Watching the two O-Lines on the last two drives was sickenin

I've been a firm believer that the O-Line is the fundamental, foundational, and core problem of this football team. Was this painfully more obvious anywhere than in the last two drives?

Romo gets all day in the pocket, with so much protection that the Cowboys interior lineman were actually standing around LOOKING for someone to block. All things considered, the DBs held up decently well -- nobody is going to be able to provide man coverage for 6-8 seconds.

Juxtapose that with our O-line. On the last drive, Eli is immediately under duress. We had absolutely no shot to get the ball down the field, and couldn't even pick up 10 yards. On the final offensive snap, IIRC, Eli had to hit Jennings as a safety valve due to being pressured on the interior. This happened on the first play of the series as well, where Jennings dropped the ball.

The frustrating thing is that the interior line is SUCH a disaster, that certain plays that supposedly mitigate a pass rush or a poor O-line, such as a screen, are completely botched due to the incompetency of the interior line. The line is so bad, we have no recourse, because we cannot pull even plays that are designed to mask a poor line.

And this isn't even getting into the run blocking, which is actually worse. We have absolutely no push or physicality from anyone on this O-line. Jennings coming back is important because he's skilled enough to turn these no gains/1 yard gain into 3 yard gains.

Williams has potential if he has SOMETHING to work with, though his vision is terrible.

Anyway, having said all this, I'm not sure why the consensus that the line is the biggest issue with this team hasn't been reached among Giants fans.

Look, maybe it is Coughlin's time to go. He's been here a decade, and sometimes you just need a change. But let's not pretend he had ANY shot with this line, particularly after the Schwartz injury.

This extends to Gilbride also. Gilbride's offense works. We saw the Giants put up a ton of points under KG. It just needed a strong line and intelligent WRs to really work to its fullest potential. The long, down the field plays couldn't develop, and the constant pressure created more miscommunications between the QB and WRs.

You're starting to see this with McAddo's offense as well. It literally cannot function because of how poor the line is.

The thing that really gets me are the people piling on Eli. He was awful last week, and there is no excuse for the Preston Parker INT last night. But it's quite obvious that when the line is good, Eli puts up points, and can carve up most teams. Eli has shown throughout his career, and especially in 2011, that he can actually mitigate poor tackle play due to his pocket awareness and ability to keep his eyes down the field. However, he cannot and never has been able to mitigate poor interior line play. If he can step up into the pocket and shuffle around a little, he will find a WR down field. But the middle of the line is getting pushed back so far, that he never has any shot whatsoever.

At the moment, moving beyond even the poor line, we have a lack of offensive weapons outside of OBJ. I'm in the minority and actually think Cruz will come back 100%, but even still, we all know Cruz needs that physical, big X receiver on the other side to really open things up. Whether this is a player not on the team, or Randle stepping it up is yet to be seen, but if we can find that and fix the line then you will see how great Eli really can be in this offense (OBJ/X/Cruz in the slot).

And yeah, Fewell appears to be gone, and the Giants don't have a great defense, but in Fewell's defense, this team was built on a strong secondary that just completely fell apart starting with WIll Hill's release. The philosophy appeared to be the opposite of the late 00 Giants teams we all loved, with an emphasis on providing athletic coverage. Fewell's teams have also always forced a good amount of turnovers, something that I know was his hallmark in Buffalo, but we just can't do anything when we get the ball anyway. Regardless, I don't see how anyone can look at this whole team and say "Fewell. He's the guy who has fucked this team up".

So who does this fall on? If we have to pick someone, I pick Reese. I don't know enough about Marc Ross's role but it's painfully obvious that our talent evaluation has fallen substantially since he's been involved.

Reese gambled on the O-line in 2012 and especially 2013 and lost. I understand the risk he took and why he took it, but after conceding defeat on it, his inability to fix this line is mind boggling.

Pugh and Richburg are a decent start, and Schwartz looked decent. But this team has provided absolutely no depth behind these players.

I'm still trying to figure out if an optimal line of Beatty - Richburg - Walton - Schwartz - Pugh is even that good. I mean that's what Reese was betting the back on? No injuries on a line that would give us that combo?

We need to sign or draft a guard HIGH and figure out how to upgrade from Beatty.

Anyway, I've been digressing, but my entire point is that the offensive line is the quickest way to fix this team, and is the weakest link. You fix the O-line, all of the sudden you can run the ball and control the clock better. This automatically helps the defense, and allows us to actually take advantage of turnovers created by the defense. Plus, if you give Eli time, he WILL carve you up.

This is exactly why I wanted Zach Martin, but honestly, OBJ is making me eat crow (tastes so good). Having said that, we're fucked if we don't fix this line and add some toughness. It should be far and away the first priority for this team in the offseason.