Assigning blame is easy. Most of it gets dumped on the offensive line, rightly so. The five-man unit, totally revamped, should be a boy band called New Kids Who Can’t Block.
Make no mistake, the plight of the Giants and their 0-2 start begins with the guys up-front. To think this collection of talent, all healthy and eager to strut its stuff, could fall so flat on a national stage is both startling and alarming. A team with Odell Beckham Jr., Saquon Barkley, Evan Engram and Sterling Shepard should use 20 points as a runway for takeoff. That this offense has two touchdowns in two games and had three points for the first 58 minutes, 33 seconds of Sunday night’s 20-13 loss to the Cowboys is more embarrassing than shameful.
Go ahead and lay it all on the rebuilt but (thus far) not reborn offensive line, but this early-season mess cannot be studied with blinders on. A wider view is needed. Eli Manning as the ringleader must be held accountable for his share of the struggles. And there is no sparing the power brokers who assembled this offensive unit; they must be put on notice that they may have miscalculated in a very dangerous way.
It is too soon for pronouncements, but not soon enough for major concern. The new regime of Dave Gettleman and Pat Shurmur hitched their wagon to Manning — the “fittest 37-year-old’’ Shurmur says he has ever seen. Fitness does not always translate into effectiveness, and even though he can make his throws and moves as well now as he ever did — that is not exactly setting a high bar — it is more than likely the best of Eli Manning is never to be seen again.
Age and athletes is an unholy alliance and something is missing from the storehouse Manning draws upon. His protection betrayed him as the Cowboys ravaged him for six sacks. Adding Shurmur’s acumen and overhauling four-fifths of the offensive line, while stashing Ereck Flowers at right tackle, was supposed to alleviate the pressure and unclog the drain, allowing the skilled ball-handlers to flow freely. What the Giants — now 3-16 in their past 19 games — slogged through in Week 2 was as bad as anything on display in Tom Coughlin’s final days and Ben McAdoo’s two-year stay as head coach. And just like that, the Giants are winless after two games for the fifth time in the last six years and challenged to resist a here-we-go-again resignation.
“We’re trying to grow away from that the best we can, and put all our efforts into beating Houston,’’ Shurmur said, referring to Sunday’s opponent as the Giants get set for a return trip to Texas.
Barkley made would-be tacklers miss more than half the time he caught the ball — his franchise-record 14 receptions totaled only 80 yards, a Shane Vereen-ish sort of notoriety — but no shiftiness on the planet could wriggle free of all the Cowboys encircling the increasingly frustrated first-round pick.
The Cowboys employed the standard bend-but-don’t-break defensive posture, a copycat approach whenever Beckham is in the building. Beckham said he saw a steady diet of two-deep zone, but his quarterback refuted that assessment.
“They didn’t play a ton of two-high,’’ Manning said. “They did every once in a while. I’d say before the last two drives of the fourth quarter they maybe played four snaps of two-high.’’
The arrival of Barkley was supposed to end or dramatically decrease a defense’s ability to sit back and force the Giants to gain yards in small chunks. Through two games, Shurmur has failed at making defenses pay for anything.
“It will get to the point where they can’t do it,’’ Beckham said “At some point in time, it’s going to be hard for teams to play us the way they did.’’
Not one starting offensive lineman is off to a good start, including big-ticket left tackle Nate Solder, who must be looking around and wondering where the heck Tom Brady went. Declaring all Manning needs is time to do his thing is not helpful, as offensive lines throughout the NFL exist in varying degrees of shabbiness, and younger, more elusive quarterbacks find a way.
It is not over for Manning, but he continues to trend downward. All those check-downs and dump-offs might be a dangerous sign, a lowering field of vision, a symptom of unshakable distrust of what is going on in front of him.
Eli says no to this.
“I saw things clearly, had to take some check-downs sometimes and we had some other opportunities when we did have some guys open and had some pressures,’’ he said.
Shurmur says no to this.
“Eli is a competitor,’’ he said. “We’re going to do everything we can to protect him. There was times [versus the Cowboys] where he wasn’t protected well enough.’’
This is indisputable. Left open for debate: Can Manning or the Giants do anything about it?
More observations after the Giants came up small in Big D:
— One of the Cowboys’ benchmarks is dominating the time of possession. That did not transpire in this game, as the Giants held the ball for 32:12, compared with Dallas’ 27:48. At least this was not a three-and-out parade by the Giants. Does anyone take solace in that?
— Dak Prescott got the last laugh after he vowed, “Challenge accepted,” upon hearing safety Landon Collins earlier in the week state the obvious: The goal of the Giants’ defense was to deal with Ezekiel Elliott on the ground and force Prescott to put the ball in the air. A reality check is in order here. Prescott did not do much other than run for a career-high 45 yards. He picked up 72 passing yards on his first two completions and then was 14-of-23 for 87 passing yards the rest of the way. Collins’ battle cry was and remains correct: It is doubtful Prescott can beat anyone if the Cowboys have to rely on their passing game. The Cowboys won, rather easily, with 20 points. Heaven forbid the Giants found a way to score 21.
— It takes a village to screw things up. As brutal as the offensive line is, there are systems in place to help out the big guys up front. Fullback Shane Smith does not get many snaps, and he fouled up two of them in the second quarter. On one hideous series, he twice whiffed on his blitz pickup, leading to two sacks of Manning. Tight end Rhett Ellison attracts praise from the coaching staff for his selfless play and blocking skill, but he was called for a holding penalty in the third quarter when the Giants had a first down on the Dallas 3-yard line. They had to settle for a field goal. When the line needed a pick-me-up from the fullback and the tight end, it did not get it.
— Asked how he felt the defense played, cornerback Janoris Jenkins said, “We were OK.” That about sums it up. Not terrible, nothing special. Most damning: The Giants did not register a single sack and did not force a turnover.
— The six sacks were the most Manning was dropped since Oct. 12, 2014, when he was also sacked six times, by the Eagles. Manning’s 33 completions tied for the sixth most in his 15-year career. No one would have ever suspected his longest completion (37 yards) of the night would go to Cody Latimer, a newcomer from the Broncos. Latimer became the third player to catch a pass from both Eli and Peyton Manning. The others are Jim Finn and Brandon Stokley.