The practice ended with Curtis Painter in the two-minute drill firing over the middle to tight end Adrien Robinson, who was open, but the ball sailed through Robinson’s hands and dropped to the grass. The Giants are not going to use that last play to trumpet the anticipated improvement of their rightfully maligned offense.
It was back to work Monday for the Giants, another day attempting to figure out why their attack has been stuck in neutral and sometimes slips into reverse, why even when they go against their own defense during the week the passing game often looks as if it was assembled at the last-minute.
Nothing was solved in one day, and Tom Coughlin can only hope the warnings he has issued are heeded by his players.
“The idea of them practicing with purpose … everyone understands it wasn’t the way it should be,’’ Coughlin said. “Hopefully there’s great incentive and a sense of urgency about we’re running out of time for us being able to play well.’’
Everyone seems to be taking this humbling experience a bit differently. Left guard Geoff Schwartz would not call the four anemic series against the Colts a setback, but did not sugarcoat the need for immediate improvement.
“I think we feel urgency just by the way we played the other night,’’ Schwartz said. “We definitely need to show some results Friday night.’’
Justin Pugh understands why there’s panic in the streets.
“We’re having three-and-outs, 1-yard runs … so I can definitely see where the frustration is,’’ the starting right tackle said.
Victor Cruz admits the feeling heading into the next preseason game, Friday night in the annual summer tussle with the Jets, is a bit different, based on how poorly the Giants’ offense has performed.
“I think there is a little sense of urgency on the inside that we just want to go out here and apply,’’ Cruz said. “We do some great things on the practice field, and now we just have to translate that over to the game.’’
Eli Manning said it was nice seeing the second- and third-teamers last weekend erase a 26-0 deficit to overtake and beat the Colts, but enough is enough with the problems with the starters.
“It was good to have some excitement and win the game,’’ Manning said, “but that first group, we’ve got to get better. We have to perform better and start doing our jobs.’’
The jobs are not getting done and it is difficult to discern any signs of progress with the new West Coast offense brought in by first-year coordinator Ben McAdoo, as the new concepts, terminology and assignments all sound good but have produced dreadful results on the field.
Manning is adamant the operation looks much better in practice than it has in the first three preseason games, and he took a trip down memory lane to remind everyone that this is not exactly uncharted territory with the Giants’ offense.
“I don’t think we’ve ever been a great preseason team, as far as I remember,’’ Manning said. “I know how things are going in practice and what we’re capable of doing. We’ve got improvements to do, but we’ve got a little time and we’re going to keep working on those things.’’
While it is true Manning has often started slowly in the summer games, he’s never gone two preseason games completing only one of his nine passes. Given that this is a brand-new offense, there is a concern that perhaps McAdoo’s formula is not the right one for Manning and his teammates.
Manning, entering his 11th NFL season and looking uncomfortable changing his footwork, reads and the timing of his release, insists that’s not the case.
“It’s not the system, it’s the execution,’’ he said.
Cruz has yet to officially catch a pass in the preseason — he hauled in a 51-yarder from Manning against the Colts but then he lost the ball on a fumble and the entire play was wiped out by a defensive penalty — but he’s not sweating those details.
“Mainly because we have not shown a lot,’’ Cruz said. “We haven’t given a lot plays or tipped our hand on a lot of things that we have shown yet. It is still pretty base stuff, but we just have to do a better job of executing.’’