Giants try for back-to-back wins
Ever since head coach Pat Shurmur took over the New York Giants program, his goal has been elementary: Stack one good day on top of another and another and work your way into a groove.
While that focus has never disappeared from the Giants landscape, it’s been one that they have struggled to achieve this season thanks to a 1-7 start. However, after getting away from football for a bit during their bye week, the Giants organization seemed very rejuvenated from top to bottom as they went through a week of practice leading up to their Monday night game against the 49ers.
They, of course, got the outcome they were seeking thanks to a 27-23 win. So now, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on deck this Sunday, the Giants are going about their business to ensure that they stack more good days of practice on top of another in hopes of coming up with their third win of the season.
“I think it is encouraging for the team,” quarterback Eli Manning said about the results of last week.
“It just gives guys that confidence that we can win games, we can come back from being down, we can get a two-minute drive to win a game when we need to. Guys can step up and make plays on offense, defense, everything, special teams. Everybody contributed, everybody played their part, and it was a team victory.”
Manning and his teammates don’t normally dwell in the past, win or lose, and their intent wasn’t to hang their hats on their win Monday night. But with Shurmur having redefined the season as an eight-game season for his players, they know that the goal hasn’t changed.
“The thing is we got to keep getting better, and I think we have gotten better,” said left tackle Nate Solder, who was part of an offensive line that Shurmur said had its best showing of the season against the 49ers. “This has got to be another week. We can’t stay stagnant, we can’t get worse. We got to keep continuing to improve.”
Among the improvements the Giants were able to make include pass protection; Manning was sacked once and hit just three times. The Giants were also able to get the ball downfield more to receiver Odell Beckham Jr., and get running back Saquon Barkley out into space where he had a long reception of 23 yards.
All things that should work in their favor against a Bucs defense that could be without their top linebacker, Lavonte David, and whose defensive secondary is part of a pass defense that is the fourth worst in the NFL.
“I think there’s been signs of things clicking and good plays,” Manning said of the offense. “We’re able to eliminate the negative plays. Only one sack, and it came on a third down. We just didn’t have those negative plays on first and second down that really hurt us and got us into third-and-longs.”
On the flip side, the Giants pass rush has mostly been missing in action all season long, not a good development as it prepares to face Ryan Fitzpatrick, who has jump-started the Bucs offense in the last two and a half games in which he’s played.
“He does a really good job of executing,” Shurmur said of Fitzpatrick. “The one thing he does, he gets back there and gets rid of the ball quickly and they have really some dynamic playmakers, especially at receiver. They’ve been doing a good job of moving the ball. They moved the ball quite a bit this last game. They just fell victim to the turnover and weren’t able to score.”
Regardless, Shurmur knows the Giants must find a way to get some pressure on Fitzpatrick to disrupt his timing.
Shurmur, however, insisted that while sacks are nice to have, if the rush is creating disruptions in the offensive backfield, that’s just as good.
“I think we’re doing a good job,” he said. “I thought the two interceptions the other night, we got him to hold the ball just a little bit and then he snapped off a couple throws that became interceptions so even though those weren’t sacks, there was enough pressure to disrupt the quarterback.
“I think we’re getting better. Nothing we’re doing yet is to the level we want it to be, so we’ll just continue to improve that.”
And if they can’t move things forward on defense, Manning has a solution he thinks will help.
“We got to control the ball. Don’t put our defense in a bind,” he said. “Don’t make it easy on their offense, and we got to score some points also.”
They proved to themselves they could do it on Monday night. If they can do it again on Sunday, things just might start to look rosier for the Giants down the stretch.
SERIES HISTORY: 21st regular-season meeting. Giants lead series, 13-7. The Giants are 4-2 in regular-season play against the Bucs since 2003 and have won their last two home meetings against them. The Giants are also 1-0 in postseason play, that being the NFC wild-card game played in January 2008.
