German_Force » Instant analysis: This is what 2018

Giants football was supposed to look like If the New York Giants were going to have any realistic chance of having a successful 2018 season they had to have a victory Sunday against the Houston Texans. They got that desperately-needed victory by a 27-22 score Jon Halapio Jerseys 2019 , and it wasn’t an accident.For the first time this season, Giants’ football looked the way new coach Pat Shurmur and Co. hoped it would.The Giants were efficient and explosive on offense, especially in the first half. They were opportunistic, especially in the second half, on defense. They didn’t hurt themselves on special teams.Sunday began with the news that Ereck Flowers was no longer a member of the Giants’ starting offensive line. It ended with the first victory of the Pat Shurmur era. And renewed optimism that the Giants, underdogs on Sunday and facing the potential of a disastrous 0-3 start, could do good things in 2018.The Giants once again failed to reach the 30-point plateau, a mark they haven’t hit since the final game of the 2015 season when Tom Coughlin’s career with the team was ending. Still, when J.J. Watt wasn’t wrecking their plans, they showed the variety of weapons that could make their offense special.The Giants scored the first four times they had the ball, with a pair of touchdowns and a pair of Aldrick Rosas field goals. Saquon Barkley, again showing that he is virtually impossible for the first defender to tackle, took advantage of the best run-blocking the Giants have given him this season. Barkley had a 15-yard scoring run, a 24-yard run, and ended up with 17 carries for 82 yards.When it was winning time in the fourth quarter, nursing a 20-15 lead and needing a drive, it was Barkley the Giants leaned on. On a 9-play, 77-yard drive that ended up giving them a commanding 27-15 lead with 5:29 remaining Barkley carried the ball three times and caught two passes for 27 yards, including a 21-yard catch when he lined up as a wide receiver.“We found a way to finish the game. We started with a nice play to Shep White Curtis Riley Jerseys , then we ran the ball a little bit. We found a way to complete some passes, and then obviously at the end, score there,” Shurmur said.Eli Manning was an incredibly efficient 25-of-29 for 297 yards, two touchdowns and a passer rating of 132.3. He was sacked four times, three by Watt, but generally had time to set his feet and step into his throws. Shurmur also moved him left and right, creating some easy throws. Manning was as good as he’s been in a long, long time.Manning took advantage of mismatches all day, just like the Giants hoped he would be able to do if they could block well enough to give him a chance.“That’s how I see playing offense. You deal up a progression. Dial it up and then the ball goes where it’s supposed to go. If it gets out on time, we really trust all of our players out there,” Shurmur said. “The last touchdown was designed really to go to Odell (Beckham Jr.) isolated. They doubled him, so Eli went back and threw the ball to Shep (Sterling Shepard). That’s just the way this thing works, and it was good.”Manning was told after the game that he seemed more comfortable in the pocket than he had been the first two weeks.“I thought we did a good job having a good plan to get the ball out. The ball was coming out fast, could see what they were doing. The offensive line was blocking, doing what they were doing, they were blocking things up and we didn’t have the mistakes,” Manning said. “I thought we kind of condensed the offense a little bit and made sure guys knew what they were doing. Plays that they knew, they were playing fast Curtis Riley Jerseys 2019 , the offensive line was playing fast and we have good players, just let them go play. Let’s not try to be perfect and trick or do too much. Let our guys go win, because we got good athletes.”Relying heavily on various crossing routes, Manning completed 9-of-10 passes directed at Odell Beckham Jr. for 109 yards. When the Texans jumped Beckham and left single coverage elsewhere, the Giants took advantage of that. Sterling Shepard caught six passes for 80 yards, Rhett Ellison three for 39 and a touchdown, Barkley five for 35, Evan Engram one for 19 before being hurt and Cody Latimer one for 15.Defensively, as the game rolled into the latter stages and it looked like momentum was shifting to the Texans, the defense came up with a pair of critical takeaways to keep Houston at bay.Late in the third quarter, Kerry Wynn knocked a ball away from Lamar Miller and Donte Deayon recovered at the Giants’ 25-yard line. Houston’s next possession reached the Giants’ 8-yard line, but a penalty, sack and outstanding athletic interception by Alec Ogletree in the end zone ended that opportunity.Wynn was terrific. Damon Harrison dominated the middle. B.J. Hill and Lorenzo Carter got their first sacks. The Giants did enough in the secondary. They survived a game without Olivier Vernon and Eli Apple.Can the Giants build on this?That’s a really good question.Shurmur said his first victory as Giants’ coach “feels special because we’re making progress.”Will they, however, sustain it and make it meaningful?The Giants return home next week to face the New Orleans Saints, 2-1 after a 43-37 overtime victory Sunday over the Atlanta Falcons. That won’t be an easy game against Drew Brees and Co., a team with a terrific offense but a defense that can be taken advantage of.The Giants showed us Sunday what they can be. What they will be remains to be seen. “This is what we were itching for, itching for a win. Guys had a great week of preparation, so it shows us how we should prepare White Riley Dixon Jerseys , and if we want to keep this feeling then that’s what we have to keep on doing,” Shepard said. “Everybody was freaking out about the two games but we remained calm as a team.”Beckham was well aware that one victory does not mean all is well in the Giants’ world.