2016 Preview: New York Giants

New York Giants — 6–10, 3rd NFC East

Coaching Staff: HC — Ben McAdoo, OC — Mike Sullivan, DC — Steve Spagnulo

The offseason

Advanced Stats, via FootballOutsiders: DVOA — 20th, Offensive DVOA — 19th, Defensive DVOA — 30th, ST DVOA — 2nd, Offensive Line Run Blocking — 11th, Offensive Line Adjusted Sack Rate — 6th, Defensive Line Run Stopping — 22nd, Defensive Line Adjusted Sack Rate — 30th

Draft Analysis: 1st — Eli Apple (CB), 2nd– Sterling Shepard (WR), 3rd– Darian Thompson (S), 4th– BJ Goodson (ILB), 5th– Paul Perkins (RB), 6th– Jerrell Adams (TE)

The Giants’ recent drafts have not been overly inspiring, but I loved what they put together this April after entering with few defined needs other than gathering as much talent as possible.

There’s no doubt that the Giants needed a pure man-to-man corner to pair opposite new signing Janoris Jenkins, who is a gambler and needs safety help, and Eli Apple can certainly fit that role in the long run. He is a corner who likes to play bump-and-run, get it receivers faces and make plays on the ball. His biggest issue is losing the ball in-flight or getting caught peaking into the backfield, his upside is huge but he may struggle early on.

Elsewhere, Sterling Shepard is going to be really good, really quick, in the slot, Darian Thompson provides a middle field safety compliment to last year’s second round pick Landon Collins who likes to play closer to the line of scrimmage, BJ Goodson is a two-down linebacker who likes to shoot gaps and make plays in the run game before making room for an extra pass-rusher or nickelback, and Paul Perkins and Jerrell Adams represent great value for guys who could have been day two picks snagged in the fifth and sixth round. Perkins in particular could be at the top of the Giants running backs depth chart come the midpoint of the season.

Free Agency:

Re-Signed/Extended — Jason Pierre-Paul (DE), Jasper Brinkley (LB), Will Tye (TE), Orleans Darkwa (RB), Larry Donnell (TE), Brad Wing (P), Josh Brown (K)

In — Olivier Vernon (DE), Janoris Jenkins (CB), Damon Harrison (DT), Ryan Seymour (G), Bobby Rainey (RB), Byron Stingily (OT), Kelvin Shepard (LB)

Out — Geoff Schwartz (G), Will Beaty (OT), Jon Beason (LB), Markus Kuhn (DT), Prince Amukamara (CB), Robert Ayers (DE), Reuben Randle (WR), Jerome Cunningham (TE)

The Giants spent a crazy amount of money in free agency in a bid to overhaul their pass defense — More on that later. Last year they ranked 30thin adjusted sack rate and just couldn’t get to the quarterback enough. They shelled out big money to bring in Olivier Vernon and to re-sign Jason Pierre-Paul in order to get after QBs more and boast their ASR into the top half of the league. But affecting the passer isn’t just about finding elite rushers. Damon Harrison is a dominant two-down run defender who will greatly improve the Giants’ early down defense and get them into good down-and-distance situations enabling their pass-rushers to pin their ears back. They capped off their overhaul with the addition of Janoris Jenkins, a corner who thrives in zone-coverage, breaking hard on the ball and making game-changing plays, even if it means giving a number of yards.

Three other things that stood out in free agency: 1) letting Prince Amukamara walk for as little as $5.5 million to the Jaguars is borderline criminal. Amukamara has struggled in New York and has never lived up to the lofty expectations placed upon him, but he is absolutely worth a one-year $6 million deal if that’s all it would have taken to bring him back for an extra year. 2) They also let Reuben Randle walk within the division to the Eagles for $1 million. Randle is another player who never lived up to expectations, and the Giants have certainly spent a lofty amount of resources on their receiving corps, but they don’t have a lot of depth at the position and $1 million is nothing for a player with some upside and familiarity with the offense. 3) The Giants did nothing in free agency to address their woeful starting offensive tackles. I’m a big Ereck Flowers fan, and in the long-term I think he can be a good starting tackle on either side, but he was a disaster in year one — gifted the most quarterback pressures of any starting tackle in the league — and Marshall Newhouse has been just as poor. They finished 2015 with the worst pair of starting tackles in the league, and unless Flowers takes a huge leap forward in 2016 they’re going to be a disaster again.

