All Hail Ereck Flowers! OC Mike Sullivan Latest To Praise Left Tackle

Inquiring minds always want to know what anyone connected with the New York Giants thinks of the play of left tackle Ereck Flowers. Especially if you are somehow connected to the offense. So it was on Friday that offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan was drawn into the “how is Flowers doing?” conversation.

As head coach Ben McAdoo had done earlier in the week, Sullivan lauded Flowers’ play in the preseason opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“There was one particular play where we were on the 10-12 yard line going in to score, and there was 1-on-1 pass protection and he had great initial quickness, his hand placement, he reacted to the second reaction of the defender and it was a legitimate good play. It was what we want. It was the model,” Sullivan said. “He has shown better finish, he has shown better sustain and strain of his blocks.”

Here are some other takeaways from Sullivan’s Friday session with the media:

On the progress of the offensive line as a whole ...

“We have seen a lot of progress, especially being in pads, especially having one game to take a look at where you can draw it up on the board, talk about it in meetings, be out in the shorts, but until you see the type of fits and the type of finish. We are not where we want to be, but we are headed in the right direction with regard to those things, and I have seen some flashes of the type of offensive line performances that we are going to want to have and we are pleased with where we are headed right now. We have a lot more work to do, but we are headed in the right direction.”

On the possibility of Davis Webb competing for the No. 2 quarterback job ...

“Well, there is always a chance of anything happening. Anything is possible. Right now, we are taking an approach with Davis where he has had a lot of work in the developmental period where we pull some players aside and do some cross training that goes on with some of the other players and he has certainly done very well in the meeting room. He is understanding what to do and how to do certain things. Right now, we’ve got Josh and Geno that are battling it out for that second position and we will see how that unfolds and cross any bridges when we get to them if something like that were to not resolve itself.”

On what improvement he needs to see from the running backs ...

“If I had to pick one area where we would like to see some improvement, it is when they are able to break the second level and there’s the safety, let’s run him over, let’s make him miss, let’s get that ugly 2 or 3 yards. We will probably hear some yelling and screaming at practice. It’s an inside zone play or it’s a gap scheme that we want to run in the A gap and then particularly some of the younger guys want to bounce that out where there is no color and that is not going to be a good thing for them or for us and so I think that is just a matter of continuing to press the line of scrimmage, have that good vision, hit the hole and take it to the second level and either run over a safety or make them miss. Do something to create and explosive run.”