Sturm: NFC East Divisional Digest – Big Blue tries relaunch around Eli

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NFC East Divisional Digest – Big Blue tries relaunch around Eli





By Bob Sturm 6h ago

During​ the​ month of August,​ I’m planning to spend a day​ or two on each of the Cowboys’ NFC East​​ bunkmates. Today, we offer you a look at the new-look New York Giants.


The roller-coaster ride of the Ben McAdoo era is over. It featured some high heights and some low lows, to say the least.

In 2016, the G-Men’s destructive defense had the NFL on the run. They were the only team to slow Ezekiel Elliott and the Cowboys down to a crawl. They finally saw their season end in Green Bay against the same Packers side that would dismiss the Cowboys seven days later. But in 2017, everything that could go wrong did, injuries dismantled all that had been built, and both sides of the ball fell apart. Before the end of the season, McAdoo and his staff had been dismissed, longtime general manager Jerry Reese had been replaced, and the offseason initiative to fix all that was wrong was underway.

Interestingly enough, in early December, many on the outside were pretty sure that the looming overhaul started with a change at QB1 after 14 years of the Eli Manning era.
Perceptions were clearly incorrect as the Giants stood firm on their stance throughout the spring: Manning would be the beneficiary of the offseason moves, not a casualty. At 37, he surely has played his best football already (and several years have passed since the 2014-2015 run where his passer rating sat in the low-90s), but the Giants believe that with a better offense around him there is still track in front of this train.

Dave Gettleman was hired last December to oversee this roster transition, and he hired Pat Shurmur to the head coaching spot after the latter’s successful stint as OC in Minnesota.
Shurmur’s three seasons in Philadelphia with Chip Kelly and two more seasons with the Vikings have given him plenty of offensive ideas since his last coaching stint in Cleveland ended in 2012.

He will need those offensive ideas and the numerous personnel improvements because the Giants still have a dubious record hanging over their heads; they have gone 32 consecutive games without breaking the 30-point barrier in a single contest. They last reached it in the final week of 2015; since then, the rest of the league has done so 240 times.
That means that the average NFL team has scored 30 or more points 7.7 times since the Giants last did it.

Not good.

But the amount of turnover on this roster and the infusion of talent on that side of the ball suggests that streak will fall early in the 2018 season. Let’s take a look at why optimism is a popular sentiment for this offense.

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OFFENSE

You could argue that there is not an offense in the NFL that that has been given a bigger jolt of help than the Giants.

Not only did they add Saquon Barkley with the No. 2 pick in the draft — a generational talent who can do it all at an extremely high level, but you could argue that by adding possibly three starting offensive linemen, a possible No. 3 wide receiver, and, of course, a healthy Odell Beckham Jr. that there will be almost no resemblance whatsoever to the offense that got a lot of people fired in 2017.

Barkley is a beast who should transform an offense that hasn’t had a 1,000-yard rusher in six seasons and whose last 300-carry RB was Tiki Barber in 2006. You could argue that Eli Manning has not had a viable run threat in ages and link that to his struggles in regular seasons gone by.

The discussion conducted on countless occasions during the last year centered around this dilemma: Should the Giants use their No. 2 overall pick to draft the successor to their aging QB? If you don’t assume you will be picking that high very often (and New York has not drafted higher than ninth since 2004 — the year Eli Manning was drafted) you had better be quite sure that your QB of the future isn’t sitting there, available within that group of highly-touted QBs. The Giants bet heavily that the elite running back would be worth far more to them than another QB and were fine allowing Sam Darnold to stay in the same stadium as he went to the Jets with the very next pick. The papers will certainly have those two careers linked together, but to nobody’s surprise, Gettleman stayed true to his core beliefs of running the ball and building around that part of the game. The Giants also claim to still have great regard for young QB Davis Webb who they selected 87th in the 2017 draft.

New York then added the very pricy Nate Solder to play left tackle, drafted the incredibly impressive Will Hernandez for left guard, and even signed mediocre veteran Patrick Omameh from Jacksonville. Those three should really help the Giants improve what was perhaps the weakest component of their roster, the offensive line.

Because of their QB’s grasp of wisdom at his position, the Giants’ offensive line was never going to concede a ton of sacks, but spending any time watching the offense under McAdoo made it clear that the OL was not always part of the solution — but generally a large part of the problem. Solder may not be among the elite at left tackle, but replacing the constantly underwhelming Ereck Flowers from Manning’s blindside with someone very competent will make a tremendous difference. Putting a young bully like Hernandez next to him will allow the Giants to operate a balanced attack for the first time in many years.

As anyone knows, the Giants were the kings of 11 Personnel in 2016, and because of a few reasons that involved personnel and health, they only used that combination 61% of the time (adding shotgun to under center) in 2017. We assume that rate might bounce back up because of the elite talent that Barkley and Beckham will bring to the table, but below you can see how they ran things last year — something that will clearly be irrelevant moving forward.

Most-used personnel groupings – New York Giants, 2017

GroupingUsage1st Down UsageRun %Yards/PlayNFL Rank
11-Shotgun49%33%19%5.4620th
12-Under Center17%25%67%4.6826th
12-Shotgun12%8%17%5.3522nd
11-Under Center12%19%69%3.5329th


One thing we expect will shoot right up will be the Giants’ rate of running out of shotgun. The ability to pair Barkley with a spread-out group of receivers and Evan Engram at tight end should benefit the Giants, providing lighter defensive boxes and therefore more space for Barkley to isolate between the numbers. Either the safeties deal with Beckham and Engram or they sneak down to get Saquon. They cannot do both this year.

Here is how we think the Giants will look in 11 personnel in that preferred grouping.



