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The New York Giants woes on offense continued in their Week 9 matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers. This time, the Giants were unable to get the win as the Steelers scored 14 points in the fourth quarter to walk away with the 24-20 win.
Eli Manning was unable to get anything going, completing only 10 passes on 24 attempts for a paltry 125 yards and an interception. The fourth quarter, normally the Giants’ time to shine, was their downfall this time as the offense failed to get a single first down in the final quarter.
Once again, the Giants’ biggest bugaboo was their inability to score touchdowns, especially inside their opponents red zone.
Right now, Lawrence Tynes is on pace to break the single-season scoring record. He has already surpassed his field goal total from last season, 19. He already has 94 points after scoring only 100 the past two seasons.
Something is obviously the matter with the Giants’ offense. There is no reason they should gain only 182 yards against any defense. Nothing the Giants did seemed to work. The running game was a bust. Eli Manning has now thrown for only 1 touchdown in his last 12 quarters, his last coming on the game-winning bomb to Victor Cruz to beat the Washington Redskins.
Eli failed to complete 50 percent of his passes since the Christmas Eve win over the New York Jets in Week 16 of 2011 as he completed only 41.7 percent of his passes.
The Giants have had problems all year with finishing their drives, settling for field goals instead of touchdowns. Offensive Coordinator Kevin Gilbride has his work cut out for him with a sputtering running game that looks dominant one week and completely stagnant the next. The play-calling inside the red zone is also in need of tweaking. Once the Giants get inside the 20-yard line they seem to take the ball out of Eli Manning’s hands and place the offense on the back of Ahmad Bradshaw or Andre Brown.
It just doesn’t make sense. The Giants will need to get this offense into gear if they want to stay atop the NFC East in the coming weeks. Next week they will face the Cincinnati Bengals before heading into their bye. There is no time like the present to get things on track before facing the Green Bay Packers, Washington Redskins, New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, and the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Giants are now 6-3 and their schedule doesn’t get any easier. If they don’t fix their red zone woes it might be a very long second-half.
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