Tag: Pat Shurmur

5 reasons Giants could upset Packers in Week 13

The New York Giants and Green Bay Packers square off in Week 13, and here are five reasons Big Blue could come away with the win.

The New York Giants are coming off their seventh straight loss and have now gone winless in the months of October and November for the first time in franchise history.

They face a tough task this week against the 8-3 Green Bay Packers, who will be seeking revenge after the San Francisco 49ers crushed them by 29 points on Sunday night.

Although unlikely, let’s look at five reasons why the Giants can pull off the upset of the Packers.

Emilee Chinn/Getty Images

Offensive rhythm

The Giants struggled to find any rhythm on their offense last week against the Chicago Bears, scoring only seven points until the final 10 minutes of the game. They also had minus-two total yards in the second half up until the fourth quarter when they switched to a fast tempo offense. After this change was made, Daniel Jones and the Giants offense racked up 131 yards and a 23-yard touchdown pass to Golden Tate, which cut the deficit to five points.

The Giants had several opportunities to win this game and despite giving up 335 total yards, the defense did their job holding the Bears to only 19 points. It’s time for the stagnant, unbalanced and inconsistently designed offense to step up. Instead of waiting until their final two possessions this week, Pat Shurmur must make the necessary adjustments to break out of the frequent offensive slump Big Blue endures each week.

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Giants’ Julian Love will see more action in Jabrill Peppers’ absence

New York Giants head coach Pat Shurmur says rookie Julian Love will see more action at safety with Jabrill Peppers ailing.

Prior to Week 12, New York Giants rookie defensive back Julian Love had played just three defensive snaps in the team’s first 10 games. Then, last week in his hometown of Chicago against the Bears, Love played 42 of the Giants’ 76 defensive snaps, many of them due to the absence of starting safety Jabrill Peppers, who left the game with back injury.

Peppers will be out for some time — maybe the rest of the season if things don’t break his way — and the Giants will now turn to Love, a fourth-round draft pick out of Notre Dame, and veteran Michael Thomas.

“We’ll have a combination with Love back there, Michael Thomas,” head coach Pat Shurmur said on Wednesday as the Giants began preparation for Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers’ visit this Sunday. “We’ll fill in. I thought Love did a good job with his first extended action last week. He’s displayed a lot of the things that we thought he might have. We’ll just try to build on that if for some reason Jabrill can’t make it.”

Jabrill has a fracture in his transverse process, an injury that heals itself with rest. Very few plan on seeing him anytime soon.

Many were wondering with all the rookies playing extensively this season why Love was the one that was held back. Shurmur said it was simply a matter of time and finding the right role for him.

“He was ready to play. He was ready to play, and we just made a decision coming off the bye week that it was time. That’s all,” Shurmur said.

Love had only one tackle in the game but managed to come away with his first career interception on an errant throw by Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. After all the waiting, he was ready.

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Giants will continue rotating DeAndre Baker, Sam Beal

After finding success with the change in Week 12, the New York Giants will continue to rotate cornerbacks DeAndre Baker and Sam Beal.

Against the Chicago Bears in Week 12, the New York Giants rotated cornerbacks DeAndre Baker and Sam Beal to some relative success.

Add in the performance of defensive back Julian Love, who basically does it all, and Giants head coach Pat Shurmur was pleasantly surprised with what he saw despite the 19-14 loss.

“Well, it was good to see Beal on the field. His first action, so to speak, playing defense. He played the week before, but extended and planned. He did a good job,” Shurmur told reporters.

“What I liked about it? They’re young players, and if we add Love, we have another rookie out there. You can make the case that really Sam is a rookie. Last year was like year zero for him, because he didn’t get a chance to compete at all. But he competed. First, he got lined up properly. He knew, generally speaking, what to do and he competed. It’s always good to see a young player get out there and get something done.”

Baker took 63% of the team’s defensive reps on Sunday, while Beal took 37%. The end result? A strong showing by Beal and Baker’s best performance of 2019.

Not wanting to mess with one of the few good things happening with the team, Shurmur revealed that Baker and Beal will remain in a rotation for the time being.

“Yeah, they’re both going to play. So, probably we’ll stick with it,” Shurmur said. “I think it was good to get Beal on the field. DeAndre… It’s always good when there’s a competitive setting, too. I think I mentioned it earlier in the week on the conference call, but when he was out there, he competed hard. When he wasn’t in there, he was standing there, watching and in-tune with what was going on. Hey, they’re young players. There’s a lot to learn for all of them. We’ll keep them all going.”

The competition should light a fire under Baker, who admitted only a few short weeks ago that he didn’t have a handle on the playbook, while Beal has the scheme down pat but has lacked the necessary playing time due to injury.

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Mike Francesa is having fun at Giants’ expense

WFAN host Mike Francesa continued his barrage of the New York Giants and Pat Shurmur following their Week 12 loss to Chicago.

