get their hands in the air like they don’t care and attempt to knock down passes that might be headed over the middle. By the way, that is an area of the field that the Giants still showed some signs of struggling to cover.
Covering the Middle of the Field
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New year, same story: The Giants continue to struggle to cover the middle of the field.
On Sunday night, Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo finished 36 of 45 for 356 yards, with none of his pass attempts going for more than 19 yards before YAC.
Per Pro Football Focus, 243 of Romo’s passing yards and two of his three touchdowns came on balls thrown in the middle of the field.
With the two interceptions also coming in the middle of the field, Romo finished with a 91.38 passer rating on balls thrown inside the numbers.
It remains to be seen if defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has an answer for this recurring problem, but it will certainly be interesting to see if teams continue to attack the middle of the field against the Giants and just how successful such an attack might be.
Attention to Detail
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Part of being human is making mistakes.
However, when you are in a must-win season, when you have a division opponent on the ropes and you have control of the game, if you’re going to make a mistake, it simply cannot be of epic proportions such as what happened when quarterback Eli Manning mismanaged the game clock on the Giants’ final drive of the game.
What’s particularly disturbing about the whole scenario is this quote from Manning’s conference call with reporters Monday (emphasis added):
"We talked about it a little on the sideline and I thought we were on the same page where we’re still not trying, trying to get as close as possible but not get in the end zone. I was wrong on that so that’s my miscommunication and my mistake thinking that was a scenario for second down and expecting that from [running back] Rashad [Jennings].
"
What’s most surprising about the fiasco is that a Coughlin-coached team usually pays attention to every last tiny detail, both before and during a game.
That no one from the coaching staff apparently thought it necessary to remind Manning about the game situation at that point in time is both perplexing and about as blatant of a communication breakdown as anything we might see on the field.
As crazy as this might sound, it might not be a bad idea for the coaches to verify that they and the players are indeed on the same page moving forward so that incidents like this do not occur again, be it in offense, defense or special teams.
Team Resiliency
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Last week, cornerback Prince Amukamara raised a few eyebrows when he spoke about the consequences of a potential season-opening loss to the Cowboys,
“I think that can break the team’s morale, especially with the guys who have already been here and who have already experienced 0-1, then 0-2 and then 0-6," Amukamara said, per Paul Schwartz of the New York Post.
“It’s just a bad taste in your mouth and with this organization that wants to win now and always has a sense of urgency."
With the loss having come through and in a devastating fashion at that, defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins, on a conference call with reporters, sounded like a beaten man when asked if the team has to guard against the threat of either the team or individuals becoming so devastated by the loss that they fail to bounce back the following week.
“Definitely devastated, and I think I’ve probably been one of the most devastated in the defensive meeting room,” he said.
“I had a lot of guys coming to me trying to pick me up and help morale because it was tough. You go out there and you fight, we fight as hard as we did, and we put ourselves in position, and we just couldn’t close it out and finish it.”
The last three Giants teams haven’t responded well to being punched in the mouth by the opponent, and that’s been a growing concern with this team.
Go back to the 2007 championship team, a group that started 0-2 but never gave up on themselves and defined resiliency.
Unfortunately, that quality has been missing in the last three seasons.
Yes, the Giants were punched in the mouth again in Week 1. Yes, it’s a devastating loss, but it’s one that they probably should have put behind them as quickly as possible rather than continue to dwell on it almost 24 hours later.
It will be interesting to see the energy level of this team on Sunday when they host the Falcons. Will they come out swinging, or will they still be smarting from this latest punch in the mouth?
If it’s not the former, then buckle up for a long season, Giants fans.
Patricia Traina covers the Giants for Inside Football, the Journal Inquirer and Sports Xchange. All quotes and information were obtained firsthand unless otherwise sourced.
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