Let's talk about Kevin Gilbride

No matter who calls the plays, as a fan if that play doesn’t work we are going to question it, if it does work we love it. Just the way it works, Gilbride knows this. That being said i like Gilbride and atleast will give him a chance to show what he is made of now that all the teams diva’s are gone. When it comes down to it i just want to see great defense, a running game that kills the clock and no turnovers. Is that so much to ask for?

70% of people know that.

on “Team Killdrive,” yes, I can back up, look at the situation objectively, and realize that 90% of his time with the Giants, KG has been a good offensive coordinator. The problem is that steady, good offenses are easy to not notice, and occasional mind-boggling idiocy stands out. It’s not fair to judge the guy for what probably amounts to one series per game. And really, if it is one incredibly dumb series per game, I’d have to think you could chalk it up to going for the element of surprise.
That said, here’s what drives me nuts about KG: 8-yard run on 1st down. 2nd and 2. Drop back, mid-to-long pass, incomplete. 3rd and 2. Drop back, mid-to-long pass, 4th and 2. Then, if it’s not a punt, run the draw against a stuffed goalline box. The reason it kills me is because there’s no way this team is not going to pick up 2 yards on 3 runs. or for pete’s sake, try a screen pass or a quick out if you’re determined to throw!
Along the same vein of inconsistency, there’s also 1 or 2 games in the season in which KG seems to forget the strengths and what’s working and stick to some inexplicable game plan for 58 minutes in the face of its obvious failure. To be fair, I don’t know what value the element of surprise is valuable in game planning. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
In all, I can rationally say that KG is a strong OC 90-95% of the time and I don’t say a word. But when I’m in front of the TV and we hit one of these glitches, I flip out and go berserk. It’s just the nature of the megalomaniacal fan who wants to win every game 77-0.

I think KG’s biggest flaw (& we’ve gone over this before) is that he’s simply poor at adjusting, whether that it is during a game or even over the course of a season. During games he’ll stick to a game plan when it is obviously not working (as Simms-McConkey states … see Philly game), but at other times will go away from what IS working and kill the offensive momentum. An obvious example over a season is his inability to adjust the game plan after Plax went down. It seems to me a top flight offensive mind that is able to adjust would have been able to figure that out with the talent the Giants still had an offense.

That being said, I still think he’s a decent OC. He might not adjust well, but give him time to plan and make him stick to his game (which I think TC has demanded at times … see ’07 playoff run) and you simply can not argue with the results (as Ed lays out).

I live in the Tampa area and listened to the local sports guys crucify the Bucs when they went to the Meadowlands and threw 55 times in typical late season ML weather.

Then a couple of weeks later the Gmen do the same thing in Buffalo. Uhh? Maybe on paper that is the way the Billls should have been attacked, but like Clauswitz said, no plan survives contact with the enemy. And Eli, though I love the guy, hasn’t yet mastered throwing in crappy weather, cold yes, sleet, swirling winds, not so much.

I’m usually critical of KG, although I don’t get worked up over the pre-season because I know it’s really meaningless, but you’re right we need to keep in mind he led us to a Superbowl victory and followed it up with a 12-4 season.

I guess when it’s all said and done, we should be thankful that we have Gilbride and face the fact that we’ll never have The Greatest Show on Turf.

this is NY…and i believe NY has some of the most knowledgeable sport fans….and the most opinionated.

some fans are going to give KG a hard time. Just like some people wanted TC’s head after the ’06 season….just like Eli has to deal with the naysayers even till this day. just like AP after last year…..

it comes with the territory, yes KG, makes questionable calls but we’ve seen worse…much worse.

Heck Just the other day i was trying to explain to some folks over at ESPN that Corey Webster was a top 10 corner last year (closer to top 5). After posting about 3-4 articles full of stats showing that Corey was in fact top 10 people still fail to acknowledge it. I wasn’t’ even worth getting upset over…some people just CHOSE not to get it.

take about a guy without a clue…

I wanted his head after the Philly loss, but an offseason of reflection has mostly changed my opinion on him. That stat they showed during the game Monday was pretty telling – we’re talking about a guy who has had the #1 pass offense 4 times for 2 different teams, and has had the #1 rush offense twice for 2 other different teams. His teams are always, no matter what offense he runs, among the top scoring teams in the league. That’s pretty compelling evidence that at the very least, he’s not awful.

