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The Giants’ Problems Start With the Offensive Line, Again

By Zach Schonbrun
Sept. 21, 2018

He has slimmed down considerably from his college days, but Giants Coach Pat Shurmur still knows how the offensive line position should be played. He was an all-Big Ten center at Michigan State, though undersized, and played alongside Tony Mandarich, the colossal left tackle and former No. 2 overall N.F.L. pick.

He made the linemen chuckle at the amount of food he piled on his plate during training camp, and he reorganized the locker room so they could all sit together, forming cohesion and chemistry that was supposed to help the group’s newcomers adjust.

So far, it hasn’t worked. Nothing has worked. The Giants’ O-line remains the same as it has been, the same as it ever was, at least as far as anybody is willing to remember. The “O” perfectly represents the gaping holes that opposing defenses have run through.

This may be an exaggeration. But with the Giants 0-2, again, for the fifth time in six seasons, fans are slamming the panic button early.

It is all just too familiar. The offense — larded with even more talent at the skill positions — remains stuck in neutral, plagued by the usual woes in the performance up front, even though all five linemen were in different places (or on different teams) a season ago.

Entering Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans, it has been 34 games since the Giants last scored 30 points, the franchise’s longest such streak since 1979. Only the Cleveland Browns currently have a longer drought. And, to be fair to the Browns, they do not have a playmaker like Odell Beckham Jr.

“I feel like there’s no way you can’t score a touchdown in every quarter, and one somewhere else,” Beckham said. “It just doesn’t seem unrealistic to me. I feel personally, I could score two touchdowns every game.

“I feel like Saquon could score two every game,” referring to running back Saquon Barkley. “There are other people on this team who could score every single game. That’s over 35 points. It’s just a matter of executing it and making it happen, really.”

Shurmur likes to say that nothing surprises him. But if he expected the Giants to average just 4.5 yards a play through the first two games, 29th in the league, then he might have been the only one.

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As the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, Shurmur helped a backup quarterback, Case Keenum, navigate the team to 13 wins and the 10th-highest scoring average in the league. He inherited a Giants team with the league’s highest-paid wide receiver (Beckham), a veteran quarterback (Eli Manning) and a running back (Barkley) taken with the second overall pick.

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John Greco, center, now anchors an offensive line that has struggled.CreditDuane Burleson/Associated Press
Still, here they are again. Opponents are outsacking the Giants, 8-1.

“We’ve kept games close, been in it in the fourth quarter,” Manning said. “We just got to get a little faster start, get a lead, do some things a little bit better, and we’ll get those opportunities to score more points.”

Manning was sacked six times last Sunday by the Dallas Cowboys, who flooded the line with various blitzes that left him uncomfortable in the pocket and unable to complete his progressions. A result was a lot of undesirable check-down throws to Barkley, who caught 14 passes for 80 yards.

Trailing, 20-3, in the fourth quarter, the Giants had done little other than spin their wheels on offense. They had lost to Jacksonville, a top-notch defense, in Week 1, and players came away feeling they were close to a breakthrough. But this second straight loss had more of the feel of a step back.

“It wasn’t as close as the first week,” Beckham said.

During his weekly radio appearance on WFAN, Shurmur grew defensive when peppered by the host, Mike Francesa, for specifics about what is haunting the offense and how it can be addressed, saying the team needed to “get better” more than 20 times in a 15-minute interview.

“We know we have to play better,” said center John Greco, who will start Sunday in Houston in place of the injured Jon Halapio, who is out for the season with a fractured leg.

“There’s going to be no letup, and that’s how you’ve got to approach it,” Greco said. “You can’t be complacent, and when you know things aren’t going your way, you just have to do everything extra and do everything in your power to be the cause of the wins and not the cause of losses.”

Throughout training camp, the Giants emphasized chemistry, knowing that the revamped line would need time to jell. They had signed a new left tackle and a new guard, drafted another one, and switched their former first-round pick, Ereck Flowers, from the left side of the line to the right side.

Hal Hunter, 58, the team’s new offensive line coach, was not even in the league last season. After the Browns let him go in 2016, he took a sabbatical to travel the country, visiting colleges and N.F.L. teams, soaking in different perspectives and approaches. By December, he was eager to apply what he had learned to a new opportunity.

This one just happens to come with a lot of baggage. Last year, the Giants started 0-5 in part because of poor offensive line play and a toothless offense.

The cause of last Sunday’s misplays against Dallas depends on whom you ask. Analysts pointed to schematic breakdowns, as blitzers had several unchecked shots at Manning. Shurmur disputes this, arguing that blocking technique and inadequate slide protections were more at fault.

His background would suggest that he should know. The question remains, however, whether he can fix it.

“We think we’re really close,” the offensive coordinator Mike Shula said. “And we do a couple of things here and there throughout and everybody does things more consistently, we are going to stay on the field and we are going to put points on the board. Because I think we’re too talented.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/sports/football/giants-offensive-line.html?action=click&contentCollection=sports®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront