I just rewatched the game and was stunned to see all of the coaching blunders committed by the giants staff.
1. Ridiculous use of timeouts throughout the game. Only one was used to strategically stop the clock. The rest were used due to the confusion of the unit on the field.
2. Misalignment on Washington TD run AFTER A TIMEOUT right before the half. An elephant could have gone untouched through that hole.
3. Final drive - Washington calls a timeout on third and five. Incredibly, coming out of the timeout, giants have too many men on the field and TWO PLAYERS are running off when Wash is ready to snap. Giants need to use their own timeout right after Washington’s. WTF??
4. Lack of discipline - false start/delay of game after timeout on 3rd and 2 in the first half after Barkley run. Two false starts in a row after Slayton drop. Carter offsides on the final drive. And of course, Lawrence offsides on the game winning FG.
5. The one time they actually needed a timeout, it was not called. On 4TH AND ONE ON THE FINAL DRIVE, the giants were totally confused. Some players’ backs were to the ball when it was snapped. Instead of contesting what could have been the final play of the game by stopping the run or forcing an incomplete pass, giants gave up an easy rushing first down. Not enough was made of this play. IMO, it’s one of the ugliest of the game.
Those were the worst. The following is a list of strategic mistakes that could be counted as blunders as well (depending on who you ask).
6. Soft zone throughout the game against a young backup QB who did not have great accuracy. Bridgewater was lethal last week. Heineke was so so. It’s just that he had so much time to throw (absolutely no pass rush) and the receivers were so open that a throw in the vicinity of the WR/TE/RB was good enough. Add to this the fact that the Washington receivers were absolutely OUTSTANDING this game (they caught EVERYTHING), and you have a recipe for disaster. Giants should have been blitzing all game with tight man coverage. It might have allowed a couple big plays, but Heineke was not accurate enough to seriously hurt them.
7. Two SB runs after the interception. In today’s NFL, it’s too easy for teams to March down for a FG when given four downs and two minutes. Because of the significant amount of time left on the clock (2+ mins), it’s irrelevant whether Washington has its timeouts or not. The game would be won for the giants only if they could make a fourth down stop or turnover. Since Washington’s TOs didn’t matter, giants should have passed on first down because the defense was expecting a run. A first down would have sealed the game.
8. Not going for 2 points after the Slayton TD with only a few minutes left in the third quarter in order to go up by 7 instead of 6.
9. Settling for too many FGs on 4th and short.
10. Punting on 4th down and long from Washington 38 yard line. A 55 yard FG was within Gano’s range (as proven throughout the game).
There are probably more. Bottom line: the coaching lost this game for the giants. Not all the players played great. But they did enough to win. Washington’s coaching was far superior, and that made all the difference.
He's not a killer.
DJ played well for the first time in 2 years...but he's a long way from someone Judge should trust to carry this team to wins. FGs are better than giving games away and DJ has to prove he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
DJ played well for the first time in 2 years...but he's a long way from someone Judge should trust to carry this team to wins. FGs are better than giving games away and DJ has to prove he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
I would agree with this but for the fact that the exact opposite was happening in this game. If the defense was having a great game and Jones wasn’t moving the ball, then you would have a point. But not in this game you don’t. Besides, when I said pass after the INT, I didn’t mean into triple coverage in the end zone. I meant a simple play action pass to Shepherd in the flat for 7-8 yards. Washington was selling out so hard on the run that it would almost surely have worked.
Disagree on some points though... I thought The WAsh QB was accurate. I remember Foles in the superbowl, he played lights out and was never able to duplicate the effort. Not sure that's not what we saw the other night.
Re: The TD in the endzone, he threw that ball (in a pressure spot) as perfectly as it could be thrown. And the receiver went up and made an incredible catch. With all the emotions flowing there still should be time to appreciate football at it's finest.
I don't know if there's any coming back from this. Judge looks like an inexperienced high school coach. With all the bad coaches we've had, I don't recall anything like the debacle from the other night.
And why the reliance on a zone? The personnel seems equipped to handle a man to man pressing type of pass defense. And, against a non running QB, isn't one of the advantages of a zone nullified? Bradberry seemed man up on a receiver that was beating him and they didn't switch up and offer help at any point.
I've been wrong. I Believed that something very special was happening, I suppose, in one sense at least, that I'm right, something was happening, only it's not positive, it's comically nightmarish.
