THE MISSING PIECE
Big Blue offense simply looks incomplete without Beckham running routes
ARLINGTON, Texas — No Odell Beckham Jr.
No Super Bowl. There was fire and fury everywhere inside Jerry World, and the Giants needed Eli Manning to lift them, needed someone, anyone, to make a play, because Beckham was helpless on the sidelines to make one.
The Giants, 19-3 losers, will need him for the next 15 games even more now than they needed him Sunday night, if you can imagine that, and did the right thing by protecting him from himself with the world’s most famous sprained ankle.
So here came this chance for Manning, for Jason Pierre-Paul and Landon Collins and Damon Harrison, to make a giant statement on opening night and deliver a psychological punch to the Cowboys’ solar plexus: “We own you, and you can play Ezekiel Elliott against us and we can beat you without Odell Beckham Jr. anyway.”
Here came this chance for Manning, armed with Brandon Marshall and exciting first-round draft pick Evan Engram, to hush the age-old naysayers about 36year-old quarterbacks.
Here came this chance for Big Blue to remind Elliott and Dak Prescott, so chill behind that Great Wall of Dallas, who the real bullies are. Blue Monday instead. Instead, we were reminded that not only is Beckham The Straw That Stirs The Drink, but there is no drink without him.
“That’s a once-in-a-lifetime player,” Marshall said. “So he’ll definitely make our offense better when he gets back out there and healthy,” Brandon Marshall said. “I’m sure he’ll make us a lot better.”
Without Beckham catching a slant and taking it to the house and taking the pressure off everyone else, Manning will not capture his third Super Bowl, and there will be no fifth Lombardi Trophy in the case.
We were reminded that until Manning’s much-maligned offensive line gives him a sense of comfort and security in the pocket and emboldens Ben McAdoo as a playcaller and stops being the Achilles heel, the Super Bowl will be a pipe dream.
Without Beckham, without an offensive line that can give him a clean pocket, Manning was left naked.
Asked if he was concerned about the offensive line, Manning said: “I think the whole offense needs to make improvement. Start with me. I gotta do a better job, I gotta be better prepared, and less this team better. I’ll start with me and go from there.”
A fourth-quarter interception by Anthony Brown on a Manning pass thrown behind Roger Lewis Jr. sealed the Giants’ fate, although they looked like Dead Team Walking anyway.
The offensive-line foibles (three sacks, countless pressures, no running game) left Manning and McAdoo with the impression they were playing against the ghosts of Bob Lilly, Randy White, Mel Renfro, Too Tall Jones, Chuck Howley and Cornell Green.
“The way we looked tonight ain’t gonna win us any football games,” Justin Pugh said.
The Cowboys, playing more zone and two-high safety than expected, were the smarter, tougher, hungrier team.
“Gotta do a better job of getting us into better plays,” Manning said.
Manning, often harried behind that line and unable or unwilling or both to take shots down the field, looked disturbingly gun-shy.
“My eyes were downfield and did an OK job moving around and kinda extended a couple of plays but just couldn’t make anything happen,” Manning said.
Marshall, catchless until a 10yarder in the final seconds, was clearly not on the same page as Manning and might as well have been running routes for Ryan Fitzpatrick or Josh McCown. Out of sync and out of sorts, Marshall stuck his left hand out on an off-target thirddown incompletion early in the fourth quarter. “He’s a weapon,” Manning said, “we gotta find ways to get him the ball.”
Manning finally found a rhythm on a 9:44 drive to open the second half, until a sack sabotaged first-and-goal at the 5 and forced McAdoo to settle for a field goal.
Manning & Co. left Big Blue on the field for an unconscionable 20:33 in the first half.
“We got players. We gotta play better than that,” Manning said.
It is no excuse for what happened.
“You can’t be a one-man offense,” Pugh said. “This is the NFL. Guys gotta step up make plays when he’s not out there, because you never know what’s gonna happen.”
But no Beckham wrecked ‘em.