NFL

Giants offense will sputter until line gets it in gear

There already are too many worries about the state of the Giants’ offense, but the competency of the line must be included. With one game down and one game lost, if what’s up front doesn’t get better, the suspected deficiencies at receiver and tight end will pale in comparison.

The five-man unit has been reworked more than completely revamped, and test No. 1 was a failure. Maybe as weeks go by the personnel along the Redskins’ defensive front will prove to be a formidable bunch. The Giants better hope that’s the case, because they were beaten in virtually every detail in the season-opening 28-14 loss.

Say what you will about Eli Manning’s uninspiring performance, but he didn’t have much of a running game to lean on and faced more heat than he’s accustomed to feeling. The pocket rarely was a secure place for him to be, and it grew increasingly more hazardous, as he was sacked four times in the second half. The run blocking was suspect, averaging only 3.8 yards a carry and particularly shoddy in short yardage. When Ahmad Bradshaw’s longest run covers just seven yards, it’s a problem.

Before training camp, the Giants made just one signing for a ready-made starter, but the addition of David Baas to play center is a three-pronged deal. The move was made in concert with the plan to move David Diehl inside to left guard and turn Will Beatty into the franchise left tackle. Beatty is entering his third year; everyone else along the line is a full-fledged veteran. Everyone anticipated the adjustment and cohesion would come quickly.

It hasn’t.

“It’s no excuse,” right guard Chris Snee said. “We have to play better, and we will play better. We can’t say we have new guys, get a month grace period. These games are real and we have to win these.”

Manning felt far too much pressure straight up the middle, where Baas and Diehl were alongside each other for the first time in a real game. Baas blew his assignment on a key third-quarter fourth-and-1, sliding right to block London Fletcher instead of shifting left to deal with Rocky McIntosh, who was first on the scene to drop Bradshaw for no gain.

“We didn’t play as well as we can play,” coach Tom Coughlin said. “You can say it anyway you want. There is no excuse for it. Sometimes the very quick adjustments are not being made exactly the way they should be made.”

In the fourth quarter, a third-and-1 from the Washington 18-yard line came up empty when no one protected the back side, as former Giants defensive tackle Barry Cofield raced from left to right to help drop Bradshaw for a 2-yard loss. There is nothing more deflating for a team than failing in such situations.

“You got to run it, you got to pound it and get those,” Manning said.

Let’s not forget that the right tackle, Kareem McKenzie, did not execute a cut-block, as rookie linebacker Ryan Kerrigan anticipated the move, jumped to avoid McKenzie’s dive and turned his deflected Manning pass into a crushing 9-yard touchdown return.

There really wasn’t much of a decision by the front office when venerable linemen Rich Seubert and Shaun O’Hara were released; neither was healthy enough to play. Baas figures to be solid once he’s fully ingrained in what’s going on. Snee says the whole unit has to “move a little quicker, increase our rate of speed.”

In other words, pick it up.

COVER ME

Sorry, can’t buy the explanation by safety Antrel Rolle that the main reason why the Giants secondary allowed Rex Grossman to look like a Pro Bowl quarterback is that the unit did not have a “sense of urgency” or was “very flat.”

“I didn’t feel we had the energy we should’ve,” Rolle said.

Urgency? Flat? Energy? Are we really talking about these ingredients in a season-opener against a division rival on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11? Coach Tom Coughlin didn’t like those claims.

“I’m not sure about that,” said Coughlin, who probably hit much closer to the real problem when he added, “I do know on the fourth-and-5 we were off a little more than what we would have coached it.”

Rolle said he believes the best team did not win on Sunday.

“As a team and organization, we know that the Washington Redskins is not a better team than us,” he told WFAN in his weekly radio spot. “If we played them 100 times, they might win five.”

Rolle also promised a better result in the Week 15 rematch, saying QB Rex Grossman and the Redskins will “feel the Giants come the next time around.”

The Giants defensive backs played too far off the ball, and defensive coordinator Perry Fewell called for much more zone coverage than the man coverage he usually prefers. The season-ending loss of cornerback Terrell Thomas forced Fewell to adjust his thinking, but too many Redskins receivers running free should prompt him to rethink the zone coverage and trust that there’s enough remaining talent on the field to stay aggressive.

THREE’S A CHARM

Up next, Monday night, are the Rams. Their coach, Steve Spagnuolo admitted, “It was a learning experience for me” after a 31-13 loss to the Eagles in the opener, when he nearly left his team without an option at quarterback.

Starter Sam Bradford was forced out with a bruised right index finger. Receiver Danny Amendola, the emergency No. 3 quarterback, went down with a dislocated elbow. That meant if anything happened to backup A.J. Feeley, the Rams would have been in trouble.

“Not sure how we’ll handle it going forward,” said Spagnuolo, the former Giants defensive coordinator, who hopes to have Bradford ready to face the Giants. “You’re figuring you have three guys and you’ll be all right.”

That brings up the question: Are the Giants — who like the Rams have only two quarterbacks on the roster — prepared for a worse-case scenario? Punter Jeff Feagles used to be the emergency quarterback, but he’s retired. Is there anyone behind Manning and David Carr? Most likely, it’s safety Antrel Rolle, who played some Wildcat quarterback with the Cardinals. Rolle has a mammoth arm and some nifty moves, but if he has to play on offense it’s a safe bet Tom Coughlin will ask him to hand the ball off.