Good morning, New York Giants fans! You thought you were completely rid of former Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride, but you aren't. Gilbride is now an NFL analyst for NBC Sports. The reviled one spoke to the New York Post recently and offered some revealing insight into the struggles to rebuild the Giants offense in an image vastly different than the one Gilbride created.
"It just looks like they threw the whole offense at him, there’s a whole-part methodology of teaching, and that’s the one that looks like they have embraced," Gilbride said. "So as a result, when you throw all that at ‘em, you can just tell that their heads are swimming, there’s nothing natural, they look very disjointed at this point. … There’s just a collective malaise right now because of confusion, but I think once that evaporates, they’ll play a lot better.
"I mean, they’ve added a lot of bodies that should help ‘em. Most notably, jumping out at me is we had no running game at all last year, they got two legitimate runners now [Rashad Jennings and rookie Andre Williams]. We didn’t have backs that could run and block last year. All those things should help, but they’re gonna have to throw the ball, and I just think that’ll get better and better as the cobwebs clear."
Gilbride had several other interesting things to say about Eli Manning, the Giants running backs, the tight end situation and more. I know it's KG, but it's a worthwhile read from the Post's Steve Serby.
JPP: Preseason sacks 'not important'
Jason Pierre-Paul has been largely invisible in three preseason games. "Health-wise I'm fine," says Pierre-Paul, adding that preseason sacks are "not important."
"It's not important at all. We only get 25 snaps, that's not a realistic number for me to play, play hard in 25. You don't get a feel of what the offensive tackle's doing or the inside rusher. I'm not worried about sacks in the preseason. Wait a couple weeks and we'll see," Pierre-Paul said on Wednesday.
Victor Cruz: Coughlin's message has been received
Earlier this week head coach Tom Coughlin said he wanted to see a sense of urgency from an offensive group that has a lot of work to get done before the regular season begins. Wide receiver Victor Cruz says the message has gotten through.
"You can see kind of a renewed energy out there on the practice field. Everybody's getting things done on the right pace, everybody has an energy about themselves to know that we've got to change the current mood that's around here offensively. We've got to get things going, we've got to get on the right track. You can see a difference out here on the practice field. Everything was clicking; everybody was on the same page. There were a lot less mental errors out here and you can see a change," Cruz said.
"We got the message. We understood, he has a way of saying it that makes it very loud and very clear so we got the message and we understood that. He didn't even have to say anything for us to know that we had to play better and we had to perform better from an earlier standpoint in the game, when we're in the game. We understand that and hopefully we can change that come Friday."
Quotebook
"I think the Giants are the real New York team."
-- Giants running back Andre Williams
"The last time I saw him, he was getting smoked by Clemson. ... I have a funny feeling he's going to get some Riddells put on him, but we'll see. It will be a competitive thing. I know he will be pumped up. Trust me, our guys will be pumped up, too."
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