New York Giants

New York Giants: 3 Changes That Must Be Made

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 11:03 a.m. ET

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Sep 1, 2016; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo in the first half against the New England Patriots at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: William Hauser-USA TODAY Sports

This week will show what changes New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo has decided to make to improve their playoff chances. Here’s a look at some possibilities.

Don’t look now, but the New York Giants, who return from their bye week with a decent 4-3 win-loss record, are in pretty good shape if they are truly sincere about making a run toward their first playoff berth since 2011.

But let’s not kid ourselves. The performance of this Giants team through seven games has been alarming, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. Per TeamRankings.com, the Giants offense is ranked 28th in points per game while their defense is actually ranked 15th in points allowed per game.

Starting Monday, we should get a sense about what, if any, conclusions head coach Ben McAdoo and his coaching staff have reached after a week of self-scouting the team. Some of those changes won’t be as clear right away, while others will be.

Here’s a look at some of the biggest changes that, based on how the season has unfolded to date, need to be implemented.

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Change Up the Offense

When your offense is running primarily the same look on more than 96 percent of its plays, that’s being predictable. Hence there’s little wonder as to why the Giants are unable to get off to a quick start on offense, a weekly goal.

Yes, part of the problem has been turnovers. And yes, there are missed assignments (ironic if, as has been noted, they run the same plays over and over, one would think they’d all be able to execute those plays to perfection in their sleep). However, this is a team that has been in the same system for three seasons. Sure, there have been wrinkles added to the mix, but this isn’t a matter of the offense trying to feel its way around a brand new system. This is a matter of opposing defenses having figured out the Giants’ mindset and that right there should be enough reason to evoke a deviation from the plan.

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If McAdoo doesn’t feel handcuffed by the personnel he currently has—he said last week that they are “confident in the players we have”—then there should be no reason to stick with what hasn’t been producing the desired results (unless the results produced so far is satisfactory to them).

Open the playbook, run a few more deep shots with four-wides, and lessen the reliance on the struggling tight ends Larry Donnell and Will Tye to help snap the offense out of a slump that’s been going on for two months—even earlier, if you factor in preseason.

Want to jump-start the running game? If the offensive line isn’t opening holes, why not add an extra blocker into the mix to create more combo blocks at the point of attack where guys are being pushed back?

Above all, get a little more creative in the red zone, which has been like the Bermuda Triangle for this offense the last two years. Per TeamRankings.com, the Giants success in the red zone in which they score touchdowns has decreased every season since McAdoo became the play-caller, dropping from 59.02 percent in 2014 to 44.44 percent in 2015 to 32.11 percent through seven games this year.

That downward trend obviously needs to change if this offense is going to get back to being a top-10 scoring unit once again because what they’re doing now isn’t working and hasn’t been working for more than this year. It shouldn’t take a downward spiral in a key trend to realize that your plan isn’t working and needs to be adjusted.

William Hauser-USA TODAY Sports

Play the Young Kids

Back in the spring, McAdoo’s words about not being afraid to play the young kids warmed the heart of every Giants fan who griped about Tom Coughlin’s over-reliance on veterans, even if said veterans were obviously way past the point of no return.

However, so far, McAdoo has been selective with what young players he’s put out there. Thus far, just cornerback Eli Apple and receiver Sterling Shepard, the first and second round picks in this year’s draft, have received large chunks of playing time. However, safety Darian Thompson, the team’s third-round pick, would have joined them had he not had a foot injury.

Otherwise, guys like linebacker B.J. Goodson, running back Paul Perkins, tight end Jerell Adams, receiver Roger Lewis Jr. and defensive end Romeo Okwara have received a smattering of snaps here and there.

If those guys are the future of the team, then surely after five weeks of training camp/preseason and seven regular season games (not to mention the OTAs and minicamps) there must have been some progress shown by those players to where they should be able to give a lot more than they have, especially at positions where the production has been unacceptable.

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Let Offensive Coordinator Mike Sullivan Call the Plays

There’s a reason why you have assistant coaches. Yet McAdoo, perhaps out of stubbornness or ego, has insisted on retaining control of the offensive play calling. By remaining so steadfast in his insistence of calling the plays, McAdoo is, in essence, removing his full attention from managing the sidelines.

Imagine trying to follow the game while reading a book. You remove your full attention from what’s happening on the field and you miss things those critical little details you might have otherwise seen had you not been trying to multitask.

It’s great that McAdoo relies on his assistants to tell him what’s going on, but he needs to remember that different people have different perspectives on what they see and that sometimes people might minimize a situation that otherwise needs full attention of the man in charge. With McAdoo having his face buried in the play calling chart, he can’t fully deal with some of the issues that arise during the course of the game.

He’s relying, perhaps a bit too heavily at times, on his assistants to do things that he should probably be more involved with, such as checking on an injured offensive player who has to go to the trainer’s table for evaluation, or calming an irate player down for more than a quick few seconds the play calling duties allow for, or making sure that his young guys aren’t doing anything to cost the team penalty yardage.

And what about behind the scenes? If McAdoo is spending most of his time developing the offensive game plan, which would be a logical conclusion to reach, exactly what level of input is he giving to the defensive and special teams strategies?

“We are going to look at personnel, we are going to look at scheme, we are going to look at a bunch of different things, personnel groups to see if we can get it jump-started here,’’ McAdoo said. “We certainly feel like we have plenty of talent, plenty of scheme. We are going to take the next few days and try to figure out.’’

Here’s hoping they’ve come to the right conclusion here, which is to let offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan handle the play-calling.

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