My one big criticism of Gilbride is his ability to adjust. The comparison I’m about to make might make sense to Mets fans (especially Amazin Avenue readers), but Gilbride reminds me a little bit of Jeff Francouer. As any baseball fan knows, Francouer isn’t exactly Barry Bonds when it comes to taking pitches – if the ball is going to land somewhere in between the dugouts, he’s gonna swing at it. Occasionally he’ll take a pitch, but it’s seems obvious that he had determined before the pitch was thrown that he wasn’t going to swing – he has no pitch recognition, so his takes almost seem random. I think that’s sorta like Gilbride with adjustments – sometimes in the face of overwhelming evidence he won’t make any adjustments, and other times he’ll make them randomly even though the offense is going strong. I think he’s a fantastic game planner, but I don’t think he has a great feel for the flow of the game, and so he just says “with x amount of time left in today’s game, I’m gonna switch the game plan” – and if the Giants offense is rolling he’ll change it up, and if they’re struggling he’s still gonna wait for x to switch. That, to me, is the one great failing of Kevin Gilbride, and it was on full display in both Eagles games last year.

simply cuz he coaches in NY. People want Joe Girardi’s head right now and he has the team with the best record in baseball.

People have nothing better to do than complain, so its just par for the course in NY.

I am far from a Gilbride fan, but its really hard to argue with what he’s done as the OC. He doesn’t adjust, I don’t think he calls enough screens (maybe more will be called now with Bradshaw playing a bigger role…)

My frustration with Gilbride lies in this: How many times have we seen the Giants march down the field on their first possesion, either resulting in a TD or FG, only to see this sort of offense disappear from the rest of the game? Eli is perfection on these drives, the running game is unstoppable.

Maybe its the defense that adjusts (not unheard of ), maybe its failed execution (also not unheard of…), but it seems that Gilbride gets away from the original gameplan too early and they go to ball-control…(prevent offense?).

There’s too much talent on this team, last year and now, for this team to stop being aggressive for so long.

Wow. Judging the impact of the play-calling as related to trying to “win” a preseason game? Ridiculous…

Besides, doesn’t anyone think we should hold back some of our “big plays” until the season starts? Also, when the 3rd stringers (and beyond) get in there I think the plays might get a little simpler, no?

i’m a huge supporter of the screen pass….

if you’ll look at Ward’s stats last year he was catching the ball a lot more when we were winning games. (11-1). the last 3rd of the season he was averaging 0-1 reception a game…surprisingly we lost 3 of 4 (or something like that).

HOWEVER…in the philly game i’m pretty sure Ward had 5 catches…and we still lost.

but i think this Giants team would work well with the Run n’ Shoot. The Run n’ Shoot is a good offense when you don’t have a single superstar receiver and theat’s exactly what the Giants are. They have a good O-Line and a prototype running back for the system in Jacobs. I’m just dreaming, but i wouldn’t mind seeing some concepts of that offense sprinkled into ours (mostly the screen passes)

One of the biggest things that killed at the end of last year was how much we were getting blitzed, yet there was an absence of screen passes and quick slants. They showed an aptitude for it in this first preseason game. And most impressively, in my mind, was how well the pulling lineman picked up their blocks. The screen pass to Hixon was like a vicious adaptation of Swan Lake.

And something I couldn’t understand after our first loss to Philly last year was Coughlin’s statement on how he should have let Eli control the offense more. Yet the next week against Dallas, the 2 min offense was again absent from the scheme.

Those r my biggest knocks on Gilbride, but I have a funny feeling all will be right in the Land of Giants come season’s end. I’m chomping at the bit in anticipation of what I think will be not only defensive domination, but an offensive onslaught in Eli’s campaign for NFL MVP.