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| A: Again, I mentioned it yesterday, we took some shots and they were playing in two-shell, so the ball gets checked down. That’s one reason for it. A: Yeah, we called them. There were deep routes called that we couldn’t get the ball downfield, so you check it down. Then you move on. A: You call plays to be aggressive. If they’re there, you take your shots. That’s how you dictate. And if they’re not there, you check them down, and then the backs catch the ball and run with it. You’re talking about seven-eight yard gains, which is fine, so that’s how you dictate. Then you make them defend those. That’s how you dictate, and then when you choose to run the ball, you make yardage. |
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| Q: If the defense is taking away those deep routes, is it worth it at all to take a shot anyway, even though the coverage isn’t ideal for that? A: That usually leads to bad plays. There’s ways to get explosive plays without throwing it deep. It’s not like they all have to be go-routes or post-routes. Hitting guys on the move when they do play man, in zones you can still hit plays. In breaking routes and buying time. You can still hit explosive plays when teams are trying to take away the deep shots. |
He has time and open guys, but he is just checking down.
Just finished watching the All-22 of the first half from Sunday. Eli Manning wasn't touched once. Took ZERO QB hits. I counted 1 pressure. Using the O-line excuse this week is lazy. This is his pocket on the second missed throw of the first half to Odell Beckham Jr.
Link - ( New Window )
Just finished watching the All-22 of the first half from Sunday. Eli Manning wasn't touched once. Took ZERO QB hits. I counted 1 pressure. Using the O-line excuse this week is lazy. This is his pocket on the second missed throw of the first half to Odell Beckham Jr. Link - ( New Window )
Then the replays Romo saw and what the national audience showed is wrong as well. There were a few times it showed Eli getting up after a throw.
Where Eli is in his career
Where the line is
What the coach would prefer
What the defense is dictating
Eli’s preference on any given play
What the team concept is long term
What the game plan is short term
Of course they do. I think they're trying ti press the point that there are ways of accomplishing that without low percentage throws into zone coverage.
And he's right. A checkdown to Barkley is a short throw, and he's talented enough to take it 40 yards any time he touches it.
Shurmur says multiple times they're calling deep plays, but they aren't there or they couldn't get the ball downfield. Eli isn't being coached to check down, he's being coached to check down IF the deep pass isn't an option (on those plays).
I don't know of any offense that suggests passing a ball deep if the play isn't there. that seems like even in a vertical offense is a smart thing to do. Tiki Barber was catching 60 - 70 passes a year in the Giants vertical offense.
pjcas18 : 9:10 am : link : reply
but reading what you want to read.
Plus a million
If they continue with this offensive scheme which Shurmur likes, they need to figure out how to get Beckham and Barkley the ball with some room to run. I don’t know why that should be so hard against a Cover 2 deep zone.
Kidding. Its ludicrous to assume such a thing.
Maybe.
Sound familiar? - ( New Window )
Just finished watching the All-22 of the first half from Sunday. Eli Manning wasn't touched once. Took ZERO QB hits. I counted 1 pressure. Using the O-line excuse this week is lazy. This is his pocket on the second missed throw of the first half to Odell Beckham Jr. Link - ( New Window )
I don't recall the back half of that play, but I count 8 blockers vs 4 defenders, so maybe the 7 other defenders had blanket coverage on the 2 WRs?
A few overarching principles to keep in mind about the offense Case Keenum ran last year in Minnesota:
Staying on schedule is huge
Minnesota’s offense was all predicated on staying on schedule. They weren’t built to come from behind or convert a lot of 3rd and longs (few teams are built for this). Their run/pass split was one of the most balanced in the league last year as they were near 50% of runs and passes.
Getting small chunks of yards that set up 2nd or 3rd and manageable kept them from getting behind the sticks early in drives.
Low risk plays led to low turnovers
Low risk doesn’t necessarily mean no big plays, as Keenum still had his fair share of big plays. However, the bread and butter of the offense was a short/intermediate passing game that were inherently lower risk passes.
This approach allowed Keenum to finish top 5 in interception rate, along with Drew Brees and Tom Brady (who employ similar offensive strategies).
Get the ball to players in space
We’ll dig into it more in a later post, but Case Keenum and the Minnesota offense was one of the best in the league at generating YAC for the offense. They did this by scheming players into space where they could go make a play.
We’ll keep these in mind as we go through the various concepts each week.
With that, let’s dive in!
Concepts
As the title indicated, the meat of this will be digging into two concepts Minnesota and Keenum ran with a lot of success last year.
Great breakdown with play diagrams of the concepts Keenum ran in Minny last year - ( New Window )
Shurmur says multiple times they're calling deep plays, but they aren't there or they couldn't get the ball downfield. Eli isn't being coached to check down, he's being coached to check down IF the deep pass isn't an option (on those plays).
