FanPost

The Death of the Screen Pass (Open Letter to Kevin Gilbride)

Dear Kevin:

Congrats on the big road win despite your best efforts to thwart it. I have one question for you: why didn't we see single screen pass until the 4th and only then did we see two pathetic attempts at this?

I ask because I'm a lifelong Giants fan, and I have a vivid memory of watching Tiki Barber run this play to perfection. Tiki, you may remember, was a one-man show for the Giants, and the offense's bread-and-butter play was the screen pass. It worked really, really well.

As I'm sure you know, when the D sends a big blitz (as the Cowboys did over and over last night), an appropriately timed screen pass can be an absolute back-breaker for a D. If you can time it right, it's a great, great play. Agreed? With the Giants smaller O-linemen, they have the perfect personnel to execute this play. And last night, with the pressure that the 'Boys were bringing, I cannot for the life of me figure out why this was not once called.

I think you ran two plays that closely resembled a screen: one was a quick dart to Bradshaw (without any attempt to suck the D in - so that can't really be considered a screen) and the other was a nicely executed set-up to Boss in the 4th where Kevin B just couldn't shake the tackler (he had an easy first down if he gets past the first guy). But I just can't figure it out. You have the personnel, right? (eg. Bradshaw in the Tiki role, with his speed and moves in the open field is an absolute terror.)

And one more question, the swing to hedgecock was.....mystifying. Nothing else, other than I really have no clue WTF you were thinking there.

PS: 0-8 in the red zone is simply not going to cut it this year.

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