New York Giants: Training Camp Preview
The New York Giants report to training camp on July 28. Here is a quick look at items on the team’s agenda that need to be improved from last year.
The goal of the New York Giants coaching staff this past spring was quite simple: Put players in uncomfortable situations in order to find out just what it is they had and what they needed.
Having done that and having reviewed the tape from those practices, head coach Ben McAdoo and his assistants have an action plan ready for the team when it reports to training camp on Thursday.
Besides trying out new personnel groupings, both the offense and defense have some work to do if the Giants are to become playoff contenders this year. Let’s break down the list of some of what’s likely on the coaching staff’s agenda for the preseason.
Offense
For as good as the Giants’ offense was last year–they were eighth in yards per game (372) and sixth in scoring (26.2 per game)– this unit needs to show improvement in three key areas.
The first is the running game, which averaged 100.6 yards per game (18th in the league), scoring just five rushing touchdowns. The unit suffered behind a four-man committee designed to prolong the health of its members, but this committee seemed to lack any rhyme or reason.
In the first ten games of the season, when the four-man rotation was in place, the Giants averaged 3.7 yards per game on the ground. Once the plan was scrapped, the team rushed for 4.8 yards per carry, with the Giants rushing for over 100 yards as a team in two of their final four games.
Instead of paring down, the Giants added to their running backs corps by signing veteran free agent Bobby Rainey and drafting Paul Perkins in the fifth round to compete with holdovers Rashad Jennings, Andre Williams and Orleans Darkwa.
The purpose behind adding more backs to the mix, according to offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan, is to separate the cream of the crop in order to bolster the running game’s production.
“I know you can sit down and look at it a number of ways, but in a perfect world you would like to have that type of fierce competition,” Sullivan said earlier this spring.
“It’s going to have to play itself out. I think it is really going to give us a good picture of who is going to be the lead back or backs that are going to help us go all the way here.”
The second area that needs improvement is in the red zone. The Giants scored touchdowns on just 44.4 percent of their red-zone possessions, tenth-worst in the NFL.
On the whole, the Giants averaged just 4.3 points per red-zone possession and converted 100-percent of their red-zone attempts just once all last season, which came in Week 14 at Miami, against whom they also converted 100-percent of their goal-to-go scenarios.
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The Giants offense must also improve on third downs. Last year, they completed 37.8 percent of their third-down attempts, 22nd in the NFL. Because of their inability to sustain drives, the Giants’ average time of possession was 28:14, 27th in the NFL.
On third downs, the Giants averaged just 2.31 yards per rush and 6.07 yards per pass attempt, their lowest averages of any down (except fourth-down rushing plays when the Giants rushed once for minus-2 yards).
Short yardage situations in particular weren’t very kind to the Giants, who averaged just 1.88 yards per carry on third downs with one or two yards to go, in addition to their aforementioned fourth down struggles.
Also worth mentioning here is the penalty situation. Last year, the Giants had 26 stalled scoring drives thanks to an ill-timed penalty. That statistic needs to be drastically reduced this year.
Defense
After finishing 32nd in the league last year in average yards allowed per game, there’s nowhere to go but up for the Giants defense.
Not surprisingly, last year’s performance was the determining factor in management bestowing more than $200 million in free agent contracts and half of their six draft picks (including two out of the top three) to fix the unit.
Starting up front, the Giants are hoping that a revamped defensive line that includes newcomers Olivier Vernon and Damon Harrison, and the fully healthy returns of Jason Pierre-Paul and Johnathan Hankins gives them far more firepower up front.
The Giants’ run defense allowed the ninth-most average rushing yards per game last season (121.4). They are hoping that the tandem of Hankins and Harrison, the latter of whom, per Pro Football Focus, led defensive tackles who took at least 60 percent of their teams run defense snaps last season with 49 stops, will help reduce that average.
Meanwhile they’re looking to the tandem of Vernon, whose 12.9 pass-rush productivity score was the second-best in the league behind Seattle’s Michael Bennett last season, and a now club-less Pierre-Paul to combine for more than half of the team’s total 23 sacks last year.
On the back end, the Giants are pretty much where they were this time last year. They still have questions regarding who their slot cornerback is going to be, and they still have some young, inexperienced players vying for a starting job at safety.
Moreover, they need to improve the league’s worst-ranked pass defense, a unit that allowed an average of 298.9 passing yards per game despite tying for fifth in the league (with Cincinnati) in pass breakups (87).
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They added cornerback Janoris Jenkins, who last year ranked in the top-10 in run support (tied for 10th) and in the top 15 in coverage rating (15th) among NFL cornerbacks who played in at least 75 percent of their team’s applicable snaps.
The team will need to sort out who is starting where at linebacker. Thus far, the only role that seems to already be determined is that of Devon Kennard at the strong side, and that’s if he stays healthy.
Advanced analytics are from Pro Football Focus, unless otherwise noted. Follow Patricia Traina on Twitter for daily practice reports and more from Giants training camp.