“We have to get some more wins and start putting them together,” he said. “We can’t get too far ahead of ourselves, because it’s just one game. Now we have to start tacking it on, build off this today and keep improving.”What they managed to do Sunday, though, is to get a reprieve and make things interesting going forward. The New York Giants almost followed through with a stunning upset victory over the Indianapolis Colts. The Giants drew first blood with a touchdown on a brilliantly called and executed drive on their first possession of the game, and stymied the Colts’ offense for its first three possessions. They never trailed until the final 55 seconds of the game. Unfortunately, the Giants ultimately let their lead slip away. The 2018 season is finally (mercifully) almost over, but there are things we can learn about the Giants as we near the beginning of the 2019 pre-season. The Giants still need to learn how to close out gamesDid Janoris Jenkins’ bone-headed holding call to negate Olivier Vernon’s strip sack cost the Giants the game? Possibly. Did Eli Manning’s game-ending interception negate what had been one of his best games of the season up until that point? Maybe. Was Pat Shurmur’s decision to run the ball from the Giants’ goal line despite Saquon Barkley averaging just 2.0 yards per carry on the day the right call? Personally, I don’t think so.All of those contributed to the Giants’ loss — save, of course, Eli’s final throw, which was the nail in the coffin. Although, considering how he, and the Giants, had played up until that point, he probably shouldn’t even have been in the position in the first place.The Giants looked like the better team for the first 55 minutes of the game, only to cough up the win at the end. It is far from the first time that we’ve seen this happen. The defense was unable to get off the field when they absolutely need to Riley Dixon Jerseys 2019 , the offense was unable to make a play, and the Giants committed penalties to extend opposing drives while sabotaging their own. Those same issues cropped up and cost them games leading to their 1-7 start, they cost them the second game against the Philadelphia Eagles, and nearly cost them the game against the Chicago Bears, and made the games against the San Francisco 49ers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers far closer than they needed to be.The Giants have a whole host of personnel decisions to make and holes to fill in the coming off-season. However, learning to deal with success, making better decisions with the game on the line, is a must for the whole team going forward — players and coaches. Even with glaring holes on their roster, the Giants have proven this season that they have the firepower to compete with most teams in the NFL. Hopefully some of those holes will be filled in the offseason, but it won’t matter until they can play winning football for 60 minutes, not 55.The offensive line doesn’t have to limit the offenseLast week, many criticized Pat Shurmur for abandoning the running game when the Giants’ offensive line utterly failed to open any holes against the Tennessee Titans. This week, the Giants clearly did not trust their offensive line against Against the Colts’ defensive front seven. They opened the game with quick misdirection plays and quick passes to create confusion on the Indianapolis defense, and it worked. Rather than try to impose their will on the Colts’ defensive line, the Giants only asked the Giants to hold their blocks while Manning got his playmakers the ball on the perimeter. In the passing game, the Giants only asked the linemen to hold their blocks for a couple seconds, or used play-action and roll-outs to slow down the pass rush and move Manning away from it. And the offense responded with methodical, relatively efficient drives. When the line were forced to block straight up, it didn’t hold up well. But the Giants showed that an out-classed offensive line didn’t have to limit them White Alec Ogletree Jerseys , nor that a quick strike offense had to play within five yards of the line of scrimmage. For the most part, this was the best game Pat Shurmur has called all year, right up until the end.The Giants’ defense could be really good We’ve known all year long that the Giants’ defense was going to be making due without ideal pieces at every position — or even most of them. The pass rush was going to be a problem, and the secondary was thin even before Eli Apple was traded to the New Orleans Saints. But even so, there are flashes of what we could eventually see from this scheme once the Giants plug some holes. B.J. Hill has been a pleasant surprise all season long, and Lorenzo Carter harrassed Andrew Luck all game long. The Giants were largely unable to even slow the Colts down this game, but Bettcher’s scheme showed its potential for the future. The Giants mixed and matched fronts and personnel, sending a variety of blitzes. And while they (officially) only had one sack on the game, Andrew Luck was pressured harried throughout the game. Unfortunately, those roster holes made themselves known throughout the game, and the Giants’ defense just couldn’t come through when it mattered. Some kickers ARE football playersThis has nothing to do with the Giants, but I just had to bring it to everyone’s attention. (And frankly: the season is almost over, that was a tough loss, and it’s almost Christmas. We should probably laugh a bit.)Usually the joke is that kickers aren’t football players, that they’re usually among the best golfers on the team because they don’t have anything better to do than work on their swings. But some kickers definitely are football players. Case in point, Atlanta Falcons kicker Matt Bosher.I wonder if the can play safety?