New York Giants Notebook: Fixing the Scoring Drought, Joe Judge's Birthday Plans, and More

Rounding up the latest notes, quotes and anecdotes from Thursday's Zoom calls.

In the NFL, if you build a solid offense, the points will come.

If only this were true for the Giants, who are currently ranked 31st in the league in average points per game scored (17.1) and are a team that has failed to score at least 20 points in nine games this season.

All season long, the coaches and the players keep talking about executing, putting guys into the best position to have success. So why has it been so difficult to achieve?

"I think the biggest area that we tried to emphasize with your players is playing winning football," said offensive coordinator Jason Garrett.

"You can’t do the things that cause losing. A lot of that has to do with the ball and taking care of the football, and not doing the things that put your team in a bad situation, a situation that you can’t overcome and you lose the game."

The Giants offense are undoubtedly guilty of committing things that put them in a bad position, and the list of issues they've had is quite extensive.

For one, they are awful on third down conversions, ranked 28th league-wide (37.7%). The lack of sustained drives means fewer yards, lower time of possession minutes, and fewer points.

They've also had 29 drive-killing penalties and have averaged 1.2 fumbles per game (17th in the NFL). The dropped passes don't exactly help either, as Daniel Jones is tied for eighth with Derek Carr of the Raiders for most dropped passes (28).

"I think that the past couple games and some of the outings that we’ve had aren’t up to our standard," tight end Evan Engram said. "We have to be better at execution. We have to be better at making plays, making one-on-one plays.

"There are a lot of things that go into us as players that we haven’t been doing lately to make the offense roll."

Obviously, but again, the question is how do they fix it ahead of perhaps their biggest game of the season this weekend when they go against a Cowboys team that has been a scoring machine these last three weeks?

According to Engram, there's no magic formula other than just to go out there and get it done.

"We’ve shown that we can get rolling," he said. "We’ve shown what we can do in the run game. We’ve shown what we can do in the pass game. We just have to get back to the basics and execute on those small things that we’ve done in the past."

"One of the ways that we believe as a coaching staff to do that is prevent yourself from losing first," Garrett said. "That’s where it starts, taking care of the football. Having said that, I think we’ve made strides in that area as the season has gone on, but we have to play better."

Much better.

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Passive Peppers?

Jabrill Peppers, in his role as a punt returner, is currently averaging 11.4 yards per return, which is ranked eighth among punt returners with a minimum of 10 returns.

Yet some believe that Peppers, who of late hasn't been as solid in the return game as he was earlier, could be a little more aggressive with some of his decisions in which he's let balls bounce behind him only to lose yardage if the opponent downs the ball.

Special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey said that's because of a simple directive he's given his returners.

"I tell our guys not to chase plays," he said. "We’re going to let the plays come to us. When we get those opportunities, we just have to take advantage.

"As a punt returner, kick returner, we’re never going to press. When you press, you make mistakes and mistakes will get you beat. We just have to make sure we’re smart in how we handle the situations as they come along. Once they come along, we take advantage of it."

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Garrett's COVID-19 Ordeal

Eventually offensive coordinator Jason Garrett might be able to figure out how to unplug the Giants scoring cork that's developed, but the one thing that has Garrett completely perplexed is how he contracted the COVID-19 virus.

"I have no idea, to be honest with you," he said. "Like most of us, we’re pretty much reclusive all during the season, so I haven’t really seen anybody. I don’t know how it happened. The people that are close to me have not tested positive. For whatever reason, it popped positive so I had to deal with that the last week and a half or so. But I’m feeling fine, ready to go."

While in isolation, Garrett remained involved in meetings and putting the game plans together. The only thing he couldn't do was call plays two weeks ago when the Giants faced the Cleveland Browns, as he was still in the league's protocol. But otherwise, Garrett said he adjusted to the challenges of having to do most of his job off-site.

"We’ve all learned how to live and communicate through Zoom, so I had to do that," he said. "I was in the hotel room and was involved in the staff meetings and the meetings with the players and the game plan meetings all over Zoom. I was not able to go to practice and be a part of it that way. You certainly feel detached, but it’s just the world we’re living in right now." 

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That Wild and Crazy Guy

New Year’s Eve also happened to be head coach Joe Judge's 39th birthday. So what kind of swinging plans did the coach have for both another birthday and the end of a tumultuous year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic?

“It’s going to be a wild night, man,” Judge said with a chuckle. “Break down some tape, get tomorrow’s practice finalized, try to get a little bit of sleep. We’re rolling through it. The good news is it’s going to be 2021 for an entire year, so if I don’t get to tonight, I’ll get to catch up later on.”