New York Giants Point to Lack of Execution for Team's Latest Shortcomings

Regardless of who they had or didn't have available Sunday night, the Giants say it all came down to execution, which they acknowledge resulted in not enough plays being made.

The Giants have come crashing down to earth after embarking on a four-game winning streak.

If you’re looking for a reason why, look no further than the execution.

Take, for example, the defensive side of the ball. There was a belief that the Giants, who went into their game against the Cleveland Browns, wouldn’t be able to deploy much man-to-man coverage due to the COVID-19 related absence of top cornerback James Bradberry.

According to safety Logan Ryan, only that wasn’t the case, as he said the Giants played as much man coverage this week as they have in any other game.

“Look at the Seattle game, how much man did we play? I don’t know what the analytics say, we can look it up on PFF or NextGen stats, but look, we’re calling the game to win the game,” he said. “Cleveland is a team that runs the ball the third best in the league. We sold out to stop the run, we made Baker Mayfield be a pocket quarterback, he was extremely efficient at that.”

According to PFF, the Giants played in 16 out of 70 defensive snaps in man coverage against Seattle and 15 out of 63 defensive snaps against the Browns. And according to NextGen Stats, the Giants blitzed quarterback Baker Mayfield 16 times, but he beat the blitz 14 of those for 130 yards and two touchdowns.

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Thus what it all came down to was the execution—or lack thereof.

“They were in third and manageable, which we don’t want. They got a bunch of third downs, and in the red area we were oh for three. So man or zone, whatever you want to call it, when you’re not good in the red area or on third down, you're not going to play great scoring defense,” Ryan said.

On offense, receiver Sterling Shepard took a slight offense when a reporter asked about the receiving corps ability to separate from defenders.

“I don’t know where people are getting that from, to be honest,” he said. “Is that what you’re saying? That we’re getting, what, two yards of separation? In the NFL, that’s open. I don’t know what the analytics say, but you can go off that if you want to. I know what I see on film and for those of them who think that way, go look at the film.”

Separation aside, which appears to be debatable as to what someone considers to be enough yards to say that a receiver has separated from a defender, the biggest problems with the Giants receivers have been dropped balls, which, again, comes down to execution.

Per PFF, Daniel Jones ranks ninth among all quarterbacks for having the most dropped passes (24). Some of those drops have been incredibly damaging, such as those that have come on third down, and in the red zone and end zone where a catch would have made a difference.

“We were moving the ball but we were shooting ourselves in the foot,” backup quarterback Colt McCoy said of the offense, adding, "If you want to point the finger at anybody you can point it at me. I need to be better.”

So do the rest of the Giants--and that includes the coaching staff.