PAGING DR. SHURMUR
No time left to spare for coach to repair broken Giants offense
HOUSTON — They are battered and bloodied, there are open wounds everywhere on the 0-2 Giants. The start of the 2018 season somehow looks like a continuation of the 2017 season.
Stop the bleeding and start the season already, before there is no season.
The Giants recovered from 0-2 once to win a Super Bowl, but Eli Manning was 26 back then, and Michael Strahan was the Hall of Fame defensive leader, and Tom Coughlin was the head coach.
It was a fairy tale then, and it would be even more of a fairy tale now.
It is a wacky, fickle league that makes you hesitate writing an 0-2 team’s obituary.
And the presence of Odell Beckham Jr. and Saquon Barkley cautions you against burying an 0-2 team. But 0-3 is a virtual death sentence. So here, in the NFL emergency room, sit the 2018 New York Football Giants, their pulse faint, desperate for someone to ...
Stop the bleeding and start the season already, before there is no season.
Dr. Pat Shurmur to the operating room, please.
Shurmur, in consultation with his woozy 37-year- old quarterback, make up the brains of this operation.
They are at their best from Monday through Saturday soothing their team’s psyche with their even-keeled calm.
But now it is time for them to be at their best on Sunday.
This Sunday. Against the 0-2 Texans and their white-out home opener.
Shurmur worked miracles with Case Keenum, particularly at the desperate end of the playoff game against the Saints, and was expected to wring whatever is left out of his 37-year-old Giants quarterback.
It was Shurmur who told everyone Manning had years left in that two-time Super Bowl right arm, and it was general manager Dave Gettleman who rebuilt the offensive line and drafted Barkley.
It is Shurmur who needs to help Manning get off the deck and find the end zone so he can try to prove the men who believed in him right.
It was Manning who l ooked shellshocked after picking himself up and dusting himself off six times against the Cowboys, and it was Manning who volunteered that it takes time for an offensive line to become cohesive.
Except his clock is ticking, and he doesn’t have the time to wait, and neither do the Giants or their fans, who expected so much more. The antidote from Dr. Shurmur, please: The first order of business to help your veteran quarterback is establishing a running game with your gold-jacket running back.
If Barkley catching checkdowns out of the backfield has to serve as your running game, so be it. It isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Shurmur has to figure out a way to coach above the Xs and Os and around his suspect offensive line and new starting center John Greco.
But getting the ball out of Manning’s hands quickly and in Beckham’s hands in any and every way possible, and early and often, has to be the next priority. Beckham isn’t being paid $95 million to be an afterthought.
And figure out a way to get the ball to Beckham and Barkley in space.
Shurmur has a reputation as an elite playcaller, and Manning needs him to be one on Sunday with predators Jadeveon Clowney and J.J. Watt no doubt frothing at the mouth in front of him, and Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Hopkins threatening the Big Blue defense.
So Shurmur cannot always take what they give him if the safeties are playing in Mexico. He has to pick the right times for Manning to take shots downfield. He has to be smart, but be daring and not be afraid to throw caution to the wind once in a while as well.
He can’t coach scared and Manning can’t play scared.
At a time when his defense is a work in progress under new coordinator James Bettcher and lacking a game-changing pass rusher, Shurmur needs his offense to stop resembling a work in progress, so he doesn’t have to be desperate enough to go for it fourth-and-short in his own territory, Manning: “I think we’re close on things.” Barkley: “We’re so close.” So close to oblivion, too. The offseason gameplan, the 2018 season, was contingent upon Manning getting the ball in the hands of the playmak-ers. Manning needs help. From his beleaguered offensive line. From the best array of playmakers he has ever had. But mostly, from Dr. Shurmur. Stop the bleeding and start the season already, before there is no season.