Despite coming away with a 21-20 win over the Jets, the Giants offense didn’t put on an impressive performance. The team was shut out in the first half and didn’t get on the board until a 27-yard touchdown pass from Ryan Nassib late in the third quarter. Big Blue scored its second offensive touchdown after starting in the Jets red zone.
Star received Odell Beckham Jr. seemed unhappy with the offense as the team didn’t score with the first-unit for the second straight week.
“No one is happy with the way the first offense operated yesterday,” said head coach Ben McAdoo. “We need to improve, we need to make sure we are going forward, so we give guys opportunities to showcase their abilities, but frustration doesn’t solve anything. At the same point in time, we need to improve, we need to execute better and we need to play forward. We can’t be going backwards.”
Eli Manning completed 10 of his 15 passes for 65 yards and was intercepted once.
Nassib was 6-for-19 but threw a pair of touchdowns to Tavarres King, including the deciding 11-yard pass with 2:25 to go.
“Our offense, we showed a lot of fight in the second half,” McAdoo said.
The Giants offense was fairly conservative, as the team tried to establish a running game.
Key word: tried.
Rashad Jennings carried the ball six times for minus one yard. Shane Vereen had six carries for 11 yards. Paul Perkins had four rushes for eight yards.
The Giants lack of success in the running game led to the Jets possessing the ball for 10 more minutes. Fortunately for Big Blue, any issues with the offensive line are not beyond repair. “I think that everything with the offensive line is correctable,” McAdoo said. “We need to have better effort to finish. Our detail and our fundamentals need to improve and we need to stay out of long yardage situations.”
The Giants offense picked up nine first downs on Saturday. Usually the final preseason game is for resting starters but it’s possible that the first-unit may see the field on Thursday, to see if they can get clicking as the team approaches the regular season opener.
“We need to jump back out there on the practice field tomorrow and we need to get better right from jump street,” McAdoo said. “We will approach the game and we will talk about the play time for the game as we get closer to the game.”
Because of the problems on the Giants offense, and the Patriots trying to keep Tom Brady sharp as he prepares to miss the first four games of the season, fans might get more of Manning and Brady than they usually would in the preseason.