I don't know of any offense that suggests passing a ball deep if the play isn't there. that seems like even in a vertical offense is a smart thing to do. Tiki Barber was catching 60 - 70 passes a year in the Giants vertical offense.
Do you think we will see checkdowns this Sunday? I doubt it and there won't be many, even it introduces Eli accuracy and turnover risk.
Sunlight exposes issues and the criticism will get louder and louder and become unacceptable regardless of how much blame you place on the oline. At some point you cant keep pointing at the monster under the bed and you have to do something about this issue and not go in a shell.
Shurmur says multiple times they're calling deep plays, but they aren't there or they couldn't get the ball downfield. Eli isn't being coached to check down, he's being coached to check down IF the deep pass isn't an option (on those plays).
I don't know of any offense that suggests passing a ball deep if the play isn't there. that seems like even in a vertical offense is a smart thing to do. Tiki Barber was catching 60 - 70 passes a year in the Giants vertical offense.
I agree with this. Shurmur's choosing his words wisely and conveniently omitting the reason(s) why they can't get it downfield.
Eli bashers will blame him (exclusively), Eli defenders will blame everyone else (see dep on the All-22 thread), but in reality it's likely a combo of things.
You read what you want to from it. To me, sounds really familiar.
Eli was very bad on Sunday. He was very good the previous Sunday. Eli's YPA was ~1.2 yards lower than Keenum's was last year with a higher completion percentage.
Eli was very bad on Sunday. He was very good the previous Sunday. Eli's YPA was ~1.2 yards lower than Keenum's was last year with a higher completion percentage.
We're also only 4 games into the season.
Perhaps when he's more comfortable in it, it will open up some.
If they continue with this offensive scheme which Shurmur likes, they need to figure out how to get Beckham and Barkley the ball with some room to run. I don’t know why that should be so hard against a Cover 2 deep zone.
A pocket passer needs a big physical target like Lattimer, but one that can separate. Well at least DG tried with what was available.
Barkley on a wheel route should kill a soft man cover 2, haven't seen that all year.
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I don't think any offensive system dictates checking down when guys are open further down the field.
Eli was very bad on Sunday. He was very good the previous Sunday. Eli's YPA was ~1.2 yards lower than Keenum's was last year with a higher completion percentage.
We're also only 4 games into the season.
That's irrelevant when comparing his play from one week to another. He did all the things he needed to week three. It was an excellent game. One I was hoping he'd build off of.
And then he had an awful game Sunday.
So mentioning that Eli had only played 4 games in the system as compared to Keenum's 15 actually was relevant.
Perhaps when he's more comfortable in it, it will open up some.
Eli has been through different coordinators before, how long before he gets comfortable? The excuses for this guy on this site are ridiculous. Eli needs to play better.
Not one person has said differently.
That breakdown on that Denver Broncos site is a really good breakdown of what Shurmer was running last year in Minny, and what Keenum was asked to do within that system.
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Eli's YPA was ~1.2 yards lower than Keenum's was last year with a higher completion percentage.
So mentioning that Eli had only played 4 games in the system as compared to Keenum's 15 actually was relevant.
Blaming the system for Eli checking down all day Sunday does make it irrelevant. A low YPA is not something embedded in Shurmur's system. Keenum's first four games last year YPA was: 4.51, 11.18, 7.3, 6.67. 7.4 average.
Who is the constant?
At some point you're going to have concede that Eli might actually be a part of this problem when you watch Mayfield and the Browns drop 40+, Mitch Trubisky throw 6 TD passes in a game (5 in a half) and guys like Patrick Mahomes breaking records within 3 games of their careers.
How many more times do we need to shuffle coaches, linemen, and skill players before we finally arrive at this conclusion?
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Eli's YPA was ~1.2 yards lower than Keenum's was last year with a higher completion percentage.
So mentioning that Eli had only played 4 games in the system as compared to Keenum's 15 actually was relevant.
Blaming the system for Eli checking down all day Sunday does make it irrelevant. A low YPA is not something embedded in Shurmur's system. Keenum's first four games last year YPA was: 4.51, 11.18, 7.3, 6.67. 7.4 average.
I'm not going to get in a dumb stats comparison with you that doesn't really mean much, but he also threw for only like 150 yards in two of those games. And only had what one would consider a good game in one of the four. 369 yards and 3 TD's. Through 4 games, he also had 4 TD's.
Who is the constant?
At some point you're going to have concede that Eli might actually be a part of this problem when you watch Mayfield and the Browns drop 40+, Mitch Trubisky throw 6 TD passes in a game (5 in a half) and guys like Patrick Mahomes breaking records within 3 games of their careers.
How many more times do we need to shuffle coaches, linemen, and skill players before we finally arrive at this conclusion?
I think the offense will get better as the year goes on, and the players get more comfortable running it. We shall see.
