Giants hope to prevent blown leads with new 'game-management team'
The New York Giants were bad in the fourth quarter last season. Actually, they were horrendous. They blew five leads in the final two minutes, essentially costing them a shot at the playoffs.
Several parties were to blame for those blunders, including Tom Coughlin, offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo, even Eli Manning.
Now the Giants are attempting to officially do away with their choking ways, and it's being headed by McAdoo, now the new head coach.
According to True Jersey, McAdoo is assembling a "game-management team" to take care of their late-game gaffes.
"Make sure we're on the same page going into the game and we're seeing the same things as the game develops," McAdoo said at the NFL Annual Meeting on Wednesday.
The six-man team will meet on Fridays and Saturdays with the goal of making the Giants better in late-game situations. How?
"It's like anything else. It starts with communication first," the first-year head coach said. "We need to have open lines of communication first. We need to be on the same page, especially at the end of games and each half. You want to end half with the ball. Two-minute [offense] at the end of the first half and either the two-minute or four-minute [offense] at the end of the game.
"The more we can be on the same page and have opens lines of communication and have guys willing to speak up at the end of games to ensure that that gets done it's important."
Communication is key, and the Giants put that on full display last season. In the season opener against the Cowboys, Manning elected to throw the ball away late in the fourth quarter rather than sliding and killing the clock. That one play cost the Giants a win, and McAdoo took the blame for not reinforcing it to Eli before the snap.
McAdoo hopes this new squad will help alleviate those issues, as do Giants fans. Those fourth-quarter losses were painful for everyone.
