Full-speed ahead in Drive For Five
THE SUPER Bowl hype train chugs into East Rutherford on Thursday for the opening of training camp with Odell Beckham Jr. and Landon Collins and Eli Manning aboard to engineer the franchise’s obsession with pl a c - ing a f ifth Lombardi Tro p hy in the window case of the Que s t Diagnostics Center l obby, and then gather in the auditorium to listen to Ben McAdoo reinforce this Drive For Five.
Over the last two years, GM Jerry Reese has brought in marquee free agents Olivier Vernon, Janoris Jenkins, Damon Harrison and Brandon Marshall. He has drafted Eli Apple, Sterling Shepard, Darian Thompson, B.J. Goodson, Paul Perkins, Evan Engram, Dalvin Tomlinson and Davis Webb. All except Webb have had or will have significant roles.
This is a Win Now team, f illed with players either in their primes or ready to ascend, and a 36-year-old Win Now or Maybe Never quarterback.
Manning has bigger and better targets in Marshall and Engram, his own Score Four teamed with Beckham and Shepard. Beckham’s mere presence will open up opportunities for everyone else. His numbers will likely go down, but his impact on every game will not.
Perkins and Shepard are no longer rookies and Shane Vereen is healthy. Manning will feel like a kid in a candy store, and McAdoo’s offense won’t be anywhere near as predictable as it was in 2016, when it averaged 19.4 points per game. McAdoo last summer thought he’d field an explosive offense that would score 27 points per game. If Manning takes better care of “The Duke,” this should be an elite outfit.
Steve Spagnuolo’s defense carried the Giants to the playoffs last season. If Manning & Co. do their part and put points on the board, Vernon and Jason Pierre-Paul will be able to pin their ears back and the heavy pass rush working in tandem with Collins and Jenkins and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie’s NYPD — New York Pass Defense — will suffocate the opposition.
McAdoo is a rookie no more. There are no more questions about following Tom Coughlin. He acted as if he has been here before. He has his finger on the pulse of his team. And it is unquestionably his team.
Special teams are in good shape with punter Brad Wing, long snapper Zak DeOssie and coverage ace Dwayne Harris. McAdoo frequently refers to Wing as a weapon.
It is not as if there is no elephant in the room, however. It is the same elephant that has been in the room since the football law firm of O’Hara, Snee, Seubert, McKenzie and Diehl shuttered its doors. All bets are off if Reese turns out to be wrong about left tackle Ereck Flowers, the ninth pick of the 2015 draft. Much has been made of Flowers’ commitment and improved conditioning and footwork. Whether he can play more like a first-round pick than a turnstile is critical to any and all championship dreams.
A lesser concern, but a concern nevertheless, is rookie place-kicker Aldrick Rosas. The good news is he isn’t Josh Brown and the deplorable f irestorm that surrounded him last season. The bad news is he’s a rookie.
The schedule appears forbidding. But if you are playoff worthy, you overcome it.
The 2012 Giants, defending their Super Bowl XLVI crown, were 8-5 and on the brink of a playoff berth when they were blown out and embarrassed in Atlanta and Baltimore in successive weeks, and missed the postseason. They finished 9-7 and Coughlin never got the Giants over .500 again.
McAdoo inherited a team that had missed the playoffs for three consecutive seasons. So he has not confronted the pressure of great expectations. His expectations are that he will always be comfortable being uncomfortable, and that his Win Now team will be as well.
And the 2017 Giants are indeed good enough to Drive For Five. Is this the year? Yes. This is the year.