Saints 33 New York Giants Hats , Giants fall to 1-3 The New York Giants fell to the New Orleans Saints, and in doing so fell to 1-3 on the season. The game started out promisingly for New York, with the defense getting a stop on the Saint’s offense and the offense driving 75 yards for a touchdown. After that, however, things spiraled out of control for the Giants. We thought the team might have been on the verge of breaking out after their victory of the Houston Texans, but what have we learned about the team after their 33-18 loss to the Saints? The Giants need to come to play on offenseThe Giants’ offense has shown a distressing tendency to go in to a shell on offense. Too often we saw the Giants resort to short passes that traveled just a couple yards in the air against a Saints defense which had been the league’s worst to start the season. The plan seemed to be to try and control the clock and keep the Saints’ potent offense off the field and avoid a shootout. However, the Giants simply sputter when they go into their shell. It is too easy for defenses to contain the Giants’ playmakers and keep the game in front of them. It was the same problem we saw from the team against the Dallas Cowboys. The team needs to play with a wide-open throttle and try to win the game on offense, because if they play it safe, the offense just spins its wheels.The Giants can’t beat themselvesGiving up a first down on a fake punt. Fumbling the ball and nearly giving up a touchdown on the return. Penalties to kill their own drives and extend the Saints’. Mental mistakes leading to blown coverages or big plays. The Giants have the talent to compete, but not nearly so much that they can beat the opposing team and themselves at the same time. Unfortunately, the Giants have shown a tendency to do as much to beat themselves as the opposing team. The team made a point of bringing in veterans to help mentor and be steadying influences on the younger players, but there have simply been too many mental mistakes. The coaches have their work cut out for them shoring that up, but it might be too late to do much good in 2018.The defense has potentialDespite still being down two of their best players, the Giants’ defense played hard and contained the Saints’ offense for much of the game. They didn’t have any support from the offense after the first drive, but still played hard throughout the game. Ultimately, they couldn’t get off the field when they needed to, instead shattering to give up a third touchdown to Alvin Kamara. They played too well to be in that position to begin with. Eventually Olivier Vernon and Eli Apple will return, and the infusion of talent at the edge and in the secondary is much needed. The Giants’ defense has the potential to be one of the better ones in the league, but they will need to improve their depth and find some more speed.The offensive line is still a problemThere were plays where the Giants’ offensive line gave the Eli Manning time to find his receivers. But all too often there were Saints’ defenders precariously close to Eli Manning, hitting him or affecting his passes. Pressure came from across the offensive front, left, right, and up the middle, but as we have seen time and again from Manning New York Giants Womens Hoodie , it was the pressure up the middle which had the greatest effect. Manning is far from mobile, but he has the ability to navigate the pocket andget away from pressure off the edge. He has little ability to deal with pressure through the A or B gaps. The team needs to open the throttle for the offense to function correctly and Manning to play his best, but they just can’t block for it to do so on a regular basis.Saquon Barkley wants to get back to “Giants Football” on offense When the New York Giants drafted running back Saquon Barkley second overall in the 2018 NFL draft, visions of offensive fireworks danced through fans’ heads. With hyper-athletic playmakers at every offensive skill position, how could the offense NOT improve? Unfortunately, the Giants’ offense has yet to realize its potential through the first quarter of the season. The fault for the offensive slog isn’t at the feet of Barkley, however. He has racked up at least 100 all-purpose yards in each game so far, and scored a touchdown in three of them. He is doing his part on the field, and he also seems to be blossoming rapidly off the field as well. Despite the way the team has started the season, Barkley sounds like the mature “Face Of The Franchise” he was drafted to be. He insists that the way forward for the team is to be optimistic, but also realistic about the hole they have dug for themselves. “Obviously you’re 1-3, the season is obviously not over,” he said. “It’s a long season but you can’t say it’s a long season forever because you get to a point where you get redundant and you keep saying that, then there’s no chance for you to make the playoffs. Everything that we still want, all of our goals are still in reach. Coach said something perfect today, he said the only thing that we’re not capable of doing this season is an undefeated season, and that only happened one time. I don’t know if everybody expects to win every single game, but most likely not going to win every single game. You’ve just got to continue to work, not get down like I said, have positive energy, come into the building and continue to work and like you said examine yourself, watch film, learn what you can do to help the team, learn what you can do better to help yourself better in certain situations and get ready for the next week.”On the offensive strugglesDespite having players like Barkley Womens Customized New York Giants Jerseys , Odell Beckham Jr., Sterling Shepard, and Evan Engram on their offense, the Giants have struggled mightily on offense. They have struggled with execution and mental mistakes, they have struggled with consistency, and they have struggled to find an identity.“We’ve got to get back to the basics. We’ve got to kind of do what we did the first drive against other teams, continue to have that momentum, that first drive epitomizes what we’re capable of doing on the football field and we have to have that mindset,” Barkley said. They showed in their first game that that they have the talent to match up and be a problem for any defense in the NFL. But what the Giants need to do is find an identity on offense.“Yeah, it is that simple,” Barkley added. “We’ve got to get back to playing Giants football. I don’t think really any team so far that we’ve played, obviously at the end of the game they had the win and they had more points than we had, but there’s a lot of things we did ourselves to put us in that situation. If we can fix ourselves and just focus on ourselves, I think the rest of the season will take care of itself.”‘Giants Football’, as Barkley referred to it, is “just being consistent, running the ball, making efficient plays, maximizing on the opportunities when we get the opportunities, stay away from mistake-free football – obviously you’re going to make mistakes, but make less mistakes than the other team, not turn the ball over.”On his rookie seasonBarkley himself has had a good start to his NFL career. So far he has proven his ability as a runner and receiver, shown that he can create on his own in both facets of the game, and be the playmaker the Giants drafted him to be. But that doesn’t mean that he is satisfied.Barkley said www.giantscheapshops.com , “Even when you win, win or lose, I’m always going to be my biggest critic because I have the passion, I want to be great, I want to be a great player in this league and I have to hold myself to that standard. When we lose, you’ve got to look back on yourself.”That passion, the high standards to which he holds himself and the work ethic with which he drives himself to meet those standards, bordered on legendary in college. Despite having the kind of start to his rookie season of which any player would be proud, Barkley wants, needs, to be better.“I’ve got to be better,” he said. “I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of breaking tackles so far, I’ve got to find a way to break more tackles. I was brought here to be an efficient player and when the opportunity comes, create big plays, and I’ve got to do a better job there. A lot of the reason we haven’t been successful is we haven’t been able to run the ball, we haven’t run the ball as well as we are capable of. That’s where my job kicks in and that’s where myself and the O line, we’re kind of a whole when it comes to that, where we’ve got to take that as a personal challenge and continue to work and get better. When the next game comes, when the opportunity comes, capitalize on it.”
