The New York Giants lost on Monday Night to the Detroit Lions 24-10, as their offense once again put on another embarrassing performance. The Giants fell to 0-2 for the fourth time in the last five seasons, which is not a great sign for their playoff chances. For a team that went 11-5 last season and made the playoffs, this start is unexpected and frustrating.
Since NFL went to 12 playoff teams in 1990, only 12 percent of teams to start season 0-2 went on to make playoffs.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 18, 2017
McAdoo blames Eli Manning and himself
Since 2007, Eli Manning has started 0-2 five different times, with only Drew Brees (six times) having started 0-2 more in that time span.
According to ESPN Stats and Information, this is the first time in franchise history that the New York Giants have started 0-2 with both losses coming by 14 or more points. They have also only scored 13 points in their first two games, the lowest number since 1947 (7 points).
Yesterday, head coach Ben Mcadoo was asked after the game about the Giants delay of game penalty on fourth-and-goal at the 2-yard line that caused them to settle for a field goal. He blamed “sloppy quarterback play” on the issue for not get the snap off or calling a timeout instead.
To be fair. McAdoo did open the post-game press conference saying that “it's my responsibility.” In an interview on WFAN yesterday Manning said, “Hey, you lose games, you score 10 points, you deserve some criticism.”
The entire offense deserves blame
Now, it is well known that when a team underperforms that the quarterback and/or head coach will get most of the blame, but a 0-2 start is a team effort.
McAdoo sidestepped questions in his post-game presser about receiver Brandon Marshall, who dropped a key fourth-quarter pass, and left tackle Ereck Flowers, who allowed three sacks.
The offseason addition of Marshall was supposed to elevate a receiving core that already had Odell Beckham and Sterling Shepard. Marshall was supposed to take pressure off of these two, especially with Beckham dealing with an ankle injury, but he has only managed two catches for 27 yards.
Meanwhile, the offensive line is still awful at run blocking and has seemingly gotten worse at pass blocking. The Giants are last in the league with 97 rushing yards and have the fourth least average yards per attempt (3.2). Eli Manning has already been sacked eight times after only being sacked 21 times in 2016.
Not addressing last year's issues
The Giants did not even really bother to address those two big issues. They brought in DJ Fluker, a former first-round pick by the Chargers in 2013, who does not even start. They also only drafted one only offensive lineman, Adam Bisnowaty, in the sixth round, and he is on their practice squad. The team did draft running back Wayne Gallman in the fourth round, but he has yet to play as he had been a healthy scratch.
The offense has now scored less than 20 points in each of their last seven regular season games, the longest streak ever with Eli Manning at quarterback.
Despite only having one takeaway this year, the Giants defense cannot win games if they are on the field all the time and get basically no support for the offense. Through two games they have been on the field for 67:01 and 127 plays compared to 52:59 and 108 plays for the opposing defense.