As we look at the offensive talent, let’s try to identify who the blue-chip players (top 5 at their position) and the red chip players (#6-15 at their position) are. These rankings are subjective, of course, so any information that I gather may differ from the next guy’s, but this is where I believe the Giants currently are with their starters. It is only a guide and not the gospel, so don’t get bogged down by my findings. But, I think the Giants have four players who are universally accepted as being among the league’s best:

Blue Chip: Odell Beckham Jr. – WR

Red Chip: Nate Solder – LT, Evan Engram – TE, Saquon Barkley – RB

Barkley and Engram may be higher very soon, but Barkley needs to establish that he can pull it off on Sundays with great regularity and Engram needs to expand his game by improving his blocking and reducing his drops. If he does, the Giants are going to be awfully difficult to cover.

The clear issues remain on the right side of the line and the team’s depth at WR. Ereck Flowers remains a starter at RT for now and it is difficult to expect much there. Cody Latimer has underachieved to this point in his career and is being given a nice opportunity with the Giants. And of course, Eli Manning himself has plenty on the line to prove he can still deliver his fastball in 2018 with the improved supporting cast.

If he can, there is no reason they can’t bounce right back up the standings quickly.

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DEFENSE

We must start at the head of the defense, where the Giants have called for another significant change. It starts with James Bettcher being brought in to take over the defense and the scheme change he brings from Arizona: The 3-4.

Now, one of the largest misconceptions about how this works is due to most fans not knowing how many scenarios the average NFL defense truly spends in its “base defense.” Yes, they will be playing the 3-4 on most 1st and 10 situations, but the average NFL defense is in either nickel or dime defense about 66% of the time, and in its base a little over 33%.
The Giants in 2017 were in base defense for only 29% of snaps overall. And when teams go to nickel or dime, especially in a passing situation against 11-personnel, they will almost always use a four-man front (with a 4-2 or a 4-1 defense in front of the secondary). That is why we will show you the lineup below as it will look in nickel.




The biggest change for the defense involves the exit of Jason Pierre-Paul. The Giants moved out JPP and the remainder of his big contract to Tampa as a concession to the salary cap and the scheme change. But replacing his effect off the edge and the bookend opposite Olivier Vernon will be a real challenge, given how many snaps Pierre-Paul has eaten over the last few years. The team had almost nothing resembling an edge outside JPP and Vernon in the last few years, so it will be important for Kareem Martin, third-round pick Lorenzo Carter, or most likely, late signee Connor Barwin to generate some key pressures off the edges opposite Vernon. Barwin did not cost much and he may not be a full-time player anymore, but it is undeniable that he is capable of bringing the heat to a quarterback several times per game.

We should also anticipate that Bettcher will ramp up the pressure more than we saw the Giants do in 2017. As the numbers will show below, Steve Spagnulo was right at league average in almost every situation, but the Cardinals always exceeded the league average and in certain situations ranked in the top five for bringing a fifth (and sometimes sixth) pass rusher.

BlitzesFrequenceyNFL RankNFL AVGARZ 2017
Overall-27.9%16th27.3%34.4%
1st Down –25.0%16th24.8%33.7%
2nd Down –23.7%17th26.0%33.5%
3rd Down –35.2%11th31.8%35.5%
3rd and 7+33.7%12th31.7%35.1%


Let’s take a subjective look at the defensive talent at the top of the roster here:

Blue Chip: Damon Harrison – DT, Landon Collins – SS

Red Chip: Olivier Vernon – EDGE, Janoris Jenkins – CB

For me, Harrison is certainly not a guy who will play in nickel much, but as far as run-stuffing DTs, I think he is worth every penny he is being paid and a top-5 early-down run stuffer. Collins is a top-5 box safety for sure. Vernon and Jenkins can easily put months together where they are top-5 at their position, but I am more comfortable calling them red chip players (#6-15 at their position).

The Giants are banking plenty on the resurgence of Alec Ogletree and they could really use above-replacement-level linebacker play for the first time in a long time.
Overall, this defense has a chance to bounce back pretty quickly with simple health. They need the high-investment kids — Eli Apple, Dalvin Tomlinson, Lorenzo Carter and Darian Thompson — to put good, full seasons together. The secondary is not nearly as imposing as it was with Jenkins, Dominque Rodgers-Cromartie, and Apple in 2016, but they can come together if Apple can play to his believed abilities. With Collins and Jenkins alone, you should be in very good shape. Their defense may not return to 2016 form, but they should easily exceed the 2017 mess.

SUMMARY:

Our good friends in Vegas have listed the Giants’ over-under at seven wins. I feel with pretty decent confidence that they can exceed that number. But the progress of returning to the heights of the 2016 season and 11 wins seems rather unlikely in a division with four competitive teams.

The Giants have some fair levels of uncertainty with respect to the transition of so many coaches and key players. They also have contractual questions on their plate, with Beckham and Landon Collins needing major deals very soon.

Health is the great equalizer and if 2017 is repeated, all bets are off. But, if Barkley is what we think he is and Beckham returns to being a top-3 WR in the sport, then there is no reason they can’t be in the playoff mix down the stretch.

The big question for me will be where this team goes with Eli Manning moving forward. This feels like the offseason where everything was done to prolong his career, and as we sit here in early August, the plan sure looks good. But once attrition hits, are the Giants’ young players and their depth enough to keep a team in the middle of the pack from falling quickly out of the race?

We certainly know that the four teams in the NFC East shuffle places with great regularity. If Gettleman, Shurmur, and Bettcher can hit the correct notes from Week 1, the quick overhaul might turn all sorts of heads. But more than likely, the continued transition of the roster from old to young will need a few years to find its next serious contender, as too many premium draft picks were wasted in the last several years.

The journey requires patience, despite some very nice pieces already in the fold.

Big thanks to Skyler Thiot for his wonderful work on the graphic lineups.
 
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