Giants’ offensive problems go beyond coaching changes, despite win over Eagles

Joe Judge said he was “very pleased” with how his offensive coaches worked together in the short week after Jason Garrett was fired. In fact, when asked how things went on offense, he used the word “pleased” six times in his answer. Saquon Barkley said they “did a great job.” Quarterback Daniel Jones said things were “good”, too.

That’s nice. But what they all should have said is that they’re disgusted, embarrassed and furious that this offense is still this much of a problem. Because whatever good the coaches did after Garrett took the fall for their failures on Tuesday, the dismal, overall picture still hasn’t changed. Freddie Kitchens may be calling the plays now, but the offense he’s running still stinks.

And that is a huge problem that someone on the Giants better figure out.

“Not every play was perfect,” Judge said. “There are a lot of things we’re going to have to go back and make sure we correct. However, in terms of how those guys (were) working together operationally with it, I was very pleased with it. I was very pleased with it.”

Swell. And they were all happy, of course, with the end result – a much-needed, 13-7 win for the Giants over the Philadelphia Eagles. In the midst of yet another disappointing season, they’re certainly allowed to smile and feel good about that.

But the fact that they were even remotely content with how things worked with an offense that gained just 264 yards and scored 13 points is a reminder of just how low they’ve set their expectations. They’re proud of their communication. They are basking in the efficiency of their operation.

They are essentially giving out high fives for stepping over a two-inch-high bar.

Consider this: Only three teams in the NFL scored fewer points than the Giants in Week 12. One was a New Orleans Saints team playing without its starting quarterback, its No. 1 receiver and it’s top two running backs on a short week against the best defense in the NFL. And one was the team the Giants beat. Only the Saints, the winless Detroit Lions, the awful Houston Texans and fading Carolina Panthers had fewer yards.

Story continues

Even the Jets had two more yards of offense than the Giants did on Sunday afternoon.

And that came after the Giants fired the guy whose decision were theoretically to blame for this mess, and after a “collaborative” effort, as Judge called it all week, to do things better. For example, they made a point, as Joe Judge noted, of making Barkley and Kenny Golladay the focal point of their offense. “That was the emphasis, period.,” Judge said. And they did it. They either got the ball to Barkley and Golladay or tried to get it to them on 25 of their 58 offensive plays.

But it wasn’t mission accomplished was much as it was mission impossible because neither of those two stars did much with the ball in their hands. Golladay struggled to get open, had one drop, and caught just three of the seven passes thrown to him for 50 yards. And Barkley was a non-factor except for one, terrific 32-yard run. The other 16 times he touched the ball produced 21 total yards. That includes 12 more carries for only eight more yards.

That’s not just unacceptable, it’s ridiculously bad – ludicrous numbers at a time when almost every other team in the NFL moves the ball with ease. That’s not to say it’s Kitchens’ fault, or that of any of the remaining offensive coaches. But it’s a reminder that the Giants’ offensive problems weren’t Garrett’s fault either.

They go far deeper than that.

And they start where it’s started for all four years of the Dave Gettleman Era: Up front, where the offensive line is continually terrible. The pass protection is so bad that any time Jones sits in the pocket he either throws with someone in his face or is forced to throw so quickly there’s no time for anyone to get open downfield. And when they run, for the most part, just forget it. On Barkley’s one big run he was headed up the middle before that hole closed, leaned right towards another and then bounced outside. His remarkable skill is the only reason that 32-yard run didn’t go for a three-yard loss.

But that’s what everyone has come to expect from the Giants’ offense. The head coaches change, the coordinators change, and even the quarterback has changed in recent years, and for some reason they still can’t figure this out.

“We’ve got to do a better job on our side of the ball of finishing and scoring points,” Barkley said. “We’re going to continue to do that. We’re going to take that upon ourselves and get better.”

They better, because they can’t use any excuses anymore. They were missing three important players for this game – receivers Sterling Shepard and Kadarius Toney and tight end Kyle Rudolph – but with Barkley, Golladay, tight end Evan Engram and receiver Darius Slayton available, they really had more than enough. It shouldn’t have been a stretch to ask for competence against an Eagles defense that ranked right in the middle of the NFL pack.

But the Giants couldn’t even muster that much. They are averaging 18.4 points and 317.5 yards per game and still fell short of those low benchmarks. In one of the highest-scoring eras in NFL history they’ve scored fewer than 20 points in five of their 11 games and topped 30 just one time in their last 27 games.

It’s absurd and atrocious and it has killed their season. They have lost three games by a field goal or less and in two of those games they failed to score 20 points. They are just the bare minimum of offense away from being 6-5 instead of 4-7 – a pretty significant fact considering they’re just one game out of the last NFC wild-card spot with six games to play.

So they can be “pleased” all they want and think things are “good” or even “great” but they are really the only ones who think so. They have learned to accept the unacceptable because it’s all they’re capable of at the moment.

Instead of rising to meet the moment, they’ve lowered their expectations to ensure that they do.