Giants Tendencies Week Five

Sorry this is a bit late fellas, but I'm back at school now so I don't have the amount of free time I did last week. I didn't have time this week to watch the Eagles-Bills game, so this will only have tendencies from New York. Last week against the Seahawks the Giants had the following break down:

               Run                 Pass

00              0                      0

01              0                      1

10              0                      5

11              4                     31

12              3                      1

13              0                      0

20              0                      0

21              15                    9

22              3                      1

32              0                      0

The Giants passed it a hell of a lot more often than they ran it against the Seahawks (23 total runs (12 first half, 13 second half) compared to 48 total passes (21 first half, 27 second half). This is partly because the G-Men fell behind and were forced to pass to conserve time, but also because of our lack of running success. It's no wonder the offence struggled to get anything going when the Seahawks defence could count the Giants going with a pass play. Its not exactly a secret that the Giants were unable to run the ball, and that was more the reason for the vastly higher percentage of plays being passes (slightly more than 66% were passes) than poor balance by Gilbride. These stats, however, coupled with the loss to the Seahawks where our offence really never got in a rhythm, show how crucial it is for an offence to achieve a balance in their playcalling, otherwise they become too predictable and score very few points. 

Last week's game brings the Giants week 4 and week 5 (sorry but I don't have the time to go back and do this for all the Giants games) total for pass/run playcalling to:

               Run                 Pass

00              1                      0

01              2                      1

10              3                      6

11              25                    33

12              4                      2

13              0                      1

20              2                      0

21              25                   19

22              5                      4

32              1                      1

This actually is not too bad of a balance for Gilbride's playcalling. There have been 68 run plays and 67 pass plays, and there is no formation that has vastly more passes than runs or vice versa. This is the kind of play calling that a team should aim for, however, the Giants need to establish the running game as a threat in order for this balance to really pay off as at the moment, teams really dont have to worry about Bradshaw or Jacobs.

The plays that the Seahawks ran against us were:

                Run                Pass

00              0                      1

01              0                      1

02              0                      1

10              1                      10

11              19                    36

12              0                      1

13              0                      0

20              0                      0

21              1                      1

22              3                      1

32              0                      0

This was mainly a result of the no-huddle offence the Seahawks employ, they often retain the personnel on the field so the formations remain similar. It does, however, give some reasoning for the Giants struggling to contain their running game. They ran 24 runs compared to 51 passes, with an offence that was actually able to move the ball with either ( as opposed to the Giants), which explains why Fewell would have focused his playcalling more towards stopping the pass than stopping the run. The few runs that Lynch had usually only came up against four rushing linemen, and as a result he was rarely stopped at the line. They also ran the ball more than they did last week against the Falcons as well, which Fewell likely would not have anticipated or game-planned against.