A final note (and maybe an attempt to find a positive),
Solder and Andrew were very good when matched up against the best in the game. The interior lost it's best player (by far) and stepped up and offered just enough room for Jones to step up into the pocket. All the yearlong dirge of the destructionists notwithstanding, this loss was not on the offensive line.
I am starting to think that Barklay has lost it and its time to sit him. Gallup made yardage and had 100 yard games with this line.
Never thought I'd be writing the words that has so easily flowed this night. Just hoping i'm as wrong tonight as I seem to have been all along.
It's a helluva a thing when that's my most comforting thought LOL.
Disagree on some points though... I thought The WAsh QB was accurate. I remember Foles in the superbowl, he played lights out and was never able to duplicate the effort. Not sure that's not what we saw the other night.
Re: The TD in the endzone, he threw that ball (in a pressure spot) as perfectly as it could be thrown. And the receiver went up and made an incredible catch. With all the emotions flowing there still should be time to appreciate football at it's finest.
I don't know if there's any coming back from this. Judge looks like an inexperienced high school coach. With all the bad coaches we've had, I don't recall anything like the debacle from the other night.
And why the reliance on a zone? The personnel seems equipped to handle a man to man pressing type of pass defense. And, against a non running QB, isn't one of the advantages of a zone nullified? Bradberry seemed man up on a receiver that was beating him and they didn't switch up and offer help at any point.
I've been wrong. I Believed that something very special was happening, I suppose, in one sense at least, that I'm right, something was happening, only it's not positive, it's comically nightmarish.
A final note (and maybe an attempt to find a positive),
Solder and Andrew were very good when matched up against the best in the game. The interior lost it's best player (by far) and stepped up and offered just enough room for Jones to step up into the pocket. All the yearlong dirge of the destructionists notwithstanding, this loss was not on the offensive line.
I am starting to think that Barklay has lost it and its time to sit him. Gallup made yardage and had 100 yard games with this line.
Never thought I'd be writing the words that has so easily flowed this night. Just hoping i'm as wrong tonight as I seem to have been all along.
It's a helluva a thing when that's my most comforting thought LOL.
I’m not going to argue that the TD pass in the 4th quarter wasn’t great. It absolutely was. He put that in aspot where only the WR could get it, and the WR made a fabulous catch. But I did think that Heineke was pretty inconsistent with his throws for much of the game. Passes were behind his targets and very few were 15+ yards. This offensive approach demanded that the giants respond with a tight man-to-man with frequent blitz packages coming from different spots. You try to confuse a young QB, not give him confidence by allowing him to make easy throws throughout the game.
I wonder if Graham thought Heinicke was incapable of beating the Giants if he had to do it via "death by a thousand cuts."
But he was up to the task.
Moving past that, I draw zero conclusions about the first two weeks of football. All it is, it's just two games. All the games count, but in terms of a season narrative, that's yet to be written. I'm not changing my opinion on any players or coaches based on what I saw in the first two games, and especially Thursday night. And I don't think anyone should. A lot of things happened and a lot of players haven't had many reps or the chemistry yet that will develop.
And Price and Bredeson have barely been with the team.
Things are going to get better. Will it translate into wins? I don't know, but I think they will play better.
If you can see those things, and I can see those things, the fans can see them... are those 6 extra expert coaches going to see those too and make sure that Judge and the whole staff is aware?
Feed that to the Judge who says "we are going to look at the tape, see what has to be fixed and we are going to fix it". Will he see those things and fix them?
If we don't see clear and obvious fixing going on and improvement going on, then it's all talk and they've all got to go.
The next time we play a young inexperienced QB, we're going to man up on his WR and play very aggressive, right? We're going to spread out the defense if we want 26 to run up the middle, not stack the box, right? KT is going to see the ball more than twice a game! And please lord no more jet sweeps. I don't care if it works once in a while. We just can't pull that off, often enough to make the 4 yard losses worth it.
Excellent, well thought out post!
I think the defense game plan (Graham) was terrible. Should have blitzed and press covered to make him beat us.
As for the 2 Barkley runs, people apparently wanted the Giants to do what Washington did on their second to last drive. WFT aggressively tried to end the game by getting first downs as opposed to making the Giants call timeouts. Guess what happened?? They turned the ball over. I too wish the Giants had highly efficient plays they could call to gain at least 4 or 5 yards, but imaginative play-calling and efficiency aren’t hallmarks of the Jason Garrett NY offense. Avoiding a turnover is just as important as anything else in that situation.
