In short run, McAdoo eyes the ground game
The starting unit that takes the field for the Giants on Friday night at MetLife Stadium will resemble only slightly the group Ben McAdoo hopes and expects to do battle Sept. 10 against the Cowboys in Arlington, Texas.
Any Giants offense that does not include Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. is not really a Giants offense, and the No. 1 quarterback and receiver will be held out of the preseason opener against the Steelers. Still, those in uniform and in the game want to set a tone and, for McAdoo, that tone, on offense, starts with showing proficiency in an area that let the Giants down in a big way in 2016.
“Yeah, we need to come out and run the ball, f irst group,’’ McAdoo said. “Coming out running the football is important to us and it starts with the first time we hit the field together in a team environment.’’ It may only be a handful of plays for the first-team offensive line. Figure Paul Perkins, the new top dog at running back, will get a few carries here and there, and then give way to others. Nothing definitive will come out of this, but it will leave the Giants in a better place, confidencewise, if they are able to move the ball on the ground.
“I think we just understand the run game as a whole better,” center Weston Richburg said. “We’ve had time in the offseason to talk about it and think it over, go over some things that didn’t go well last year and put those things into practice this year. I think we’ve made some good strides so far.”
The strides are geared toward making the attack more diverse, less predictable, utilizing varied personnel groupings to keep opposing defenses off-balance. That was not the case last season, when the Giants ran 1,009 offensive plays and, according to Football Outsiders, 925 were in “11 personnel’’ — one running back, one tight end, three wide receiv- ers. That means the Giants, on 92 percent of their plays, were in the same offensive grouping, allowing defenses to establish a sense of calm and confidence, knowing what the Giants’ offense would look like, play after play, game after game.
Judging from the moves the Giants made in the offseason and the way they have lined up this summer, the “11-personnel’’ rate will go down — significantly. Sure, McAdoo wants a healthy dose of Beckham, Brandon Marshall and Sterling Shepard on the field together, as those are three dynamic play-makers. Snaps must be allotted to Evan Engram, the rookie tight end who has had an impressive training camp, and the Giants did not sign Rhett Ellison, a veteran blocking tight end, to sit him on the bench. Expect to see many more sets with two tight ends on the field, trading some glitz for some muscle and variety.
“We’ve got to understand our assignment,” Richburg said. “That’s the main thing. We’ve been able to mix up personnel a lot more, which gives us a lot more diversity in the run game, which helps.’’
Running back Shane Vereen, who played in only five games in 2016 because of two triceps injuries, called the running game “a work in progress, just like everything else at this point.’’
It is difficult to judge much from training camp practices, where live tackling is not allowed. It is evident, though, that the offensive line is more cohesive, tackles Ereck Flowers and Bobby Hart have more stamina and that with Ellison, secondyear tight end Jerell Adams at 247 pounds and even Marshall — an excellent blocking receiver — the ability to move bodies off the ball is improved. It has to be. The Giants last season were 29th in the NFL in rushing at 88.3 yards per game. Only the Lions, Rams and Vikings were worse. The Giants’ 3.5 yards per rush was 30th in the league. No team had fewer than the Giants’ six rushing touchdowns.
“There have been some shots of the offense knocking a hole in the defense and that’s encouraging,’’ McAdoo said of training camp.
“We want to set the tone so we can open up other things,” Richburg said. “We have lots of weapons that we want to be able to use, and if we get the running game open, that opens that up to be a little dangerous.’’