2016

Schedule: @ Cowboys, vs Saints, vs Redskins, @ Vikings, @ Packers, vs Ravens, vs Rams, vs Eagles, vs Bengals, vs Bears, @ Browns, @ Steelers, vs Cowboys, vs Lions, @ Eagles, @ Redskins

Overview:

The Giants are in a very interesting place. I can’t remember another organization pulling off what they did this offseason: They flat-out blamed all the recent failings of the organization on two-time Super Bowl winning head coach Tom Coughlin and painted it as “time for a new era”. In reality, that makes no sense as Coughlin was the only one asked to leave the building. Think about it, has there ever been a successful coach fired (asked to resign) and everyone else in the facility got to stay? The GM is still there, the quarterback is still there, the defensive coordinator is still there and the offensive coordinator is still there. Heck, he even get a promotion and a raise, which he was someone able to sign with that knife in his hand.

But here we are, the ‘new era’ of Giants football that features an offense run by Eli Manning and a defense run by Steve Spagnulo (eh?). Their 1–22 features plenty of talent; All-Pro players, young players ready to break-out, a quarterback good enough to win a championship and newly acquired players who fit perfectly with their defensive vision. Their biggest issue is beyond that with their two-deep being somewhat of a mess.

Depth is key in the NFL. You need a good quarterback, a good coach, luck and health. Two of those, for the most part, are out of your control. To combat poor health, you have to nail the later rounds of the draft and crush it on the ‘veteran last chance’ and undrafted free agent markets. The Giants have done far from that, and other than their defensive line, their roster lacks depth across the board.

They now enter the 2016 season after ramping up offseason expectations with their big boy spending, and a staff that is still on the hot-seat after the dethroning blaming of King Coughlin. To achieve what they have the talent to do they have to keep their first string healthy throughout the year.

Offense:

We now live in an era where offensive coaches are being rewarded with head coaching gigs for getting error-prone quarterbacks to commit less errors; Adam Gase did a good job with Jay Cutler and he is then handed the keys to Miami, Dirk Koetter did an outstanding job with Jameis Winston in his rookie year and he is then gifted the head coaches office, and then we have Ben McAdoo who instituted a rhythm based offense that built in more half-field reads, asked for quicker decisions, and got the best out of Eli Manning by limiting his time holding the ball and taking away the ‘hero ball’ throws down-the-field.

McAdoo comes from the Green Bay school of coaching with old west-coast philosophies, elongated verbiage, and the mind-set that quarterbacks fit into the scheme in the same way that other pieces on the offense do. In two years in McAdoo’s offense Manning has ranked 11thand 18thin football outsider’s DYAR metric, despite playing behind a pair of awful offensive lines. They have increased the tempo and got the ball out with more urgency; gone are the days of Eli double-clutching then forcing the ball down-the-field into double coverage. Now, there are still some dumb decisions, that’s just Eli being Eli, but he has certainly found an offense that fits his skill-set under McAdoo.

With that said, let’s not give all the credit to the coaching staff. At the same time McAdoo arrived in New York so did Odell Beckham: A player who is already on a Hall of Fame like trajectory after two of the most breath-taking seasons from any young receiver in recent memory. Beckham makes Manning and everyone around him better and makes their lives easier (on the field). His ability to line-up all over the formation, draw double-teams, and force defensive communication by shifting and motioning to any spot along the formation pre-snap is a major win for the offense on each and every play. In the same way Calvin Johnson terrorized defenses for a generation, Beckham’s mere presence helps the offense.

