The Giants have had one of the worst offenses in the NFL since last year, so Joe Judge firing Jason Garrett as his offensive coordinator — especially after publicly criticizing him on Monday night — certainly didn’t come as a surprise.
What would come as a bigger surprise, though, is if the Giants offense is actually able to show significant improvement over the final seven games of the season. Tuesday, Judge strangely wouldn’t reveal who the new play-caller would be this week against the Eagles. It was expected to be senior offensive assistant Freddie Kitchens, but Judge said it would be a “collaborative” effort for now — and didn’t even rule out the possibility that he’d call the plays.
“Everything’s on the table,” Judge said.
The goal is an obvious one: “We’ve got to make some moves to give our offense an opportunity to change some things up, be more productive and ultimately score more points.”
But there’s a major flaw in Judge’s plan, and good reason to believe firing Garrett won’t lead to the Giants offense completely turning things around: The offensive line.
There were plenty of questions on offense through 11 weeks beyond Garrett’s conservative play-calling. Quarterback Daniel Jones has been too inconsistent and unproductive. Saquon Barkley hasn’t been a factor. Same for Kenny Golladay. Sterling Shepard can’t stay healthy.
But that all pales in comparison to the problems on the offensive line.
Last week, Garrett caught attention for admitting the Giants have been hamstrung by the offensive line this season, which has forced them to frequently deploy multiple tight ends as blockers and use an extra offensive lineman in a “jumbo” package. Garrett didn’t have the same level of offensive line talent he was used to when he coached the Cowboys.
“It’s just part of where we are,” Garrett said. “We’re trying to rebuild a team and that’s a process. It was a process for us in Dallas. At different times, you have to make the decisions and say, ‘OK, we’ve got to allocate this resource because this is important to us,’ and we did that time and time again and all of a sudden, you built a really powerful, strong offensive line that’s still going today. They’re really good players, cornerstone players. So that’s what you have to do. In the meantime, you have to somehow, some way create an environment with the guys you have.”
Garrett then only cited Thomas as the Giants’ “cornerstone” offensive linemen.
And it’s hard to argue with any of Garrett’s points there: General manager Dave Gettleman promised to build a quality offensive line when he was hired in 2018, and instead the group is worse now than it was before, and heading toward an offseason where they might have to completely revamp the unit. Again.
Pro Football Focus has the offensive line graded as the worst pass-blocking team in the NFL and 25th in run blocking. Jones has been pressured on 35% of his drop-backs this season — the 10th-highest rate — and against the Buccaneers on Monday night, he was pressured on 55% of his drop backs. He’s been sacked 21 times total this season.
“It’s tough. If you don’t win at the line of scrimmage, it’s hard for our skill guys to do their jobs,” Thomas said. “It’s frustrating because we know we’re capable it’s just (about) being consistent.”
And that’s part of the issue: The Giants’ have typically gone with a more conservative offensive game-plan — supported by Judge for most of the season — designed to keep Jones from getting hit too much. There was a lot of quick passes, short routes and running plays. It might not be reasonable to expect the offensive line to drastically improve.
Outside of Thomas — who has only allowed nine pressures and one sack in 244 pass blocking snaps — the offensive line has struggled. Right guard Will Hernandez had the worst performance of any offensive lineman in the NFL last week.
No, really, PFF had him ranked 191st out of 191 offensive linemen graded in Week 11. He allowed six pressures, one sack, one hit and was penalized three times — including one false start in the red zone. Right tackle Nate Solder has allowed 29 pressures, the 8th-most among all tackles, as well as four sacks and six QB hits. The Giants’ Twitter account recently lauded center Billy Price for, per PFF, only allowing one sack this season.
What the tweet left out: Price is also graded, by PFF, as the 31st center (of 38) to play at least 200 snaps.
Whether it’s Judge, Kitchens or someone else calling plays — it won’t matter how much different the offense looks if the offensive line keeps playing this poorly.
“We’ve got to change it up more now,” Judge said after the Buccaneers game. “We have to make sure that we call the game and give our players a better chance at success.”
Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.
Zack Rosenblatt may be reached at zrosenblatt@njadvancemedia.com.