Talent Is Meaningless If You Don’t Use It

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

You can bring the horses to a coach, but you can’t make him ride them. It’s entirely possible that the Dallas Cowboys are as good as the Giants and would have beaten them under any circumstances (as they did yesterday in a 16-13 overtime win in Texas Stadium),but the manner in which the Giants lost the game was wholly unnecessary.


Last things first: The ease with which gray-bearded veteran quarterback Drew Bledsoe moved Dallas into position for the winning field goal – three completions in three attempts for 38 yards – ought to make it clear that the 2005 Giants aren’t going to win anything this season on defense. The Giants defense isn’t bad, but it’s closer to bad than it is to great. It’s not an attacking kind of defense, one that scores points and sets up cheap scores. It’s not a big-play defense. Basically, it’s the kind of defense that can be counted on to protect substantial leads.


The Giants offense, on the other hand, was intended not to “protect” the Giants defense but to attack opposing defenses. The Giants have a great young passer – perhaps the best in the game – a game-breaking wideout, a killer tight end, a versatile and dangerous running back, and a pretty good offensive line. So far, this unit has produced nearly 30 points a game. But it ought to be producing a great many more, and it should have put the Dallas game out of reach before the Cowboys had a chance to win in overtime. Instead, the Giants kept noodling around in the first half, acting as if a 6-0 lead (built on two cheap field goals off Cowboy fumbles) would win the game.


Eli Manning threw only 12 passes in the first half, completing just five of them for 38 yards, but only two of those throws came on first down, when they might have caught the Cowboys’ defense off-balance and done the most damage. Midway through the second quarter, after the Giants’ only first-down completion of more than 10 yards, color man Troy Aikman commented, “The Giants, with a lot more confidence in Eli Manning, are allowing him to go for it instead of just settling for three.” But as it turned out, coach Tom Coughlin wasn’t going to set Eli loose, and the Giants did settle for three.


On the next Dallas possession, Bledsoe, picking the Giants apart by throwing under the coverage, led a 16-play 83-yard drive, culminating in a two-yard pass to Jason Witten that gave the Cowboys their first lead. In the fourth quarter, the Cowboys mounted two drives that chewed up 103 yards and more than 13 minutes, producing two field goals and putting them ahead 13-6. Only then did Coughlin let Manning “go for it.” Manning, apparently having cleared it with his coach that it was okay to throw the ball to Plaxico Burress and Jeremy Shockey, hit them both with big passes, the second going to Shockey for 24 yards and a touchdown, tying the game with about 30 seconds to play.


Manning never saw the ball again. At Boston College, Coughlin had the reputation of a progressive offensive coach. But like so many college hot shots who come to the pros, he went conservative faster than a factory worker who wins the lottery. This Giants team has, arguably, more offensive talent than any in team in franchise history, yet Coughlin is reluctant to use it. Shockey is averaging 17.3 yards a catch, more than most premier NFL wideouts, yet he has caught only 22 balls through the first five games of the season. Tiki Barber is averaging more than five yards every time he touches the ball, either by handoff or pass, but he’s had fewer than 19 touches per game (just 15 against Dallas).


Bill Parcells, of course, is one of the best coaches in the NFL, but it wasn’t his strategy that stifled the Giants offense yesterday so much as Coughlin’s lack of imagination.(The Giants actually averaged more yards per play than the Cowboys, 5.1 to 4.9.)


Manning’s only flaw as a passer so far appears to be a low completion percentage (just over 52% through five games). This would improve dramatically if he were allowed to throw on first down when opposing defenses don’t have five defensive backs in the game. With a season-defining game against the Denver Broncos coming up next Sunday, we’ll see how well Coughlin understands the talent at his disposal.


***


The Jets let the Buffalo Bills march 60 yards in 10 plays after the opening kickoff yesterday, and for the rest of the game, they looked liked a fighter who had been caught by a right hand in the first round and could never quite clear his head. In the second quarter, the Bills put together an almost identical drive, 67 years in 10 plays, to take a 14-0 lead, and for all intents and purposes the game was over.


Buffalo offensive coordinator Tom Clements had a game plan perfectly designed to exploit the Jets’ defensive weaknesses: Have Kelly Holcomb throw short passes under the coverage – i.e., under Ty Law – then run draws and counters to running back Willis McGahee, usually through the hole created by blocking John Abraham to the outside. It may not sound like much of a plan, but it was enough to earn the Bills an early lead that they never relinquished. After that, it was a case of using man-to-man coverage on the Jets wideouts and mercilessly rushing Vinny Testaverde, who was dumped five times on 31 attempts and hit or hurried on 10 others. In other words, Vinny got wrecked on almost half the Jets’ pass plays.


The Jets’ only real offense came from Curtis Martin, who rushed for a season-high 148 yards on 18 carries for his breakout performance of the season. I fear it was a false dawn, though. The Bills often seemed to be ignoring Martin in an effort to get to Testaverde, assuming that if he broke past the line they could drag him down from behind before much damage was done. Except for one 19-yard run, they were right.


There is plenty of blame to go around for this debacle, but most of it should fall on the defense, which had its first really bad game of the year, allowing the Bills to convert on half of their third down plays and sacking Holcomb just once – and that on a play in which he simply chose to eat the ball rather than put it up for grabs, which Testaverde was constantly forced to do.


The Jets’ next game is against the improved Atlanta Falcons on Monday night. After that, they have a bye, then three straight games with San Diego, Carolina, and Denver. Right now, a realist would give the Jets’ season and Herman Edwards’s job little chance of making it through the stretch.



Mr. Barra is the author of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.


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