The not ready for primetime players’ traveling road show hit its 6th stop vs a team with a winning record, and they got dispatched yet again. 3-0 vs teams with a losing record, 0-6 vs teams with a winning record. Not a good trend.
First, some Giant postgame remarks can dig their own grave, and then we will shed some light on more of what happened…
Jason Pierre-Paul (on Russell Wilson’s edge rushing): “We knew he was going to run the ball- but not like that.”
Antrel Rolle (on giving up 350 yards rushing): “I think it’s a little worse than embarrassing.”
Tom Coughlin: “We were not able to contain the QB. We had a couple of different schemes that we utilized with regard to that, but none of them seemed to work…. It’s hard to believe what you saw in the 2nd half.”
When the Giants had the turnover edge, they were playing toe to toe. As soon as SEA got turnovers in H2, combined with their run offense wearing down the Giants D, the roof caved in.
With regard to the inexplicable lack of contain on Russell Wilson, Coughlin explained after the game that the DE had the assignment some of the time and other times it was another player.
These were Wilson’s runs in 1st Half: 8, 12, 26, 8, 1, 13 yds. TOTAL 68 yards.
These were Wilson’s runs in 2nd Half: 9, 1, 11, 18, 1 (wide open untouched TD run), 8 yds. TOTAL 48 yards.
So Wilson ran the ball 12 times, and was stopped twice. Each half there was no contain. No adjustments. I can handle (to a degree) getting hammered by Lynch up the middle, because every team is going to have a little bit of difficulty there, let alone the Giants w/o Beason and a credible LBer corps. Yes, the tackling was poor and it was embarrassing. But Wilson’s read option running was terrible scheming. Before the game, this past Tuesday, we talked on blog radio with Paul Beyer of 12for12s Seattle Seahawks blog about the keys to the game. I said unequivocally that the #1 key on defense was to keep Wilson in the pocket and make him a pocket passer. Wilson’s rushing yds per game this season: 28, 18, 40, 122, 12, 106, 35, & 31 yds. This was before he lit up the Giants for 107 yds (counting a -8 sack and -1 kneel(?)). So it is not as if Wilson is unstoppable, given how in 6 of his first 8 games teams were able to scheme him out of the QB read option run for the most part. Wilson had an average of a little less than 5 carries per game. Against the Giants he had a record 14 carries, the most of this season, and THE MOST CARRIES FOR A GAME IN HIS CAREER! WHY? BECAUSE OF LACK OF ADJUSTMENTS. If the Giants had made an effort to contain the edge, maybe all of those wild runs in wide open space would have been curtailed and Wilson would no longer rush the ball. But he had that “option” all game because the Giants gave him that all game. He had it all first half. He had it on the first offensive snap of Q3. And as a fitting emblem, he had it on the Seahawks final TD score, a naked bootleg to the right corner to seal an uncontested 38-17 victory.
(For what it is worth, in that same previewed linked to above, I was asked why Coughlin’s teams are so inconsistent. The answer I gave was that Coughlin is as good and as bad as his coordinators, and he/his coordinators do not make adjustments.)
Some of you may be thinking that perhaps the Giants were never going to stop the Seahawks anyway, and that if the Giants contained Wilson on the edge, they would have been beat elsewhere. My answer to that is- possible, but given that Wilson and Lynch are the 2 most dynamic parts of the offense, you have to focus on that and let another area beat you. The Seahawks pass offense is underwhelming (22nd out of 32 via Pro Football Focus). The Seahawks WRs are underwhelming (#55 and #94 in the NFL for the two w the most snaps). Their TEs are underwhelming (bottom 3rd of the NFL). So it is not asking a lot to contain the pocket/edge as best you can and let someone else beat you versus the pass. Given Seattle is #2 in the NFL in rushing offense, it would have been fairly apparent that scheming against the run would have been your first priority. The Giants did not do that. To quote Paul Beyer of 12for12s Seattle blog when I pointed this out, he replied: “Correct. Hawks adjusted, Gmen didn’t. Very strange to see an NFL team not adapt in some way.”
The Giants injuries have sealed the team’s fate. A guy like Beason (/a competent LBer corps) is sorely missed on a day like this. They cannot compete on the same field with the better teams. But Fewell’s schemes did not help matters either on this day. When the opposing QB can run naked TEN times for huge chunks of yardage without an answer, that is unacceptable and uncompetitive. In the NFL, when you have a player who is alone on the field all game consistently, you are not making an adjustment.
There was a bright note we will end the recap with- Odell Beckham. I am excited about what the future will look like with Cruz on one side and Beckham on the other. If Randle can learn the playbook and get on the same page with Eli, the offense will have the promise of being formidible. I would draft another slab of beef on the OL in Round 1, keep Eli upright, and the sky’s the limit for the offense. Richard Sherman, for his part, called Beckham “a great young player.”
Summary: Seattle has a very good rush offense and a mediocre pass offense. The Giants could not gameplan and/or make any adjustments to stop the run. Odell Beckham, as long as he stays healthy, will be a pro bowl WR.
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