The Giants returned from their bye-week on Monday having experienced an extremely challenging and disappointing early portion of the 16-game NFL season. They have reached the midpoint of their schedule with a 1-6 record, third worst in the league behind the San Francisco 49ers and Cleveland Browns, who are both 0-8.
Making the playoffs is not a realistic aspiration for the Giants, so after the bye week reset their goal is to be competitive in the nine games they have remaining, beginning this Sunday (1 p.m.) at home at MetLife Stadium against the 5-2 Los Angeles Rams. The time off afforded the coaches and players an opportunity to reflect on what has gone wrong in a season that began with justifiable optimism of making it to the Super Bowl and to reflect on how they move forward to achieve a positive ending.
“[I] wanted to take a look at things schematically,” said head coach Ben McAdoo Monday. “The schemes that have been working, the things that haven’t been working and emphasizing what’s been working for us and the things that haven’t been working, either throw them out or is it a quick fix. Is it something we can fix over the second half of the year being smart with our time? Those are some of the things that we took a look at.”
Offensively, the Giants have labored after entering the season with one of the potentially most dynamic passing attacks in football. Overall, they rank 30th out of 32 teams, averaging only 296.4 total yards per game and a disconcerting 16 points. Season-ending injuries to wide receivers Odell Beckham Jr., Brandon Marshall and Dwayne Harris, who was also their top return specialist, have inarguably been a factor in the unit’s lowly production.
Furthermore, quarterback Eli Manning’s inability to create with his legs, an ineffective rushing attack and an offensive line that has improved over the past three games but has been considerably outplayed by opposing defensive lines for much of this season have produced a frustrating outcome for a group that was expected to be formidable.
Perhaps even more surprising and exasperating for the Giants and their fan base has been the defense. After experiencing resurgence last season, in which many NFL observers placed them in the top five despite being ranked 10th statistically under defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, the defense has at times been dreadful this season and hold a rank of 24, indicative of their shortcomings.
“We have the makings to be a great defense that we were last year,” said Giants linebacker Jonathan Casillas on Monday, “but we have to be consistent. We have to pay attention to details, and I told a couple guys today, like I’m going to go ahead and look back at some of the original calls just because it’s been awhile since I actually opened up my base playbook to look at our base defense. Just to go over certain things and cross all my T’s and dot all my I’s and I’m trying to hit the ground running if and when I play this week.”
Casillas has missed the Giants’ past two games with a neck injury. They’ll need him and a full complement of its best players to extricate themselves from the deep hole in which they are trapped.