Failure to communicate plague Giants' defense
Photo credit: AP | Philadelphia Eagles' Leonard Weaver (43) breaks free of New York Giants defenders New York Giants' C.C. Brown (41) and Antonio Pierce (58) to run for a touchdown during the first quarter. (November 1, 2009)
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Nov. 1: Eagles 40, Giants 17
When talking about the offensive adjustments that butted up against the play clock last week against the Cardinals, Tom Coughlin said that at some point "the chess game is over and you live with what's there."
The offense didn't have any trouble with the play clock against the Eagles - their troubles came after the snaps this time - but the defense did show signs that it may be doing too much thinking and adjusting in the last moments before a play and it could be leading to those miscommunications that the players have been lamenting.
"It is a matter of the timing of getting it communicated and being lined up confidently and being ready to go," Coughlin said on Monday. "You have different stages. If you are not ready to go, even if you get the call, it doesn't make any difference, [especially] the closer you are to the ball."
There were several times against the Eagles when Antonio Pierce, who makes the adjustments on the defense, was still signaling changes while the Eagles were snapping the football. That happened against the Saints a few weeks ago too. When the Giants get caught in mid-adjustment, when half the team is doing one thing and half another, it often spells disaster.
"We need to rectify that and get communication as a team on the right page," Justin Tuck said. "You can tell [miscommunication] is there because when a guy scores a touchdown our guys are looking at each other saying 'I thought this, I thought that.' That's not anyone's fault, we just have to do a better job of understanding our roles in different defenses and knowing when a call is coming and being prepared for it."
After the Saints game Tuck said he thought the Giants needed to stop worrying about what the other team is doing and just go out and do what they do. They need to dictate. But they have become a very reactionary bunch. Cerebral. Perhaps too smart for their own good. Do things need to be simplified on defense? Tuck refused to answer that one.
"It doesn't matter what I think on things like that," he said. "Right now I don't know."
But he does know that there is a danger of being too complex.
"I think A.P. is one of the smartest linebackers in the league," Tuck said. "He does a great job of getting us in defenses. But because we do so many checks, even if we have one guy offline there's a potential for it to be a big play. We just have to do a better job as 11 of honing in to him and paying attention."
Mathias Kiwanuka also deflected blame away from Pierce, saying on Sunday that he "did a great job of getting the plays in and telling us where we need to be. I think if there are communication problems it is not Pierce but there are breakdowns somewhere else."
The most glaring example of missed communication came on the pivotal play of the game when Donovan McNabb hit DeSean Jackson for a 54-yard touchdown after the Giants had closed the gap to 16-7 in the second quarter. On that play everyone in the secondary seemed to be in a cover-2 with two safeties back, but C.C. Brown played as if he were a single high safety down the middle of the field. So when Jackson went past cornerback Corey Webster who had stopped in his zone to hand the receiver off, there was no one there. The result was a wide-open Jackson and a slammed-closed window of opportunity for the Giants to get back in the game.
"There is a lot going on and there can be some lapses of the communication between players," Webster said. "There's a lot of talking going on out there. It's all 11 being on the same page. If one person is off, it's hard to get a defense. Communication is real big."
Coughlin said he and the coaches take responsibility for that specific communication problem, but that it is not an excuse for the resulting touchdown or any of the other big plays that took place on Sunday.
"It still should not have put us out of position with a two-receiver route as badly as we were," Coughlin said, suggesting that communication gaps can often be corrected by fundamental plays. "There is a little bit of that, but that's not to say the ballcarrier shouldn't have been tackled."
