DAL 19 NYG 3

At least the Giants were able to score 3 points. The tweet of the night goes to Bill Barnwell. https://twitter.com/billbarnwell/status/907055936132587520

2017 Week 1 was a complete continuation of the postseason GB loss. Every problem the Offense had in January 2017 was still there in September 2017. They had 8 months to fix the Offense and seemingly nothing was done. In preseason, you can’t look at the play selection to draw conclusions because everything is vanilla. Little changed.

A stout defense (yes, they were stout vs GB) was good enough to win this game. Their tongues were hanging out yet they still only gave up 19 points, 10 of which came off 2 turnovers. And considering that the only touchdown given up was aided by a completely incorrect pass interference call on Janoris Jenkins, the D clearly did their job.

Eli was weak.

Marshall looked lost.

The OL s*cked.

The Defense did its job.

For emphasis, the OL still s*cked.

The best thing I saw come out of the game was BJ Goodson. He racked up 14 tackles and blew up an Elliott screen masterfully. That screen stop was tremendous because it showed a great read and terrific instincts. At least Goodson shows the promise of becoming an integral part of a solid Defense. That is exciting. Lord knows that Giants fans have been waiting a long time for improved LBer play. To see Goodson knife thru 3 defenders to tackle Elliott before the play got started was fantastic. It was a miserable game, so we have to take a positive from somewhere.

I wish I could say something positive about the Offense. I can’t.

We did not see scheme changes like Ellison and Smith helping Flowers. I’m not sure what the Offensive masterminds were doing this offseason. McAdoo: “No part of the Offense was functional tonight.” Given that, who should be responsible? Reese gets blame for doing next to zero to fix the OL. McAdoo and Sullivan get plenty of blame for not installing better schemes (which help a beleaguered OL).

Sometimes when we refer to “schemes,” that may sound nebulous or too generalized for help in understanding what went wrong. Let’s go back to 2000. The Giants had 2 starting Cornerbacks: one who was terrible (Dave Thomas), and one who was competent (Jason Sehorn). Sehorn was playing on one leg, yet he could do more in his sleep than Dave “Swiss Cheese” Thomas could do awake. So D.C. John Fox looked at what he had and he schemed. He would blitz from the side Thomas was on because he knew the QB would have to run/look to the other half of the field for answers. This helped out Thomas’s side. Of course there are other ways to also help Thomas, but the point is that Fox made the most of his roster and leveraged what he had.

The Giants had all offseason to make adjustments for their OL. It goes back to Joe Gibbs, with one of my favorite football quotes of all time. Paraphrased (if you can find the exact quote, PLEASE send it along), “I will not pass the football if I cannot block it up and protect my QB.” Many more 3 step drops, much less 7 and even 5 step drops. Slants, screens, draws and flares. Lol, these are the playcalls for teams that blitz, which is sad that we have to use them against a 4 man rush. You either help your OL… or you score 3 freaking points. It slows down the pass rush. DLmen get tired of running toward the QB when the ball is always getting flipped out of his hands. OR, the max protection playcalls where you finally have a blocking FB (Shane Smith) and blocking TE (Rhett Ellison) to lend a hand. I did not see chips on the DE last year and I didn’t see them last night.

What’s ahead? OBJ will be back in ~1-3 weeks. Can he, Eli, Marshall, Shepard and Engram turn around an Offense that is mired by an Offensive Line that s*cks? I thought that with just a small amount of improvement, plus better targets, it would get better. Perhaps it can with OBJ back. Until he is effective, the schemes are going to have to help cover up for an OL that is garbage.