The biggest mistake is one the OP vaguely mentions which is kicking a 55 yard FG to go up six with 5+ minutes left. THAT was the spot they needed to be aggressive because the goal should’ve been seven points. Being up six was worthless.
And re: running the ball before our last fg… you can run it but why not line up like you were the entire game, in shotgun faking a handoff/running a bootleg, or pulling back and hitting an easy completion against a team thinking you are running? It was so silly. As soon as they lined up.
Don’t trust your defense for an early long fg attempt
Then trust them after they’ve played horribly with game on the line
Judge patronized the fans with his response to last drive yesterday
Then tries to call pass to shep going vertical
No timeout on 4th and one should be called out and I m not sure I’ve seen
It asked of him
Pathetic performance by the coach
I think the defense game plan (Graham) was terrible. Should have blitzed and press covered to make him beat us.
I agree with this.
Also, I agree with all star Jim’s take that we don’t know what we have, and that things should get better. They did last year. Let’s see if that translates to wins.
With all the points the original poster made, all valid, we were still in position to win. And we should have at least tried.
Moving past that, I draw zero conclusions about the first two weeks of football. All it is, it's just two games. All the games count, but in terms of a season narrative, that's yet to be written. I'm not changing my opinion on any players or coaches based on what I saw in the first two games, and especially Thursday night. And I don't think anyone should. A lot of things happened and a lot of players haven't had many reps or the chemistry yet that will develop.
And Price and Bredeson have barely been with the team.
Things are going to get better. Will it translate into wins? I don't know, but I think they will play better.
Best thoughts I’ve read on here in a long time. We’re only two games in. I believe adjustments will be made and play will improve. This is a decent roster and recent blunders notwithstanding, I have confidence in the coaches. Think we’re still looking at an 8-9 win season.
The most important thing to ‘root’ for and watch as a Giants fan is DJ. We’ll know after this year if he’s the guy or not. This last game was at least encouraging on that front.
The soft play from the Secondary for now two weeks in a row is killing this team. And it’s not like they faced the more accomplished passers or even scrambling QBs so not sure why they aren’t manning-up far more.
Unprepared team in week one. Mistakes from sideline in game two. Players yelling at teammates on sideline. Rookies displaying their attitudes on public forums. Weakest unit on the team gets even thinner. 0-2 start yet again for a team that took some leeways this preaseason in playing starters.
Quite a start to new season.
In the post game pressers Judge had some coach pablum about trusting the running game after the JBIV int with 2 minutes left in the game. But the running game was horrible all night. Everyone knew the Giants running game wasn’t working. Yet, two dives into the dirt by Barkley. A naked bootleg by Jones would have at least taken more time than Mr Future Gold Jacket jumping into the dirt. Pathetic coaching.
This year, on both sides of the ball, it looks like a Chinese fire drill pre-snap. The D in particular is having a difficult time getting lined up. It's a veteran D who was beating its chest all summer how good it was, and they can't even line up correctly and be ready for the snap.
And you're right - that 4th and 1 where everybody's just standing around was killer.
2017 didn’t shock me like this year has so far.
I’d probably fire Garrett for not running the Jones keeper more often than they did in these last two games, but I’d bet Judge has more input on the playcalling anyway. And if he doesn’t that’s on him too.
The giants are afraid to win. It’s clear as day. And they have been since December of 2012. They makes moves they are obligated to make. They coach scared and play scared. Finally Jones looks like he’s ready to put on some big boy pants, carrying this offense most of Thursday night, and the giants neuter him in the 4th quarter.
DJ played well for the first time in 2 years...but he's a long way from someone Judge should trust to carry this team to wins. FGs are better than giving games away and DJ has to prove he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
I believe Jones only has 1 int and 1 fumble in his last 8 games (I may have missed a fumble). That is really good. Hopefully he has learned
DJ played well for the first time in 2 years...but he's a long way from someone Judge should trust to carry this team to wins. FGs are better than giving games away and DJ has to prove he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
You are worried about turnovers? How about a simple play action to o e side, with Ho es keeping it on a boot to the other? Not even a lass is required. But, the fake is almost certain to work. And, maybe once we can throw a pass past the sticks on 3rd down.