You're listening to the Bleav in Giants podcast with two-time Super Bowl winner Carl Banks and the voice of the Giants, Bob Papa.
And we welcome you to another edition of Bleav in Giants presented by FanDuel. Bob Papa, two-time Super Bowl champion Carl Banks. As the Giants play their first preseason game, one of losing in Minnesota 13 to 10. And Carl, we're going to go over kind of what we saw yesterday at MetLife Stadium doing the telecast. And I think my takeaway from all this is some as expected, right?
New team, new coaching staff, new systems, implementation of new things. There were some positive things, there were some things that clearly have to improve. And, you know, watching the game and then looking at the game again last night, you did see the emphasis is on wanting to run the ball. And it's going to be interesting to see how this team develops because I think some guys stepped forward and I think there were guys that took steps back. Where do you want to start in all of this?
Well, let's talk about the offense, right? I think we were all anxious to see Cam Scarlett back in there, Tracy back in there, and Jaxson Dart, right? Offensive line-wise, they played their starting offensive line with the exception of one player. I thought they did okay running the football. They had some success. But I don't think it was what they needed in terms of average per carry. I'm not sure where they landed, but it wasn't very high. Maybe right around 4 yards.
Well, no, not really. Scarbrough was 4 for 19, 4.8 a pop, his long with seven. He looked good.
Gray kind of, you know, listen, 2.5, Miller 2.8, Tracy two carries for 5 yards, 2.5, Singletary three carries for a yard. So, no, the number was not what they were looking for.
No, they're probably right around 3 yards a carry.
Less. When you throw in James' two runs, it goes down to 2.6.
Yeah, so that's got to get better. But did you see them move people? Now, again, Bob, and I think Phil made this point also, they weren't scripting a lot of plays. They weren't game planning for what Minnesota was doing. Clearly, Minnesota had things that they wanted to achieve with their defense. That's why they had their first team in for a very long time. And that's football, right? Coaches want to get their players ready the way they want to get their players ready. Are you playing a game with one hand tied behind your back if you don't game plan for the other guy? Well, that's preseason. You want to see what you want to see from your guys, and then you know as coaches, okay, we can game plan this. I just wanted to see how we would do in these situations.
Pass protected well. Run blocked okay, better than okay. He had some good ones and he had some that weren't so good. But, you know, the one that's the most glaring that just can never happen is you get your quarterback killed with a clean shot. You got to make sure that the communication is right between the tackle, the back, and the quarterback so that they know who has who and the guy doesn't get a running start and just cream your quarterback.
Yeah, and just looking at Tracy's body language, and as I was driving to the airport, I was listening to Coach Harbaugh's press conference about that. And I think everybody felt bad, including Tracy. I think that's one of those things where he's supposed to scan, and it looked like he got a half step wide and then couldn't recover based on the speed of the blitzer, and he got whipped. Like that cannot happen, right? I mean, that's the kind of stuff that you would expect a player now in his third year who's gotten plenty of snaps to not make that mistake.
And that was unfortunate. And then Jaxson Dart goes down. I know after the game he talked about the fact that he was annoyed that every time he takes a hit, they're going to send him to the blue tent. Well, you know, the league's got to do their job, right? As far as trying to protect players. And based on the stuff that went on last year, it's like anything else. I mean, they might be a little bit overly cautious with him as opposed to some other quarterbacks because of all the things that went on last year. So, they were just doing their job. He got the wind knocked out of him, but it's one of those learning experiences. Let's put it that way.
Yeah, there is a justifiable blue tent bias. And the thing that, if I had to coach Jaxson Dart on, like let's just say I was a Hollywood stuntman coach: every hit doesn't have to look like you're dead. That's part of why they do that. Like every time he takes a hit, he throws his arms out like he's about to make a snow angel. He just lays there. I was like, sometimes you got to move around a little bit to convince them that you're not knocked out. But he just lays there sometimes, and I'm like, you got to kind of convince them that it ain't what they suspected it is.
There's another quarterback I used to talk about. One quarterback got sacked the ugliest of any quarterback I've known: it was Ron Jaworski. I mean, you get him, he's just flailing, and it's just like he took the ugliest sacks no matter how hard they were or how not vicious they were. He would just... Jackson's got to learn when he gets hit to kind of sell that he's not hurt type thing, you know? But he'll learn. But the league, like you said, as much as stuff went on last year, there's a justifiable bias. But he can change that by not laying there like he's been shot every time he gets hit, even though he took a big shot on that one.
Some of the other things, I think we saw how they're going to use Isaiah Likely. He had a couple of nice catches.
Obviously, Malachi Fields. Remember when we had his coach on from Notre Dame, because remember he only played one year at Notre Dame, and how the coach was raving about him and said no matter what the numbers showed and all the off-season testing leading up to the draft that the NFL does on the players, he plays faster, he plays stronger than maybe some of these numbers show. And even on that slant, the one where I think Odell went right to the post and he was wide open—I think it was a blown coverage—that wasn't the best throw, but he made the contested catch, held onto the football, took a hit. Obviously, the touchdown catch, really nice instincts. I heard Jaxson Dart talking about it after the game. He's like, 'Well, he's running a shallow cross and then the scramble rules kicked in and he knew exactly where to go and I knew where my scramble rule guys would be. He made a couple maneuvers in getting to that position.' And then you're working on Ivan Pace, who's 5'10", and he's 6'4". Jackson put it to the right spot, high enough so that his guy could get it, and it was pretty impressive.
