Eli Manning said he sees signs the Giants’ offense is getting better. Despite the dismal results, Victor Cruz said, “I’m not concerned’’ and that “there were definitely some positive things out there’’ as he evaluated the most recent preseason stinker.
Tom Coughlin said something quite different Sunday when questioned whether he believes the players have the same sense of urgency he does to get this shabby offense fixed before the Sept. 8 season opener.
“They better,’’ Coughlin said, and then issued a warning about possibly increasing the playing time for his starters in the final preseason game against the Patriots.
“It’s not written in stone about what you do in the last preseason game either,’’ Coughlin said. “The idea is to come out of this having your team prepared throughout the course of these games so that when you head into the regular season you’re ready to go. We still got some work to do along those lines.’’
Yeah, the Giants have some work to do. They face the Jets on Friday night in what figured to be the last real test for the starters, as the final preseason game is usually a quick cameo for the first-teamers before escaping to the safety of the sideline. But Coughlin hasn’t seen nearly enough, especially from what has been a rag-tag new offense put together by first-year coordinator Ben McAdoo. And if he has to force-feed the results with extra playing time for Manning and Co. in the last preseason game, so be it.
Everyone knew the new West Coast offense would take time to hum with precision, but no one involved in the process thought after all the work in the spring, an entire training camp and three preseason games the results would be so alarmingly awful.
In 11 series covering three preseason games, Manning and the starters have been forced off the field after only three plays five times. Eight of the 11 series ended with a punt, one ended on a lost fumble by Manning and two with touchdowns. Manning’s passing the past two games (1-of-9 for 6 yards) is dangerously close to not moving the numbers needle at all. In the most recent game, a strange 27-26 victory over the Colts, Manning completed one of his seven passes and did not come close to producing a single point.
The fear is whatever is ailing the Giants won’t be cured in time to face the Lions in the opener.
“We’ve had in the last years what would have to be looked at as unproductive preseasons or unproductive games in preseason and yet we still been able to come out and play well, early on even, offensively in the regular season,’’ Coughlin said. “Now is that the case here? I don’t know that. We’re gonna have to see how that goes. It is a concern? Sure it’s a concern.’’
Manning insists there is improvement, though anyone who saw the operation against the Colts would be hard-pressed to come up with a plausible list.
“Last week [against the Steelers] we had a lot of missed checks and changing plays that some people got, some people didn’t,’’ Manning said. “I don’t think we had as much of that [vs. the Colts]. I think it was more people on the same page doing the right things with the right timing of the offense. Now it’s taking that next step and doing it even better.’’
It’s not as if Coughlin can scrap his practice plans this week and instead serve up a crash course designed to cram in as much tutoring to the offense as time allows. And it’s not as if only one area of the offense is not functioning.
“It’s obvious, I think we got to work on a lot of things,’’ Coughlin said. “We got to basically work on everything. Last night we didn’t run it, we certainly didn’t throw the ball with any consistency, we don’t have people that are definitely running open, our protection does break down from time to time and we don’t react well under pressure when we do realize there has to be a hot or a sight adjust involved and just getting the ball out of the quarterback’s hand and trying to accomplish a positive play in the face of the pressure.’’
In other words, nothing is working — and the clock keeps ticking.