The horrible blockage of the Giants against OL squanders their talent

The 2018 New York Giants have a stacked attack, thanks to a group of skill players who, on paper, give the impression that their list should handle each contest as a freeplay game of NFL Blitz.

They are led by a double Super Bowl champion, whose year 2018 is proof that he has not yet proven. His main target is a 25-year-old three-year-old Pro Bowler, who is about to rewrite the league record books and has just signed the richest contract ever signed for a wide receiver. His tight hybrid match is a monster that creates an imbalance that has led the team into receptions and caught as a rookie. His background is led by the No. 2 pick of the NFL Draft in 2018 – a physical monster who has found ways to score from anywhere on the field in three seasons at Penn State.

But after two games, Eli Manning, Odell Beckham Jr., Evan Engram and Saquon Barkley are at the limit of the target, while they are leading the league offensive. And that's because the offensive line of the Giants seems to be a practical joke elaborated on the franchise. Here, for example, Ereck Flowers is doing something next to the blocking of week 1:

The flowers are only part of the problem. The blocking of the Giants as a whole put a ton of pressure on a quarter of 37 years who was not particularly mobile, even in his youth. Without having the time to throw space or space to run, this car attack can not get out of first gear.

The weapons of the giants will be lost thanks to a terrible block

After being sacked for 5.3% of its fallout in 2017, the number of Manning has exploded to less than 9% this fall. As a result, you have a smuggler who has completed 69% of his passes so far, but for a career minimum of 9.0 yards per jack. Without any time to do anything constructive in the pocket, all that New York can hope for is that its litany of short passes will eventually result in a monster gain after the capture.

Advanced statistics prove it – in a way. Manning has been agile enough to buy 2.7 seconds every time he goes back, a number that is actually in the top half of the NFL and in front of players like Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Ryan and Tom Brady. However, his average is only 6.6 yards per pass. Only seven quarters are making shorter shots than the QB Giants so far this season. In short, it takes more time in the pocket to make shorter passes, and it's a recipe for a boring, punch-free attack.

There are some reasons for this. Beckham, despite all his brilliance on the field, also has a lot of weight in the game of intermediate passes, as indicated by an average score of 12.2 yards per target. It was not sent as deep as its highlighter coil suggests.

Engram and Barkley – the first receiver on the team after a record 14 rookies set Sunday – were invited to stay home more often and rush on the fast track. While the rookie's tail is used more and more, he has more safety valve than his current weapon. After averaging 11.7 yards per penny in Penn State, his NFL number is 6.4 yards.

Why so low? One of the main reasons is that Manning has been trapped behind a sloppy offensive line – and rather than throwing force on the field, he checks his third and fourth options near the line of scrimmage. This is how Barkley can catch 14 passes in one game while only gaining 80 meters.

On Sunday, these struggles manifested themselves in a unique piece of the third quarter. Dallas linebacker Damien Wilson hit an arch-sized hole in the Giants' offensive line to reach Manning in just 2.08 seconds – the league's second fastest bag in 2018. was recovered by Taco Charlton. Six games later, Brett Maher started a 29-yard field goal that allowed the Cowboys to take 13-0.

With Barkley split on the right, the Giants have a five-on-five block. Rookie guard Will Hernandez whitened Wilson completely to double Jaylon Smith's team. When he realizes what he has done, he can not do much except look at the many Cowboys who are already behind him.

The thing is, the Giants have really tried to fix that!

The New York management knew that the block was a concern after Manning had been beaten in 2017 while Ben McAdoo was doing all he could to get fired. General Manager Dave Gettleman was the subject of his first press conference with the team. But there was still a lot to do after last year.

The Giants replaced McAdoo by a quarterback guru of Pat Shurmur, then made two major moves to improve their offensive line. First, it was a huge $ 62 million, four-year contract to bring left-winger Nate Solder from New England. Then, the club used the 34th pick of the NFL 2018 draft to pick Hernandez, a comeback dominating at UTEP.

But Solder is away from Dante Scarnecchia and the Patriots' isolation. The learning curve of Hernandez among the pros proved to be very difficult. Center Jon Halapio has played well enough to convince the team to trade starter 2017 Brett Jones (who is currently starting for the Vikings), but a broken leg this week will cost him the rest of the season. Last year's right-back, John Jerry, was released. Last night's departure tackle, Flowers, was not.

It is a maelstrom that, in two games, has aggravated the offensive line of New York. Solder could improve by adapting to his new environment, but he is still a player who gave 51 quarterbacks to the Patriots last fall. Hernandez will be better at every game he adds to his resume, but his impressive collegiate performance was based on a regular diet of the Conference teams and the United States.

Halapio was an interrogation point to begin with, and its demotion to that of Spencer Pulley, which has allowed more pressure than any other center in 2017, is a major stumbling block. Punch "Ereck Flowers Sucks" in Google draws 31,600 relevant results. Right guard Patrick Omameh is good enough to be anonymous on a better offensive line, but still bad enough to contribute to Manning's mental health loss in his pocket.

Sunday, they gave the Cowboys the chance to triple their total bag of the season. This means that players like Charlton, Wilson and Antwaun Woods are becoming a coherent unit faster than Dallas could have expected, or that this group of giant pass protectors is even worse than we thought.

These are the plans of an offensive line capable of canceling the impact of one of the most sporting and dynamic ranges of the WR-RB-TE. The Giants know what the problem is and they tried to fix it for 2018, but these solutions did not last two weeks of the season. The result is an elusive limit offense in New York. And a quarterback that looks way too much like that:

And while it may be fun to see Manning's panic every time he falls into the pocket, there's nothing fun to see how the Giants are wasting an attack with almost unlimited potential in his skill positions.