New York Giants Notebook | The Unexpected Twist, Stuck Like Glue, and More
Head coach Joe Judge made a coaching career out of "specializing" in special teams before taking over the Giants, and he figured to bring his expertise to New York.
His emphasis on special teams certainly manifested in a solid performance by the unit in the first half of the season. Still, ever since the bye, the Giants' special teams consistency has hit a snag.
Over the last three games, the Giants have given up a kick return for a touchdown, a big return late in a game that could have cost them a win, a blocked punt, and a fumble on a kick return.
What exactly is going on?
According to Judge, the answer is it's simply a matter of execution by individuals, including the coaches.
"We're not getting isolated into something, and we can't make an adjustment, make a correction," Judge said. "There haven't been repeating mistakes, but over six phases, if you have an issue in one phase per week, it's going to be glaring and go ahead and be magnified over time.
The Giants need to correct their recent shortcomings as soon as possible with a critical game against the Cleveland Browns coming up. Judge believes it all starts with him.
"(Sunday) with the returns, (the Cardinals) did a good job on us," Judge said. "We have to do a better job covering in space. That comes down to playing with good field leverage, good space tackling. That comes into specialists doing their job, the coverage units doing their jobs and make sure we tie it all together."
The "Unexpected" Twist
The Giants' offense was pretty much entirely shut down on all but one drive on Sunday against the Cardinals. When running back Wayne Gallman mentioned the cardinals did something unexpected, that set imaginations off as to what wrinkle Arizona threw at the Giants.
Center Nick Gates revealed what that something was.
"They were doing like a 4-4 heavy package, where they brought four linebackers and four d-linemen in," Gates said. "We weren't expecting that. We had some game time adjustments, but we just have to do better."
The Giants' offensive line had managed to make weekly improvements throughout the season and was trending upwards up until Week 14, but the performance against the Cardinals set the unit back.
"We just have to get better at moving double teams and displacing the d-linemen and getting them moved off the line of scrimmage," Gates said. "From the film we watched, we didn't do that very much (Sunday). We have to continue practicing and getting better at that.
"We just couldn't really get anything going. You saw, there was what, three, four, five three-and-outs. We just couldn't keep moving the ball and couldn't keep executing. When you're not going long drives, you usually don't run the ball well, and that's just something we didn't do well yesterday."
Stuck Like Glue
The Giants wide receivers were held to just 105 combined receiving yards as a group on Sunday. While they could make a handful of impressive grabs in coverage, the receivers as a group had a difficult time creating separation and getting open for more sure-fire passes from quarterback Daniel Jones.
Golden Tate, Sterling Shepard, and Darius Slayton are not the type of big physical receivers with the ability to muscle balls away. They are a smaller group that depends more on speed and route-running to create separation, yet they depended more on their ability to make catches through contact with minimal results.
Judge claims that the Cardinals defensive secondary, much like its front, came out with a highly effective gameplan that kept the Giants' receivers contained.
"They did a lot of the stuff in terms of double-teaming and bracketing a lot of our receivers down the field," Judge said. "There was some tight coverage in man situations. I saw a lot of opportunities where our guys made catches in tight situations.
"There were times where we have to do a better job of winning our matchups. That ties into a lot of things. That's not just each individual receiver. That's the timing of the routes. The timing of the throws. That's calling it at the right time. That's making sure we recognize the coverage and get ourselves in the right situation."
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