There is obviously no love lost between the New York Giants and WFAN’s Mike Francesa these days. More specifically, there is no love lost between Francesa and both general manager Dave Gettleman and head coach Pat Shurmur.

The war of words between the two sides has raged since earlier this offseason when Francesa essentially called the Giants a losing organization, a circus and then went on to question the character of rookie cornerback Corey Ballentine after he was injured and his friend murdered in a completely random shooting.

Francesa also took aim at veteran quarterback Eli Manning, who had cancelled his weekly radio appearance on the host’s afternoon show. That was then followed up by similar cancellations courtesy of Gettleman and Shurmur, leaving Francesa holding a “struggling radio host” charity cup outside the WFAN offices.

But with the Giants in the midst of a seven-game losing streak and one of the driest stretches in franchise history, Francesa couldn’t help but to kick the team while they are down.

Francesa’s take is hardly as scathing as we’ve seen, but there’s little doubt he’s enjoying the Giants’ failures and is eagerly awaiting the moment Shurmur is fired so that he can celebrate getting one right.

Of course, if the Giants do fire Shurmur and then hire Jason Garrett, as the recent rumors would seem to suggest, Francesa is already waiting to pounce on that as well.

Like or dislike Francesa, he’s obviously not wrong with his recent criticisms, but the personal gratification he seems to draw from this is a little odd.

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Giants’ Pat Shurmur expects Jabrill Peppers to play through spinal injury

New York Giants head coach Pat Shurmur says they will not shut down Jabrill Peppers (spine) for the season — they expect him to play.

The New York Giants announced that safety Jabrill Peppers suffered a transverse process fracture in a Sunday loss to the Chicago Bears, which is an injury that carries a recovery timetable of about six weeks (if surgery is not needed).

The severity of the injury can not be overstated. Essentially, Peppers suffered a fracture to the wing-like bone on the side of a vertebra that protects his spinal cord. In the event surgery is required, screws, rods, wires or even cages might be needed to hold the two pieces of bone together, If Peppers does not require surgery, he is likely to be put into a back brace while healing.

Despite all of that, Giants head coach Pat Shurmur refused to rule Peppers out for the season and even shared an expectation that he could play through the pain.

“My understanding, his too, in terms of the evaluation of it, as I knew yesterday he had a sore back. I guess he can return, it’s kind of relative to pain tolerance,” Shurmur told reporters during a conference call. “We don’t practice until Wednesday, so we’ll just have to see what the week brings.”

If the Giants allow Peppers to play, chances are he’s going to attempt to tough it out. In fact, Peppers already alluded to that while hunched over in the Giants locker room barely able to breathe due to the pain.

“I’m tough, man,” Peppers told reporters after the game. “I just hope it’s something that I can tough through.”

With the season already completely lost, there’s nothing to gain by allowing Peppers to play through a fractured spine — only bad things can come of it. But as we’ve seen with these Giants, they have no qualms about putting injured players back out on the field entirely too early.

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Giants players remain firmly in Pat Shurmur’s corner

New York Giants players rushed to Pat Shurmur’s defense following the team’s seventh consecutive loss on Sunday.

Mere hour after reports surfaced that the New York Giants would be interested in hiring Jason Garrett if he’s not retained by the Dallas Cowboys, Pat Shurmur watched his team drop their seventh consecutive game, falling to 2-9 on the season.

The latest loss also dropped Shurmur’s overall record to 17-43, which is among the worst in the history of the NFL (min. 60 games).

Despite the losing culture, the losing attitude and the losing record, Giants players remain very much in Shurmur’s corner, shouldering the blame and passing the buck when it comes to the coaching staff.

“We keep fighting,” one starter told NJ Advance Media. “We’re only a play or two away every week. You can’t pin that on the coaches.”

Several other players also defended Shurmur, saying poor execution is what’s to blame for their futility, not the game plan, play-calling or coaching.

“I feel like we should have won that game,” said another starter. “There’s nothing you can point to and say ‘we lost because of the scheme.’ As players, as a team, we just have to make more plays.”

It’s admirable for Giants players to stand by their coach (unlike the Ben McAdoo situation), but there’s no denying that Shurmur & Co. are just as much to blame as anyone else.

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What we learned from Giants’ 19-14 loss to Bears

The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Bears, 19-14, in Week 12 and here’s some of what we learned from that loss.

The New York Giants went on the road to face the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on Sunday, and what transpired was a disaster. The defense largely did its job, save for Corey Ballentine, but the offense couldn’t put enough points on the board, in part due to two missed field goals by Aldrick Rosas.

That said, here is what we learned from the Giants’ loss to the Bears in Week 12.

Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Aldrick Rosas is a mess

Rosas ranks 32nd among 38 active field goal kickers in percentage made at 67%. He missed two field goals against the Bears. Had he made those, the Giants would have won. One miss was due to a poor snap, but he’s now missed either a field goal or a PAT in the last five games straight.

