50% Through, the Giants’ Season is 100% Toast

I’ll be honest with you. I’ve kinda been dodging writing about the Giants for a few weeks now. Every week, I hold out some hope for a huge bounce-back, trajectory-altering performance to make us second guess all the criticism we’ve thrown at this haphazard franchise this season. However, I’ve been continually disappointed on that front, and as the Giants reach their week 9 bye at 1-7 (4-20 over the past two years), and in the race for the #1 pick rather than any playoff hunt, it seems as good a time as any to evaluate what’s led us to this point in another wasted season.

Week 1’s 20-15 loss to the Jaguars was a largely forgettable game aside from Saquon Barkley’s spectacular 68-yard touchdown, the first of his career. The offense looked poor, but that was far from unusual against the Jaguars’ defense, which ranked second in the league in 2017. It was the following week against the Cowboys, a 20-13 defeat only made somewhat respectable by a garbage time touchdown that convinced me this year would be no different from 2017.

Despite large offseason roster turnover which left just 17 players from last year’s roster on the team in 2018, the inept offense looked nearly identical to 2017’s 3-13 team, which, despite having talented weapons, struggled to sustain drives and convert in the red zone. These problems have not improved since.

In that game, Eli Manning was continually harassed by the Cowboys and sacked six times. On what felt like every other dropback, Manning was quickly pressured and forced to dump it off to Barkley, his safety net in the flat, who reeled in 14 catches but for only 80 yards.

Over the six games that followed, the Giants have fallen into predictable patterns and suffered from the same issues. A main weakness of the offense has been an inability to throw the ball down the field. Manning has completed over 68% of his passes this season, by far a career high, but so many of those have been checkdowns and short routes that any incompletion or penalty feels like a death sentence for a drive.

Most of the blame for the offense’s performance, it seems, has come down on Manning, the 37-year old veteran quarterback who has started 224 of the Giants’ last 225 regular season games. Analysts and fans have lost their minds debating back and forth whether Eli is done and if the Giants should replace him.

As the quarterback, it’s natural that Eli takes heavy criticism for the team’s struggles. His red zone reads and decision-making in particular have been abysmal this season, and a large reason why the Giants have scored touchdowns on just 40% of red zone possessions, which ranks only higher than the Jets.

However, it’s near-impossible to gauge just how much of the offensive woes are Eli’s fault because of how bad the offense line has been. I hate to beat a dead horse, but it’s been the same story for years now – revolving doors at all positions and continual struggles. Due to injuries, the Giants are already on their third center this season. 2015 first-round pick Ereck Flowers was benched and later released after continuing to play poorly. Young lineman Will Hernandez and Chad Wheeler have showed signs of promise, but are far from solid, and big free agent signing Nate Solder looks like a waste of cap space.

The Giants are 31st in rushing with just 77.9 yards per game. Eli has also been sacked the second-most in the league, 31 times in eight games. The line’s inability to hold up has made Manning paranoid, giving up quicker on plays, defaulting to Barkley in the passing game, and falling to avoid big hits. It has made the playcalling more conservative, effectively restricting the team’s big play potential to Barkley or Beckham making defenders miss in the open field. Manning’s lack of mobility certainly hasn’t helped the equation.

Over the last few games, Eli has taken more shots and found success with Beckham and Sterling Shepard. However, he was still sacked seven times against the Redskins. Barkley trails only Todd Gurley in terms of scrimmage yards, and Beckham is fourth in the league in receiving. The star power is there when the protection allows.

This whole season, people have been complaining about the Giants’ decision to draft Saquon Barkley second overall, passing up on Sam Darnold in favor of keeping with a 37-year old Manning at quarterback. Many have claimed that the Giants will regret the move for years to come, but I don’t see it that way at all. In my opinion, Barkley was the best player in last year’s draft, and while sure, you would’ve hoped the Giants would be better this season, we can still draft a quarterback in next year’s draft, and have Barkley for the foreseeable future. Barkley has reached 100 scrimmage yards in all but one game this season (ONLY 94 against the Falcons), and despite being just a rookie, is already a locker room leader on a team searching for guidance. This year has confirmed to me that next offseason will be time to move on from Manning, but the problems this season have extended far beyond him.

Overall, the defense has been decent in a “bend, don’t break” mentality, but the pass rush has really struggled with the loss of Jason Pierre-Paul in the offseason and with Olivier Vernon out for the first five games of the year, and totaling just one sack entering the bye.

Another big player who has missed time is Evan Engram. A combination of health issues and drops have me skeptical of his ability to develop into a reliable tight end.

I also haven’t been a fan of first-year coach Pat Shurmur’s game management – he’s been too conservative in playcalling, too slow-paced with the offense, and has mismanaged timeouts late in halves on multiple occasions.

At this point in the year, the Giants have officially switched into rebuild mode. This was signaled by the Damon “Snacks” Harrison and Eli Apple trades to the Lions and Saints, respectively. With the goal of picking up draft picks and freeing up cap space, I actually liked these moves. Snacks will be 30 next month, and despite his run stopping prowess and locker room impact, he doesn’t play a ton of snaps and the move will save cap space. Apple had a decent start to the season, but has never lived up to his expectations.

Moving forward, the Giants have three stars to build around: Barkley, Beckham, and Landon Collins. Everyone else should be movable, as the team looks to draft a quarterback to replace Manning in the 2019 draft and continue working on the offensive line. As far as replacing Manning this season goes, there’s not much point in playing longtime backup Alex Tanney, and rookie Kyle Lauletta has yet to suit up for a game this season. Naturally in a lost season, it makes sense to get a look at what the Giants have in Lauletta, but only if he’s legitimately ready to play. His arrest this morning shouldn’t make the Giants any more eager to start him, and means he loses out on some crucial first-team snaps during the bye.

It seems like a lifetime ago that the Giants made the playoffs at 11-5 in 2016, but even that season was carried by the defense rather than the team’s offensive weapons. The Giants have eight more games to play this year, and then a lot of work to do to put themselves in a position to compete in 2019.