MAC ATTACK
McAdoo takes blame for Beckham, other issues, but there’s plenty of blame to go around for Giants
Ben McAdoo said Monday that Odell Beckham Jr. “needs to control his emotions better and become less of a distraction to himself and to his teammates.” McAdoo said the coaching staff must help Beckham’s “maturing” process.
But Beckham is going to have to meet his coach halfway and lighten McAdoo’s load in the hand-holding department, because his firstyear coach has his own problems — primar- ily, Sunday’s team-wide mess in a 29-27 home loss to Washington that was as poor a reflection on McAdoo as on the players themselves.
“When we’re not disciplined and we’re not poised that’s a reflection of me,” McAdoo said, understanding the harsh reality. “And I need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Coaches aren’t always to blame, but sometimes an effort is unavoidably a reflection on a team’s leader.
McAdoo’s commitment to correcting mistakes throughout training camp, preseason and the first two weeks of the regular season had been relentless. It wasn’t like he was pleased by winning the first two games by a combined four points. He knew the Giants were playing an unsustainable brand of football that would come back to bite them if they didn’t clean up certain areas, like their three turnovers in Week 2 to the Saints.
No matter what way McAdoo addressed those issues, though, his method wasn’t effective. That was evident Sunday because the Giants’ flaws against Washington weren’t isolated to any specific unit, area or situation. They o c curred across the board, throughout the entire team, on offense, defense and special teams.
Plus, the Giants’ shortcomings weren’t just turnovers, or penalties, or missed tackles. It was all of it.
“After the first two games we were No. 1 in the league with seven penalties,” McAdoo said. “Yesterday we had 11 for 128 yards in the game and a potential for 14, and five of the penalties were of the 15-yard variety, which there’s no excuse for. The turnover ratio, we’re minus-six right now, so we’ve got to take care of the Duke better, and we’ve got to come up with it on the defensive side of the ball. And tackling.”
Right. So practically everything. Now injuries are mounting, with Monday’s news that running back Shane Vereen (triceps injury) could miss the rest of the season. That further complicates McAdoo’s task.
Then take a look at the Giants’ upcoming schedule: Monday night at undefeated Minnesota, Sunday night at Green Bay against Aaron Rodgers, and a toss-up, altered time-zone game in London against the L.A. Rams.
The adversity will climb. Mistakes will happen, but the Giants have to be the steady ones who calm and control the storm. They can’t be the storm itself. “We were sloppy with our play,” McAdoo said. “Our discipline and poise wasn’t there like it was in the first two weeks. It’s something we addressed in the locker room after (Sunday’s loss to Washington) and we have to … get back to the team we were the first two weeks of the season as far as the penalties go.”
There certainly were positives Sunday: Bobby Hart filled in well at right tackle for the injured Marshall Newhouse. Janoris Jenkins deterred Kirk Cousins from throwing in his direction almost the entire game, like the shutdown corner the Giants are paying him to be. Orleans