EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Jason Garrett’s debut season with the Giants was an absolute disaster. By almost every statistical measure, his offense was a failure. If it weren’t for the Jets, they would’ve had the worst offense in the league.
But somewhere along that miserable ride, the Giants decided that it wasn’t his fault. That’s why they brought their offensive coordinator back for a second season.
And that’s why they spent the offseason making sure his offense was loaded up.
The Giants spent $72 million to buy him the No. 1 receiver he so desperately needed in Kenny Golladay, and added another dangerous weapon in Kadarius Toney in the first round of the draft. They also got him speedy receiver John Ross, sure-handed tight end Kyle Rudolph, and a better backup running back in Devontae Booker.
Add in the expected, healthy return of Saquon Barkley, who was lost in Week 2 last year, and they’ve put Garrett in a position where there shouldn’t – and can’t – be any excuses. It can’t matter that quarterback Daniel Jones and his offensive line are young.
Garrett has to justify the faith Joe Judge showed in him by giving him another season. He absolutely has to find a way to make this work.
“We have to become more explosive on offense, make big plays and score more points,” Garrett said, stating the obvious. “And that's a process we are going through.”
It has to be more than a process, though. The Giants need results right away. They showed last season they have a defense good enough to make them playoff contenders. It was the offense, though, that weighed on them like an anchor and held the team back from getting closer to the top.
The good news, though, is things couldn’t possibly get worse than they were last season, when Garrett’s pitiful offense averaged 16.6 points and 299.6 yards per game. It took the Giants until Week 5 to score more than 20 points in a game, which they did in fewer than half their games overall. Four times – including twice in December – they scored fewer than 10.
To be fair, Garrett had nothing to work with in Year 1. He built an offense around Barkley, then lost him in Week 2. His young offensive line took half a season to come together, and even then it was erratic at its best.
His best receiver, Sterling Shepard, missed four games. Promising receiver Darius Slayton regressed. Veteran receiver Golden Tate looked old. And his lone Pro Bowl player – tight end Evan Engram – was remarkably unreliable in key spots.
And it certainly didn’t help that Jones spent much of the second half of the season battling ankle and hamstring injuries that forced the Giants to start Colt McCoy twice down the stretch.
Jones will obviously be Garrett’s biggest reclamation project this season, and probably the key to whether this whole experiment succeeds or fails. Though no one wants to admit it – and Garrett certainly didn’t -- it’s a make-or-break season for the third-year quarterback. In fact, his play this season could make-or-break a lot of people in the Giants organization – Garrett, too.
But that’s a big reason why Garrett is here – to make Jones better, to turn him into the quarterback GM Dave Gettleman has been so sure he can be. It can’t matter anymore if the offensive line is a work in progress. Most of the pieces are in place. This has to be the year.
And it’s the same for the offense overall. There were plenty of reasonable excuses last year, even if the Giants prefer not to use them. But they spent the offseason making sure they were all gone. They are theoretically as loaded on offense as they’ve probably been in a decade. It’s up to Garrett to turn that theory into points and yards.
“I think any time you add pieces, whether it's in the draft or free agency, you're obviously doing that to help improve your team, create competition, get guys out there that can help you and make plays and become more explosive,” Garrett said. “We are excited about the additions we have.”
That’s great, but this time he needs to make sure that excitement shows on the field. If he can do that, this could be the revival season the Giants are expecting. If he can’t, he probably won’t get another chance.