Then there’s that whole catching the ball stuff. And, well, he’s pretty damn good at doing that as well.

It won’t just be Beckham who impacts the passing game in 2016. Sterling Shepard gets off press-coverage for fun and should step into the league as an immediate contributor, and the Giants staff will be hoping to drain the last ounces of performance out of Victor Cruz, who has suffered a series of injury setbacks in the past few years.

Adding balance will be key to the offense. In rookies Paul Perkins and Marshaun Coprich they have two zone-cut runners who can be a compliment to the passing game if Rashad Jennings continues to show little to nothing. Perkins is as elusive a back as there was last year, and with Shane Vereen as a receiving only option, he should have a chance to compete for the top job in camp.

Defense:

On the defensive side of the ball the Giants are rolling back the years. Their offseason spending signalled a return to Steve Spagnulo’s defense that helped the team win a Super Bowl title in 2007. That defense was an attack defense, who rushed just four, created a ton of disruption, and then got creative with their match-up zone defense on the back-end and created turnovers. Generating pressure while rushing just four is the crown jewel of NFL defenses. It allows you to drop seven defenders into coverage, get more creative with disguised looks, and overwhelm the offenses five eligible receivers by double-teaming the two biggest threats. In ’07 the Giants had that with their famous “Nascar” sub-package, and they’ve sought to build a similar unit for 2016.

They certainly have the front for it; Olivier Vernon, Jason Pierre-Paul, Jonathan Hankins, Damon Harrison and Owamagbe Odighizuwa form a five-man rotation who can simultaneously defend the run and hunt the quarterback. All of them extremely good players in their own rights, and together they could be a dominant force. They have the perfect blend of two pure edge-rushers (Vernon and Pierre-Paul) who have eyes only for the quarterback, a prototypical one-technique who eats up space in the running game (Harrison) and a three-technique who can defend the run and collapse the pocket from the interior (Hankins). Vernon finished the season with 80 total pressures, and saw an explosion in production once Cameron Wake went down. Indeed, the only player totalled more pressures in the second half of the season is his new running mate Pierre-Paul. If one of them can dominate to a level in which they consistently draw double-teams, then the rest of them will see one-vs-one looks and the first part of Spagnulo’s attack defense will be in place.

The second part is getting creative on the back-end. As I mentioned earlier, Janoris Jenkins fits the mold as a guy who likes to play in zone coverage, attack the ball, and force turnovers. But he’s also liable to give up big plays, and he is playing alongside a rookie who may be out of depth early in the season and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie who is now the wrong side of 30. To offset the issues at corner they will need the safety pairing of Landon Collins and either Taylor Collins or Darian Thompson to play at an extremely high level.

While there are positives with the front-four, and a lot of talent in the secondary, the linebacking corps may be among the worst in the league. At present, the Giants’ list Devon Kennard, Keenan Robinson and JT Thomas as their starters and the rest is made up of cast-offs and street free agents. They lack depth at all positions, but they lack depth and talent at linebacker. If they’re unable to establish an overwhelming pass-rush with their front-four they’re going to be in trouble at the second level.

Key Stat: Do you know how many receivers have had over 2,750 receiving yards in the first two years of their career? One. Odell Beckham. The start to his Giants’ career has been encapsulated by spectacular catches that seem like make him look like alien, but he’s more than just a walking highlight reel, he’s a down-to-down threat with ridiculous production. In the 26 games started in those two years Beckham has averaged 102 yards per game, a good distance ahead of second placed Randy Moss who averaged 85.2 yards per game in his first two seasons.

Bovada O/U: 8

There’s a lot to like about the star-power and 1–22 on the Giants’ depth chart, but it feels like the lack of depth will catch up to them over the course of a season. I’ll go with a push and say they hit the .500 mark which may not be enough to keep everyone’s job.