5 New York Giants Players to Watch vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars
The New York Giants' schedule might be easier on paper starting with this week’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, but please, oh please don’t tell that to quarterback Eli Manning.
“They have one win, and we have three wins,” Manning told reporters earlier this week. “I don’t think we are in a position to label anybody or to think we are better than anybody.”
He is right.
The Giants are once again one of the NFL’s most frustrating teams in that they could look like a playoff contender for part of a game only to suddenly revert into the bumbling, stumbling mess responsible for the team’s current six-game losing streak and their pre-Thanksgiving exit from postseason consideration for a second consecutive year.
That fact hasn’t been lost on head coach Tom Coughlin either, who told reporters, “At least two of the last three (games) have been extremely competitive for four quarters, one was for three quarters. That’s all fine and dandy, but the bottom line is what everybody seeks and that’s exactly where we are.”
In other words, he is still looking for his team to finish a game, to put 60 minutes of solid football together.
With that said, how does Coughlin get his team to finish a game for the first time since they “finished” against Atlanta, their last winning effort, on October 5?
“That’s the question, isn’t it? You work your tail off to get the game in a position where you can win it. Now let’s go win it. We haven’t done it. You keep working,” he said.
While the Giants keep working to get to that point of finally finishing a game, here is a look at five players whose performances can make the difference.
WR Odell Beckham Jr.
1 of 5
For as much joy as rookie receiver Odell Beckham Jr.’s amazing fingertip catch has brought Giants fans in this dismal 2014 season, the NFL has always been a game of “what have you done for me lately?”
It’s understandable—there really hasn’t been that much for Big Blue’s fans to cheer about this season.
Still, as head coach Tom Coughlin told Mike Eisen of Giants.com, “Let’s not put him in the Hall of Fame just yet.”
However, for those who are looking for more acrobatics from the Week 12 Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Week award winner, does it really matter if the rest of his receptions are of the one-handed, circus-style variety so long as they move the chains?
With that out of the way, let’s talk about the challenges facing Beckham moving forward.
Despite having missed the first month of the season while dealing with a lingering hamstring issue, Beckham has 609 receiving yards, 37th in the NFL, and is on pace for 1,044 receiving yards by the season’s end.
Because of his overall production, he has quickly become a focal point for opposing defensive coordinators, who are devoting bracket coverage against the rookie, coverage similar to what Victor Cruz used to see before his season-ending injury.
"The last few weeks we probably have seen a little bit more two safeties and kind of keeping an extra safety over his head a little bit more than what the teams have shown going into the breakdowns and what they have been doing," quarterback Eli Manning said during a conference call with reporters.
"I think they do know he has some big-play potential, and they might kind of start that way, but they are going to get back to some single-high and give him some opportunities to have some one-on-one matchups and he is doing a good job winning those matchups."
The challenge for the Giants is that if opposing defenses minimize what Beckham is able to do in the passing game, who then picks up the slack?
Think that one over a bit because unless the rookie has some additional moves in his bag of tricks we have yet to see, his production could start to come back down to earth by the season’s end.
That’s because the next most consistent option in the passing game, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), is Preston Parker, who has caught 23 of 35 pass targets for 288 yards to give quarterback Eli Manning a 76.8 passer rating, second behind his 119.1 rating when throwing to Beckham.
While on the subject of the passing game, worth noting specific to this week’s game is that while the Jaguars pass defense is allowing opponents 257.3 yards per game, they’re allowing just 57.0 percent of third-down passes to be completed.
Beckham has been the Giants go-to guy on third down, leading the Giants with 18 receptions for 201 yards and two touchdowns. In addition, Beckham has 34 first-down conversions, one behind running back Rashad Jennings for the team.
Those stats are just a few of the many reasons underscoring how important Beckham has become in the Giants offense, and why he’s likely to be the top target to slow down on the Jaguars’ radar this weekend.
RB Andre Williams
2 of 5
One of the positives for the Jaguars this season is their red-zone defense, which is the best in the NFL. Jacksonville has allowed opponents just 16 touchdowns out of 41 trips inside the 20.
The Giants' red-zone offense, meanwhile, isn’t as good as they’d probably like it to be. Of the Giants’ 39 trips to the red zone, they have scored touchdowns 26 times (67 percent) and have four turnovers.
