Between the self-help books he quoted and his own brand of coach-speak, it was sometimes hard to understand what former Giants head coach Ben McAdoo was saying. Here’s one throwback: “We need to farm our own land. Everything is in front of us.”
It worked his first season when the Giants went 11-5 and made the playoffs. Not so much in the second year when the team finished 3-13 and McAdoo was fired in December. New coach Pat Shurmur preaches a simpler formula for success, something he made clear before the Giants earned their first win of the preseason beating the Lions, 30-17, Friday night at Ford Field.
It goes like this: “If we take care of the ball on offense, if we disrupt the ball on defense and then if something bad happens don��t make it worse.”
From there, “It’s man whipping man and let’s do it together.”
That was his pregame speech and his postgame speech. Rehearse it often enough, it could become habit forming.
“It’s philosophically the way I’ve developed over time,” Shurmur explained on Saturday. “I’ve always believed in taking care of the ball [on offense] and on defense if you take it away from them, well that’s obvious. That’s the mindset. It’s the total of things I’ve learned over the years.”
The Giants must be listening. After losing the preseason opener to the Browns, 20-10, they followed Shurmur’s three points to success for much of the game in Detroit. The Giants took care of the ball on offense, not giving up a turnover as three quarterbacks didn’t throw an interception while completing 18-of-28 for 203 yards and one TD, an 8-yard pass from Davis Webb to Wayne Gallman in the second quarter.
No interceptions were thrown against the Browns either when Eli Manning was added to mix. That means Giants quarterbacks have thrown the ball 73 times (completing 40 for 396 yards) without suffering an interception. They also haven’t lost a fumble, leaving them with zero turnovers in eight quarters.
“Our big focus has always been completions,” Shurmur said. “Within that, we’ll try to drive the ball down the field and get big plays. Every once in a while an interception is going to happen. But we’re always going to coach for a high completion percentage and get the ball in our playmakers hands.”
The Giants disrupted the ball on defense against the Lions. After a special teams fumble recovery led to a touchdown against the Browns, the defense got its first turnover of the preseason against Detroit when linebacker Ray Ray Armstrong intercepted a pass from Matt Cassel and returned it 24 yards to the Lions 12. Two plays later, rookie quarterback Kyle Lauletta made a nifty 10-yard scramble for a touchdown that put the visitors up 17-3 in the third quarter.
Shurmur said the Giants made a “boat load” of mistakes against the Lions. But whenever real adversity hit, they managed to weather it. You could point to the sack-fumble by Webb that initially gave the Lions the ball on the 1-yard line and staring at a 10-0 lead. The call was overturned and the Giants responded by completing a 17-play, 79-yard drive for the game’s first touchdown.
Or you could point to when the Giants failed to convert on fourth-and-3 at the Detroit 40 in the second quarter and the defense answered by denying the Lions a first down and forcing a punt after three plays.
“I trust our defense and I trust our offense,” Shurmur said. “If the time is right I’m going to go for it. The idea is to get into the end zone.”
Given the Giants scored 24 unanswered points during one stretch, “the man whipping man” part went in their favor as well, completing a blueprint Shurmur hopes to see every game until it becomes habit forming.