New York Giants News

Giants news, 12/15: Special teams “one-offs” are hurting Giants

Coach Joe Judge talks special teams mistakes, more news in today’s Giants headlines

By Ed Valentine@Valentine_Ed Dec 15, 2020, 7:00am EST

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Special teams mistakes piling up

For most of the season, special teams — the kick and punt coverage units in particular — have been a strength for the Giants. Over the past three weeks, though, the Giants have been plagued by special teams woes. A kickoff return for a touchdown, several long punt returns, a fumbled kickoff, a blocked punt that led to a safety and false-start penalties among them.

Head coach Joe Judge is a former special teams coach. Thomas McGaughey is an excellent special teams coordinator. What the heck is going on?

Judge said Monday there has not been a common denominator to the miscues.

“We have to do a better job covering in space. That comes down to playing with good field leverage, good space tackling. That comes into specialists doing their job, the coverage units doing their jobs and make sure we tie it all together,” he said. “This has been a strength for us for most of the season. There’s been a one-off here or there. Those one-offs on special teams, everything is a one-play situation, one-play scenario. There is not second down on special teams. You go out there and you have one chance to operate and execute.”

Nick Gates: Blame the offensive line

There is no doubt that Daniel Jones’ lack of mobility contributed mightily to the eight sacks the Giants surrendered on Sunday vs. the Arizona Cardinals. Center Nick Gates, though, isn’t buying the “Jones couldn’t move” excuse.

“We just have to do our job and try to keep him clean no matter what, whether we’re doing good with him or not,” Gates said on Monday. “It’s on us just to try to keep everybody off of him, and we just didn’t do our job yesterday as you saw. We gave up eight sacks. We just have to do better in protection.”