How the New York Giants Should Fix Their Sluggish Offense in 2021
New York Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett is set to return for Year 2 in New York, where he'll have several players returning from the league's 31st ranked offense.
But make no mistake, Garrett's return doesn't mean that the status quo is acceptable. The Giants' struggles to move the ball and score are all things he needs to address with his game plans and personnel use.
Here's a look at some of the things Garrett and the Giants need to change or decide on regarding the offense if the unit is to take that long-awaited step forward toward becoming a juggernaut.
Fix the Passing Game
The Giants were guilty of creating a hole on the roster that they still haven't filled.
It happened when they traded away receiver Odell Beckham Jr but never really replaced him with another No. 1 receiver who regularly draws double team coverage.
The Giants tried to cover this hole by adding Golden Tate to be their primary slot receiver and moving Sterling Shepard to the outside.
The moving Shepard to the outside hasn't worked out as well as perhaps hoped. Shepard is at his best underneath--it's no coincidence that 17 of his career 20 touchdown receptions have come when he worked from the slot.
One could say that in bringing in Tate to be their slot receiver--in two seasons with the Giants, he's taken 621 out of 725 snaps from the slot, per data gathered from PFF--they weakened their passing offense because it resulted in Shepard being put into a role for which he's not a fit.
Darius Slayton proved to be a big-play threat, with the explosiveness to stretch the field and make big plays on the outside. But where his game lacks is against press coverage, which he saw a bit more of this year.
When not given that free release, Slayton struggled to create separation on his own and was inconsistent in catching the ball this year, his dropped passes doubling from three in his rookie season to six in his second year.
Slayton's game reminds one of Mario Manningham's in that he's more of a big-play, third receiver option than being that No. 1 receiver in the same mold as Beckham or even Plaxico Burress.
If the Giants can add a No. 1 receiver--and there should be plenty of options in both free agency and the draft to do so--that should allow Garrett to move away from those little stick routes he seemed to favor so much and attack more down the field.
It's no accident that quarterbacks like Atlanta's Matt Ryan (Julio Jones), Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes (Tyreek Hill), and Tampa Bay's Tom Brady (Mike Evans, Chris Godwin) are up at the top of the league in deep passes attempted.
These quarterbacks have the receivers to stretch the field, and by adding this extra dimension to the offense, they become tougher to defend.
While Daniel Jones has survived due to the shorter passes that have a higher success rate, if this offense is to ever evolve into an explosive unit, it needs playmakers who can get open deep down the field.
Complementing the Running Backs
Reports of the Giants' 2020 running game's demise were premature, as to Garrett's credit, he changed things up to better suit the running game to what Wayne Gallman did well rather than try to run a Saquon Barkley type of rushing game after Barkley tore his ACL in Week 2.
The most significant difference was that the Giants went away from the outside zone runs and had Gallman play to his strength, running between the tackles.
According to NextGen Stats, Gallman, a more decisive runner than Barkley, finished in the top three in categories such as time behind the line of scrimmage (3.12 seconds, first), yards run behind the line of scrimmage (2.51 yards, second), percent of yards over expected (48.6 percent, third) and percent of runs against an 8-man box (40.14 %, second).
A one-two punch of Barkley and Gallman would be very intriguing, to say the least, because despite what the coaches would have us believe, Gallman and Barkley are two very different runners.
Barkley, who has that slashing cutback ability to make defenders miss, is at his finest working outside of the 20s, when there is a lot of ground for defenders to cover.
Inside the 20s is another story. For as quick as Barkley is--and it needs to be assumed he'll regain that quickness again as he rehabs from his surgery--calling for outside zone runs in such a short part of the field where the defense doesn't have as much ground to cover is asking for trouble.
Inside the red zone, a running game should take it to the defense, which Gallman does so well. But again, if the Giants aren't able to retain Gallman, it would behoove them to find a running back capable of doing many of the things Gallman showed he was able to do this year.
Get Daniel Jones Over the Hump
One of the most significant areas in which Daniel Jones failed to profess from Year 1 to Year 2 was in his reads. According to PFF’s 2020 quarterbacks annual, Jones targeted his first read on 71% of his pass attempts and his second read on just 14%. And on his first read, he had an accuracy rate of 54.8%.
That’s not progress.
It’s possible the coaching staff had Jones go with his first read so much because it was a new offense, but even then, as Jones began to settle into the offense, he should have been advanced to doing more.
When a team can decipher who your first read will be and then scheme to take that read out of the picture, you’re going to see a quarterback struggle unless his mental processing skill is of the very good to elite level.
As evident by his play in which he would hold onto the ball too long on some plays, Jones hasn’t quite gotten there yet. That’s not to suggest that he lacks the mental understanding to play the position, but the coaches need to find a way to get him to look at his second read a little bit more so that things aren’t as predictable for the defense.
The Giants and Garrett, in particular, can address this in practice. ESPN analyst (and former NFL quarterback) Dan Orlovsky suggested the Giants deploy a trick run by Rams head coach Sean McVay. McVay would instruct the scout team defense to take away the first to force quarterback his now-former quarterback Jared Goff to look to his second or third read.
Goff still finished tied for third in the league in interceptions (a stat that makes one wonder if that's why McVay gave up on Goff). The point is that the Giants need to take the training wheels off Jones and see how well he does with going through more of his progressions before they start taking billboard ads in Times Square declaring Jones their franchise quarterback.
Finish the Offensive Line Rebuild Project
It might not look like it, but the Giants offensive lie is finally on the right track. But it's also still not a finished project and has several questions that need to be resolved.
The first is what to do at right tackle. Will the Giants look to re-sign Cameron Fleming on another one-year contract, or will he look to get a contract likely to be more than what the Giants can afford?
And if Fleming, whose play strength is probably his most prominent area to improve from his rookie campaign, isn't in the mix moving forward, do the coaches trust second-year man Matt Peart to man the spot full-time? That's certainly possible, but it would still behoove the coaching staff to provide some competition for Peart, be it Fleming or someone still to be determined.
And what about the guard position? Is Will Hernandez their answer at left guard? It might not have been a coincidence that the Giants' running game took off when Shane Lemieux replaced Hernandez at left guard when Hernandez was out due to COVID-19. Lemieux is more athletic and was quicker on his pulls, a big reason why Gallman and the running game had a string of seven straight 100-yard games.
But Lemieux was a liability in pass protection due to a lack of foot quickness to keep up with faster interior players.
And what about right guard? Do the Giants stick with Kevin Zeitler, whose contract is just begging to be cut from the books if the Giants want to recoup a large chunk of salary cap space they can use right away, or do they move one of Lemieux or Hernandez to the right guard spot (or go in a completely different direction?)
The Giants could rework Zeitler's contract to bring his $14,5 million cap figure more in line with his skill level.
But the problem then becomes they are kicking the can down the road and set themselves up for dead money if they decide to move on from him before the contract extension is over. If the pandemic taught us anything about the salary cap, it's that the days of long-term planning to ensure you remain in compliance with the cap are no more.
The direction the Giants go in for their offensive line could very well be the one item that makes or breaks this offense moving forward.
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