Shurmur should stop overthinking Barkley’s usage
Of all the Giants’ issues in last Sunday’s 35-17 loss in Dallas, by far the most addressable one is Saquon Barkley’s workload.
How does the most dynamic running back in football only touch the ball 15 times on a day when he’s averaging 9.3 yards per touch?
“We want him to get the football,” head coach Pat Shurmur said this week. “It makes sense for him to get the football. Each game plays out differently. I would have never predicted last week that we would have only had four possessions in the first half. That’s just how it worked out.”
That’s typically how Shurmur, who calls the team’s offensive plays, tries to rationalize Barkley’s usage. It’s time to stop overthinking this and make by your best weapon a true bell cow.
Barkley became Week 1’s fastest ball carrier when he had a 59-yard run at 21.76 mph on the Giants’ second play from scrimmage, according to Next Gen Stats. He received handoffs on two of the next four plays and then was part of a play-action fake as Eli Manning threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Evan Engram, capping off one of the team’s best drives in recent memory.
But the Giants handed the ball off to Barkley just two more times on their last three drives of the first half. His sixth carry came with 12:19 remaining in the third quarter — the offense’s 33rd play of the game. What gives?
The Cowboys effectively ended the game when their fifth straight touchdown drive resulted in a 35-10 lead with 1:14 left in the third, so Shurmur gets a pass for scarcely running the ball in the fourth quarter. But there’s no reason the offense should’ve stalled as often as it did in the first three quarters with Barkley as a spectator.
It was particularly glaring on a pair of key third downs.
With the score tied at 7 late in the first quarter, Shurmur opted for a play-action rollout with Manning on third-and-1 from Dallas’ 35 which resulted in a poor intentional grounding call by the officials despite Barkley clearly being in the area as an eligible receiver. Nonetheless, it moved the Giants outside of field goal range when a running play would’ve been much safer.
The most backbreaking sequence came midway through the third quarter with the Giants driving down 28-10. On third-and-2 at Dallas’ 8-yard line, Shurmur called for a fullback dive to Eli Penny. Then on fourth-and 1, the Giants ran another bootleg with Manning, who fumbled on a sack by DeMarcus Lawrence and Leighton Vander Esch.
Alas, the Giants finished 2-for-12 on third down. Get Barkley the ball!
It’s astonishing that in 18 games, not once have the Giants gotten their 2018 No. 2 overall pick at least 30 touches. The closest he came last season was 29 against Tampa Bay … and yet he still managed to lead the NFL with 2,028 all-purpose yards.
That number should be legitimately on the table in Sunday’s home opener against the Bills with the receiving corps depleted.
Top wideout Sterling Shepard (concussion) is out and Cody Latimer (calf) is questionable, so the top targets behind tight end Evan Engram project to be Bennie Fowler, Russell Shepard, Cody Core and TJ Jones. Core was claimed off waivers after the preseason, and Jones (preseason cut) re-signed this week when Sterling Shepard entered the concussion protocol.
Schematically, Shurmur also needs to be more creative getting Barkley the ball in the passing game on wheel routes. Of his four catches against the Cowboys, only one was beyond the line of scrimmage.
Barkley, one of the team’s seven captains, again stayed modest this week when asked about his workload.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help the team win,” he said. “If we play better than we did last game, and we execute what we need to execute, I don’t think the conversation will be about 15 touches. I think we find a way to win that game. But at the end of the day, Dallas made more plays than us. We just have to find a way to do that better next game.”
Sure, the Giants could’ve executed better on key plays that weren’t designed to go to him. But in order for this team to contend this season, Barkley needs to be a bigger focal point.
Contact Greg Johnson at gjohnson@21st-centurymedia. com; follow him on Twitter @Gregp_j