Giants Special Teams Finish in Bottom Third of League

No surprise, right?

Long-time sportswriter Rick Gosselin is out with his annual rankings of the 32 NFL special teams units and to special teams, and the New York Giants finished tied for 23rd with the Carolina Panthers overall.

The Giants fired special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey on Monday after six seasons, two on head coach Brian Daboll’s staff.

While the Giants didn’t qualify for dead last in any of the 12+ categories, they did finish tied for first in one category: special teams takeaways. New York tied with the Ravens with three takeaways, triple the league average of one.

Let’s look at how the Giants did in some categories using the league average.

Kickoff Returns

• League average: 22.6 yards
• Giants’ average: 19.2 yards

We’re still trying to figure out why the Giants removed Parris Cambell, their most productive kickoff returner, from that duty despite Campbell finishing with a 23.9 average on eight returns.

Punt Returns

• League average: 9.7 yards
• Giants’ average: 8.9 yards

The Giants steadied their punt return situation with their mid-year pickup of Gunner Olszewski following the failed experiment of running rookie Eric Gray out there despite his minimum experience returning punts in college.

Kickoff Coverage

• League average: 23.2 yards
• Giants’ average: 23.6 yards

The Giants weren’t too far off on the league average, which is good news. The bad news is that they gave up a few long ones that, had they played better, might have helped their final rankings.

Punt Coverage

• League average: 9.6 yards
• Giants’ average: 6.9 yards

The combination of Jamie Gillan’s improved punting and the solid gunner play by Darnay Holmes and Nick McCloud enabled the Giants to finish seventh in punt coverage.

Punting

• League average: 47.3 yards
• Giants’ average: 46.0 yards

Jamie Gillan was much better than a year ago, perhaps due to his ability to incorporate more rugby-style kicks into his repertoire. That said, there were still a few clunkers in his 95 punts ( a career-high, by the way) this season.

Net Punting

• League average: 40.5 yards
• Giants’ average: 42.2 yards

Again, Gillan was better this year and benefitted from more consistent gunner play on his coverage team. Clean up the penalties and the missed tackles (29, fourth most in the league per PFF data) moving forward, and this stat will also improve next year.

Opponent Net Punting

• League average: 41.7 yards
• Giants’ average: 43.0 yards

Not bad, but clean up some of the penalties and this could have been a lot better.

Field Goal Percentage

• League average: 85.8 percent
• Giants’ average: 70.97 percent

Four kickers—need we say any more?

Opponent Field Goal Percentage

• League average: 85.7 percent
• Giants’ average: 78.1 percent

Opponents only attempted 32 field goals against the Giants, one more than the Giants attempted in the season. Most of those other teams didn't go through four different place-kickers either.

Extra Point Percentage

• League average: 95.6 percent
• Giants’ average: 96.0 percent

About even considering the Giants averaged 1.7 touchdowns per game (29th in the league).

Penalties

• League average: 11.9 penalties for 97.9 yards
• Giants’ average: 12 for 97 yards

Putting that penalty yardage into perspective, that’s nearly a football field. And that’s not good.

The Giants fired special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey on Monday after six seasons, two on head coach Brian Daboll’s staff. McGaughey’s units were a little too inconsistent for Daboll’s tastes, and the search is on for a new coordinator. 

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