For Shurmur, a Giant total of misplaced calls
PHILADELPHIA >> Pat Shurmur is more than a decade removed from his days as Donovan McNabb’s muse and, later, Andy Reid’s offensive fall guy before leaving for greener coaching pastures.
A few years later he’d return to the Eagles under Chip Kelly, and then serve as the mop-up head coach when Jeff Lurie finally decided Kelly was no Andy Reid, much less the genius Kelly painted himself to be. Again the timing wasn’t right here for Shurmur, and after losing to Doug Pederson in the next Lurie popularity contest, he kicked around until finding himself this season as the head coach of the New York Giants.
A nice landing for a nice guy, even if once again his timing seems all wrong.
What the Eagles’ injury-riddled secondary couldn’t do Sunday, Shurmur and longtime Philadelphia whipping QB Eli Manning handled admirably in the most unlikely of 2522 comeback victories for the Birds at Lincoln Financial Field.
As if it made any kind of sense, the woeful Giants came into the game somehow riding a two-game winning streak and facing a halflegged Eagles defense that was holding job fairs for any available cornerbacks. So early on Sunday, Manning rolled up the completions, Penn State-proud rookie running back Saquon Barkley ran wild, and the Giants rolled up a 19-11 lead and were driving toward another apparent score in the final minute of the first half.
Then Manning suddenly had an Eli moment.
With a receiver wide open in the flat, on a second-and-two at the Eagles 27, Manning decided to throw into double coverage, and Malcolm Jenkins picked him off at the
2. That not only kept the Eagles in the game, it gave them something to build a second-half comeback around. It was also an indication that Shurmur’s control of the game was about to come unglued.
“I’ll take that,” the coach said in blaming himself for Manning’s interception.
“You know, we were attacking too deep. That’s not on Eli.” Oh.
If true, that was the second strange play call of the half by Shurmur. For after the Giants took the opening kickoff and drove down the field for a touchdown as if the Eagles weren’t there, a penalty moved the ball half the distance to the line for a PAT.
Shurmur chose to try a twopointer, but instead of having Barkley or fellow back Wayne Gallman Jr. try to plow the one yard for two points ... Shurmur called a pass.
“I liked our chances,” Shurmur said. “I think we had a guy running wide open. We just didn’t convert it. I think at that point it makes sense from the 1. I was just feeling it. I felt we had a good play that we were going to use.”
Manning’s ground.
Yet even with those missteps, the Giants were still holding eight to start the second half. And the hobbling Eagles were still depleted in the secondary, and would subsequently lose another cornerback, Chandon Sullivan.
But then the Giants stopped handing the ball off to Barkley, who had 94 yards and a touchdown on nine carries, and six catches for 37 yards and another touchdown amid his 15 impressive first-half touches. In the second half, he was handed the ball just four times and gained seven yards. To his credit, he kept his cool after the game.
“As I’ve said multiple times, if I carry the ball 20 times, or I carry pass fell to the the ball three times, however many times it takes to win a game, I’m going to do it,” Barkley said.
But he wasn’t given a chance to do so while the Eagles’ defense slowly but solidly adjusted to Manning, and as Gallman got a few handoffs that Barkley could otherwise have tried.
As for Manning, he was 19 of 25 for 236 yards and that TD pass to Barkley in the first 30 minutes. But he all but lost sight of top receiver Odell Beckham Jr. in the second half. Manning thus completed just seven passes for 61 yards, two of them going to Beckham, after intermission. To his credit, Beckham sort of kept his cool, too.
Asked if he was a little surprised he didn’t see the ball more often later in the game, Beckham said, “I couldn’t tell you the answer to that. At this point in my career I’ve been through a lot. Nothing really surprises me. I don’t call the plays. I just do what I’m told to do and go out there and execute.”
But Beckham would get around to the topic again, and leave with what amounted to a mic drop: “Coming in knowing that they struggled in the secondary, personally, I would have loved to have attacked them. But it wasn’t in our game plan. So ... I think that’s a question for coach. Honestly, I don’t call the plays.”
Shurmur would later pin part of his playcalling on the Giants’ extraordinary collection of 11 penalties (for 91 yards).
“You know, when we knock ourselves off with penalties and sacks and all that bad stuff, then you get off schedule trying to get the ball to Saquon and Odell and the guys that need to touch it,” Shurmur said. “With (Barkley), we’re going to spell him a little bit as we go . ... It didn’t matter in the outcome of the game.”
Oh.
“I’m not frustrated,” Shurmur added. “Here’s the story of the second half, especially early: We weren’t making the yards we needed to on the plays we called, and we had penalties that knocked us off. So you get away from stuff you certainly would like to do, and that’s what beat us. Forget the depleted secondary and all, these are NFL football teams you’re playing. We took advantage of some things, you know? But it doesn’t make sense to throw it every down when you’ve got a back like Saquon, as well. Right?”
Right. Except he didn’t get him the ball so that he can run it. Oh, well.
“When you’re in third-and-long situations, second-and-long situations, the selection of plays and things you try to do are different,” Shurmur thought to add. “We hurt ourselves. It knocks you off schedule.”
Of course it does. And Pat Shurmur’s varied coaching career seems right on schedule with that off-thecharts course of recent Giants history.