Not only that, but Rosas had a kickoff go out of bounds and had some words with Pat Shurmur on the sideline. An All-Pro kicker one year ago, Rosas’ decline is surprising and frustrating. He’s in his third year in the league, all with the Giants, and this is by far his worst season yet.

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Giants Twitter uses humor, sarcasm to mask increasing misery

New York Giants Twitter masked its rage with snark and sarcasm following Big Blue’s latest loss to the Chicago Bears.

The New York Giants are now 2-9 on the season, have lost seven consecutive games and failed to pick up a single win in either October or November for the first time in their history following a 19-14 Week 12 loss to the Chicago Bears.

The reality of the situation seems to have dawned on Big Blue Nation, who now recognize just how pathetic this team is and how remarkably far away from competing they actually are.

As a result, Giants Twitter is a nice mix between debilitating depression, blinding rage and mind-saving sarcasm.

Let’s take a look:

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Report: Giants would be interested in Jason Garrett if fired by Cowboys

The New York Giants would reportedly be interested in hiring Jason Garrett as their next head coach if he’s fired by the Dallas Cowboys.

The New York Giants appear committed to Pat Shurmur as their head coach in 2020, but that could change if Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones were to fire Jason Garrett at season’s end.

Garrett has often been connected to the Giants in one way or another, and we ever pondered the possibility of him becoming their next head coach earlier this year. However, what began as mindless speculation suddenly has a little smoke brewing.

NFL Network inside Ian Rapoport reports that the Giants would have interest in Garrett if he were to be fired and that Garrett’s desired destination would be — you guessed it — New York.

“My understanding is that the Giants have emerged as a real and legitimate potential landing spot for Garrett,” Rapoport said. “First of all, it’s his preferred destination if he can’t stick with the Cowboys. And second, back in 2014, the Giants were trying to decide should they fire Tom Coughlin. My understand is they would have fired Coughlin if they could get Jason Garrett. Instead, he signed an extension and the Giants held onto Coughlin.”

Of course, a series of dominoes would have to fall in order for Garrett to land in New York, including the termination of Shurmur, who just recently appeared to receive a vote of confidence.

Still, if the Giants continue to struggle down the stretch despite a noticeably softer schedule and Garrett does become available, co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch may pounce after waiting for a half decade. However, knowing that, Jerry Jones may be less inclined to send Garrett out the door.

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Is Eli Manning’s absence hurting Saquon Barkley?

Is the absence of New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning actually hurting running back Saquon Barkley?

For years, the narrative has been that Eli Manning was dragging down his New York Giants teammates and not the other way around. However, in the aftermath of Manning’s benching, it’s been quickly established that was not the case at all.

Out in Cleveland, Odell Beckham Jr. is having his worst season to date, which is a common theme for wide receivers who went from Manning to another quarterback. But that’s hardly where these revelations begin or end.

The Giants offense has seen a sharp decline since Daniel Jones took over under center, and in no way is that a knock on a rookie so much as stating the reality of the situation. Perhaps more specifically, we’ve seen Saquon Barkley’s production go into a nosedive.

Yes, part of that has to do with Barkley sustaining a high ankle sprain earlier in the season. Another part of that has been the horrendous run blocking up front, while the suspect play calling and poor use of the running back’s talents also factor in.

But you know what else factors in? No Eli Manning.

Manning took relentless heat for his willingness to check down in recent years, but that worked to Barkley’s benefit in 2018 and over the first two games this season. With Jones now under center, there’s been a sharp shift for the Giants offensively as the rookie is more prone to look down the field, essentially eliminating Barkley from the passing game.

“It’s safe to say Daniel’s got his eyes downfield a little bit more,” head coach Pat Shurmur said, via the New York Post. “That maybe has something to do with it.”

With Jones looking down field much more, Barkley has just 46 targets on the season and 13 of those came when Manning was still starting quarterback. That’s a drastic decrease from the 121 targets he had a season ago.

“Where do you win in that situation?” Barkley said. “When Eli was our quarterback and I was getting the ball too much, everyone would say, ‘He throws check-downs too much.’ So now that we’re not throwing check-downs, ‘Oh he’s looking down the field too much?’ Me personally, I don’t ever want to get in his way. Daniel Jones is a great player and a great quarterback and going to be an even player as time goes on. He’s going to be one of the best in the league, I believe. That’s gonna come to him.

“Check-downs are always a safety-valve for a quarterback, but be you. In college we used to say they dig the deep ball. Be you, go out there and play your game. I’m going to be there if you need me to be there.”

Barkley may be modest, but there’s no denying he’s the Giants’ best offensive player and after being taken second overall in the 2018 NFL Draft, should be getting many more opportunities than he is, injury be damned. If the team isn’t going to shut him down, they need to use him — and what better way to use him than out of the backfield matched up against much slower linebackers?

Daniel Jones plays a different style of football than Eli Manning, but that shouldn’t result in Barkley becoming an afterthought. It’s on both Shurmur and Jones to devise a way to get the most talented player on the field the ball more. Period.

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