With latest debacle, Giants seem to have ... LOSING DOWN PAT
Bizarre 2-point call, red-zone struggles doom brutal Big Blue
ATLANTA — We now come to the portion of the season for the Giants when pleading is the only hope for Eli Manning and his truly pathetic offense.
It is as if the end zone is the forbidden zone, as if the Giants fear an allergic reaction if they score touchdowns. There is no end to their ineptitude, no play they cannot mess up, no good situation safe from turning bad.
You could see coach Pat Shurmur looking on in horror on the sideline in the third quarter Monday night. It was fourth down on the Atlanta 1-yard line, but these Giants can turn 1 yard into an acres of impenetrable terrain. Manning rolled to his right and could have tossed it to Odell Beckham Jr., running to the right corner of the end zone. Instead, Manning threw back across his body in the direction of little-used tight end Scott Simonson, surrounded by three defenders, a pass with little chance to hit the intended target. The ball fell to the turf, of course, and the cameras caught Shurmur, aghast, saying, “What? Throw it to Odell.’’ His look was one of disbelief.
Another game, another ridiculous performance from a team that features Beckham and Sterling Shepard as quality receivers and rookie Saquon Barkley, a do-everything running back. The Falcons have a crummy defense but the Giants made it look mighty. Bad turned to worse as the Giants lost yet again, this time 23-20 with the roof open inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
It was not that close. The Giants scored a touchdown with five seconds left and trailed 23-12 with 1:55 to go.
It is the fourth consecutive loss for the sad-sack Giants, who had 11 days to show a national-television audience they are not as bad as their record. Well, that did not turn out so good. They fell to 1-6 and are now 4-19 in their past 23 regular-season games.
“My big thing to the players is you just keep playing,” Shurmur said. “Someday we won’t be able to coach and play, and so while we’re doing it, you fight your ass off and do whatever you can to win a game. And they did that, we just didn’t do some things well enough. So you just keep going.”
The Giants are not going anywhere. Their first touchdown came with 4:47 remaining on a 2yard run by Barkley. Oddly, Shurmur then opted to go for a twopoint conversion try, wanting to cut the deficit to six points, even though an extra point would have made it a one-score game. The conversion try failed when Manning’s pass was not held onto by a sliding Beckham.
“I can’t help but think about the two-point conversion,’’ Beckham said. “If we complete it and I catch it and it’s 20-14, is the defense on our side is like, ‘Let’s go, we need one stop.’ That’s something I have to go home with tonight and that’s tough.”
Fill-in kicker Giorgio Tavecchio drilled a 56-yard field goal with 1:55 left to extend the Falcons’ lead to 23-12.
“We discussed internally the math on that,” Shurmur said of the call for the two-point try. “I just felt like we had a good play. I felt like I wanted to be aggressive for
FALCONS 23 GIANTS 20
our guys. We didn’t get it done.”
Shurmur pointed to the analytics of going for two when down by two touchdowns: “You increase your chances by 50 percent if you go for it and make it there,” he said. “So that’s what you do.”
This was a game in which Manning threw for 399 yards, Sterling Shepard had 167 receiving yards and Beckham had eight catches for 143 yards and a touchdown with five seconds remaining. It did not add up to much.
There are no signs of progress. Only regression. The Giants had the ball on the Atlanta 9-yard line in the second quarter and had to settle for a field goal. On a thirdquarter drive, a third down on the Falcons 1-yard line was a jet-sweep to Barkley that did not gain an inch.
In the closing minute, the Giants failed on consecutive quarterback sneaks by Manning from the 1-yard line, draining seconds off the clock, before Manning hit Beckham in the end zone.
“You got to get ’em in, right?” Shurmur said. “Sneak it from the 1, I just saw a mush pile in there, so I don’t know why it didn’t work. From the 1-yard line there, we got to get it. We didn’t.’’
The struggle came against a Falcons defense that had stopped no one this season. The Falcons after six weeks allowed 192 points, an average of 32 per game. Yet they looked like defensive dynamos against the woebegone Giants.
The Giants defense hung tough as long as it could, but Tevin Coleman’s 30-yard touchdown run with 7:47 boosted the Falcons lead to 20-6.
The newly configured line had Spencer Pulley at center, making his first start for the Giants, a move that sent John Greco from center to right guard. Manning was sacked four times in the first half.
And so, for the second consecutive season, the Giants are 1-6 after seven games.
“It feels weird, it don’t feel right,” cornerback Janoris Jenkins said.
It should feel familiar.