There are similarities to Minnesota, and there should be. The point is to try and understand what they're running and what it looks like. We're seeing it for the first time, but if you look at Minnesota last year, we should understand that this is the offense.
Make up your mind :)
I don't think the offense we're running is the problem. Minnesota was 13th in the NFL last year in 20+ yard pass plays.
Adam Theilen averaged 14 YPR last year, and Stefon Diggs was over 13. Beckham is at a career low 10.7 YPR right now.
Who is the constant?
Eli is definitely part of the problem. What else is constant? An underperforming OL. A non existing running game.
Changing players doesnt mean success. We are going to move on from Eli probably next year. What if the next QB struggles as well. Whats the excuse going to be.
The main problem is the OL. When you cant run the ball effectively - you are going to have huge offensive problems.
I don't think the offense we're running is the problem. Minnesota was 13th in the NFL last year in 20+ yard pass plays.
Adam Theilen averaged 14 YPR last year, and Stefon Diggs was over 13. Beckham is at a career low 10.7 YPR right now.
And that can change. You're comparing 16 games to 4.
Saquon average 4.4 YPC. I wouldn't call the running game non-existent (I just don't think it was used enough on Sunday).
Prime Eli didn't need everything to be good for him to perform.
Make up your mind :)
This is what Eli is, though. It's what he's always been - except now the highs and good performances aren't quite as great as they used to be.
Eli isn't the only issue here. I just think to keep bending over backwards looking for ways to make it everyone else's fault but his is starting to get silly.
I'm sure you can still win games with him if you have a top-flight OL. We don't have that. We're not winning games, and we're not scoring points.
So, how much longer do we want to commit to giving him "ideal" conditions to allow that to happen?
Basically - the question is this..
How much more are you willing to commit to the roster and for how much longer are you willing to do it?
We've spent money on offensive linemen, 3 first round picks and a 2nd rd pick on the skill players. We're still not scoring points.
Are we just going to keep firing coaches?
The Giants offense should be better than this. Full stop. We shouldn't need to wait half a season to score 30 points when much less experienced players and teams are doing it already.
If this isn't good enough, then you're not watching other football games. This is basically what QB's are working with now.
I'm not claiming ours is good - but you're basically asking the Giants to pour more resources into it to what end? How many more years should we be trying to make this OL good enough for Eli?
It's a losing proposition.
Read Shurmer's comments. Read Eli's comments. Read Keenum's comments.
Then, read that article about the concepts that made Keenum successful in Minny last year, and what he was coached/asked to do.
Then think about what we do, have been doing, and what our offense looks like this year.
It's four games in. Perhaps it will open up and things will start happening like they did in Minny last year.
Its a broken record, its been happening for over a year now. Until we can do 1 or the other, then this will continue.
What's done is done for the season and whatever happens next offseason is then. This is about NOW.
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We've been in "wait and see" mode for a long time now. We're not seeing anything change.
I don't think the offense we're running is the problem. Minnesota was 13th in the NFL last year in 20+ yard pass plays.
Adam Theilen averaged 14 YPR last year, and Stefon Diggs was over 13. Beckham is at a career low 10.7 YPR right now.
And that can change. You're comparing 16 games to 4.
Minnesota broke 30 points in game 3 last year. They didn't even need 4 games.
To defend Eli Manning.
At least just be honest about it. It gets hard to take seriously when you pretend that's not what you're doing here.
It's disappointing that those performances are rare. I was very hopeful that the Texans performance was a sign of things to come. Maybe they do get a bit better. But I don't see Eli leading an elite offense anymore.
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In comment 14103082 Britt in VA said:
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Eli's YPA was ~1.2 yards lower than Keenum's was last year with a higher completion percentage.
So mentioning that Eli had only played 4 games in the system as compared to Keenum's 15 actually was relevant.
Blaming the system for Eli checking down all day Sunday does make it irrelevant. A low YPA is not something embedded in Shurmur's system. Keenum's first four games last year YPA was: 4.51, 11.18, 7.3, 6.67. 7.4 average.
I'm not going to get in a dumb stats comparison with you that doesn't really mean much, but he also threw for only like 150 yards in two of those games. And only had what one would consider a good game in one of the four. 369 yards and 3 TD's. Through 4 games, he also had 4 TD's.
Darnold cultists whip themselves up into a delirious ecstatic frenzy with visions of Canton lumpy head busts whenever their God-Quaterback throws for less than 200 yards and a pick 6 against Matt Patricia.
While the concepts and Keenum comparisons carry some validity, it seems Eli's choosing the check downs more than preferred. He was trying to quickly get rid of the ball vs the Saints, yet again this unit collectively failed to defeat simple Cover 2 looks.
The OL lack of talent is part of the problem, youth at the skill positions and the QB are part of the problem. Can they reverse the tide remains to be seen.