Breaking that down a little further, the Giants are 22 of 26 as far as scoring touchdowns (85 percent) when they are in goal-to-go situations. Of those 22 touchdowns, Williams has five (22.7 percent), all rushing scores.
There have been plenty of times this season where the Giants have left points on the field that might have made a difference in the outcome of games.
If New York wants to finish with a respectable record this year, it has to stop that bleeding and take advantage of every scoring opportunity that comes its way.
LT Will Beatty
3 of 5
Lost in the disaster of the 2014 season is the fact that left tackle Will Beatty, who last year had a horrible showing in most every facet of his game, has rebounded back into the form he showed in the 2012 season, his contract year.
Per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Beatty is not only the highest-graded Giants player on offense (10.4), he’s also their best pass-blocker (5.0) and second-best run-blocker (3.2) behind Geoff Schwartz, the latter of whom made his 2014 regular-season debut last week.
Let’s talk about Beatty’s pass blocking, since this weekend he’s likely going to face Jaguars outside linebacker Chris Clemons, their team leader in sacks with 7.0 and quarterback pressures with 11.
Through 11 games this season, PFF has Beatty down as having allowed 3.0 sacks, seven hits and 15 pressures, all drastic reductions from where he was after 11 games played last season.
Moreover, he’s back in PFF's top-10 list—Beatty is currently ranked ninth—of offensive tackles who have played at least 75 percent of their team’s snaps this season.
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CB Zack Bowman
4 of 5
While no one is probably going to mistake cornerback Zack Bowman for Prince Amukamara, the man he replaced in the starting lineup three games ago who was having a Pro Bowl season, the drop-off in talent between Amukamara and Bowman hasn't been insurmountable.
Per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), he has allowed only eight passes out of 25 to be complete for 162 yards.
However, of those eight, three have done for touchdowns. That gives Bowman, who also has two interceptions, a respectable 62.0 NFL rating.
This week, he will probably see a lot of rookie wideout Allen Hurns, who is third on the Jaguars with 31 receptions, second in receiving yards with 488, and the team leader in touchdowns with five.
Hurns has two 100-yard receiving games this season, against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 1 (110 yards) and the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 5 (112 yards), who, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required), has caught 53.4 percent of the passes thrown his way, has been twice held to single-digit receiving yards—the other game being Week 7 against the Cleveland Browns, who held him to seven yards on one catch,
This week’s matchup, at least on paper favors Bowman, if he does indeed draw Hurns. However, stranger things have happened in a league where any given Sunday, anyone can have his moment in the sun.
LG Weston Richburg
5 of 5
Sometimes when it comes to the younger players, it takes a little tough love to get them going in the right direction.
That’s precisely what the Giants appear to have done with rookie offensive lineman Weston Richburg last week.
Richburg, who per Pro Football Focus (subscription required) is the second lowest-graded member of the offense (minus-12.5) and the only member of the offense to have negative grades in the pass block, run block, screen block and penalty categories, was given a “time out” last week.
By sending the rookie to the bench, the team gave him a chance to collect himself and perhaps refocus his energy on showing the coaches that they made a mistake in benching him.
Richburg will get that opportunity this week. With Adam Snyder, who replaced him last week in the starting lineup, ruled out of the game with a knee injury, Coughlin confirmed to reporters that Richburg would get the start at left guard.
"Well," Coughlin told reporters when asked how Richburg handled last week's demotion from the starting lineup. "[He] didn’t like it; that’s a good thing."
Why is that coach?
"That shows me he wants to do it. He’s as competitive as heck and he didn’t like (being benched). So maybe we struck a chord there."
"I kind of figured out that I can only control what I can control and that is how I play," Richburg told reporters.
"I was a little disappointed last week, but this week I wanted to come out and get better at what I could control, and that is playing football. I just tried to come out and really work on my technique. Just tried to get myself better so when the time comes I am ready to go back in and play."
The ball is now in Richburg’s court to prove his head coach is correct in his interpretation of the young man's reaction.
All stats are from NFL.com unless otherwise noted.
Patricia Traina covers the Giants for Inside Football and TheSportsXchange. All quotes and information obtained firsthand unless otherwise sourced. Follow me on Twitter @Patricia_Traina.
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