PLAYING CATCH-UP
Giant receivers are still adjusting
IN A 45-14 WIN OVER Washington earlier this season, Giants quarterback Eli Manning threw for 300 yards, wideout Victor Cruz contributed 108 yards and tight end Larry Donnell hauled in three touchdown passes. It was a thorough beating. Asked whether he could simply employ the same game plan again Sunday when the teams meet again, Giants offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo minced no words in addressing his inquirer.
“To say we would go out and just roll the ball out there and do that again is ignorant,” McAdoo said. “We know we’re going to have to work for everything we get.”
McAdoo will work with different personnel, as well. Cruz is out for the season as he recovers from his torn patellar tendon. Rookie Odell Beckham, who made his Giants debut the week after the win over Washington, is drawing attention as a top threat, and Donnell is attempting to rediscover the form he has yet to repeat since the previous win. For Manning’s targets, it has been a season in transition as they try to find a way to get open and break free upfield.
“It’s always a progression, it isn’t just throw the ball to one individual, so if the first progression is there, then that’s where the ball goes,” Tom Coughlin said. “After that, it moves on down the line. Regardless of what the call is, it could come right back to another individual. Open some, not open some, that’s just the way the game goes.”
Beckham has caught 59 passes for 829 yards in nine games, increasingly drawing attention from opposing defensive coordinators as they roll coverage schemes his way. His explosive contributions have helped ease the loss of Cruz, but they are also reducing the number of looks that wideout Rueben Randle, a former teammate of Beckham at LSU, and others are getting. Randle, now in his third season, was targeted 15 times against the 49ers last month — a season high — and caught seven balls for 112 yards in the loss. He has not seen the ball come his way more than four times in a game each of the last three weeks as he adjusts to a role behind Beckham.
“He’s been a little bit streaky,” McAdoo said of Randle. “Some days better than others. We have a lot of confidence in him and expect him to continue to grow, get better. He’s still a young player and we feel his best days are ahead of him.”
Randle maintained that he is only controlling what he can and that he watches the film to correct anything that may be needed on his part to spring open for a catch.
“I’m continuing to get open on the film,” Randle said.
Coughlin and McAdoo both acknowledged the abilities of Beckham in the passing game. Their usage of him has also included one play where Beckham was not a receiving threat. Rather, he was the thrower on an option pass last week that was intended for Randle. It was incomplete.
“We’ve had it oiled up for a little while,” McAdoo said. “It’s probably been in, I don’t want to say Atlanta we put it in, his first week back, but we had it in pretty early. We’ve repped it a bunch. He had someone downhill on him pretty quick, so he didn’t have a chance to work his way through the progressions like he would have wanted, but it was good to
take a shot there.”