Giants Offense is Offensive

Here’s a new riddle from the Sports Sphinx:  What does the New York Giants offensive line have in common with the Williamsburg Bridge?  The answer, they’re in both in need of constant repair and can collapse without warning.  Actually, the Williamsburg Bridge is still operational.  The Giants offensive line is not.

 “No part of our offense was functional,” Giants head coach Ben McAdoo said, as if he were doctor looking for a pulse in Sunday night’s loss to Dallas.  McAdoo, despite his new look with the slicked back coif, still looks like a database administrator that moonlights as a football coach.   “The offense was very disappointing”.

Ben McAdoo not quite looking or winning like Pat Riley

 

Big Blue’s overworked defense did as much as they could to keep the final score of 19-3 from being far more humiliating.  The stats tell it all, especially in the first half, where Dallas had 16 first downs to the Giants’ 2.  And if that’s not bad enough, the Giants had only 18% of Dallas’s offensive production in the first half, being outgained by a frighteningly wide margin of 265-49 in total yards.  You’d have to wait until the early third quarter before the Giants even crossed mid-field, where more ground was gained in the Battle of Verdun.  Brad Wing punted six times. Paul Perkins was the leading rusher with 16 yards, and Brandon Marshall waited until garbage time to have his lone catch of the night for just ten yards.  Where were you Brandon? “Our offense isn’t about one player,” Marshall said. “And there’s going to be games when one guys gets more chances than another.”

But where were you Brandon?

“When the opportunities come, I’ll be ready for them,” Marshall added, seemingly content to dodge the heart of his virtual non-existence.  “But the only thing that matters is that ‘W’, and we didn’t get it tonight.”

The camera was frequently fixed on the sidelined Odell Beckham Jr, who was out due to a still-healing ankle sprain that he got in pre-season.  Dressed in an officially licensed NFL hoodie with his number 13 embroidered on the front, Beckham was reduced to looking like a restless lawn gnome while hobbling around the Giants’ bench.  We knew what he brought to the table in terms of offensive explosiveness.  What we didn’t know is how utterly desultory every facet of the Giants’ offense looked without him.  In his well publicized pursuit of a lucrative long-term contract with the Giants, Beckham, unwittingly, gave himself plenty of additional leverage by not playing last night.  Since when does getting upstaged by Cole Beasley help make one get richer?  It’s the NFL version of selling short.

Odell Beckham Jr, reduced to looking like a hobbling lawn gnome Sunday night in Dallas

 

When asked on how the Giants offensive line could improve, McAdoo suggested to “get better with your technique.” Hardly the kind of in depth answer you’d expect from a head coach where he also noted they were “struggling to block it”; with “it” meaning the entire Dallas Cowboys defense. In addition to those astute observations, we should probably assume that Coach McAdoo has also concluded they need to score more points as well.  At least the Giants are not the Jets…yet.

Get well soon OBJ.