Giants see reason to believe offense is ready to break through

Darius Slayton has been around long enough to know what it looks like and feels like to be weak.

“Exactly,” he said Monday. “Yeah, that’s definitely the case. So I know the difference.

Slayton, Daniel Jones and Dexter Lawrence are the longest-tenured Giants players, all coming in the 2019 NFL Draft.

Slayton has seen some good (the 2022 playoff team) and a lot more bad during his time with the Giants. He has more often than not been the pass-catching leader for offenses ranked near the bottom of the league.

He and his guys once again bring up the rear, averaging just 15 points per game, 30th in the league, tied with the winless Jaguars.

This isn’t news to Slayton, but he sees signs that the offense has more hope this season than in previous years, when the numbers were bleak and the mood even bleaker.

“I don’t know if you remember, back in the mid-2000s, Alabama and LSU played the national championship game and it was like the worst offensive game ever because neither team didn’t break 50,” Slayton said of the BCS title. January 2012 game, won by Alabama 21-0. “It’s not us. If that were the case, it would say, “We are in hell.” We can not do anything with it. We can’t move the ball.

“We found ourselves in scoring position several times against Dallas. We scored, I think, on every drive in the first half, and then in the second half we found ourselves in scoring position on other occasions. If it hadn’t been for a penalty here or there, or better execution on our part here or there, we would have been in even better position to score. This tells you that we are moving into scoring position and all you have to do is finish from there. The encouraging thing is that we are getting there. If you can’t do this, you don’t have a chance. I would say going forward we’re going to try to hang on to our hat: “All right, we did a good job getting there and now we have to finish when we get there.” » »

Yes, the Giants stay on the field on offense. Their time of possession of 31:07 per game is 10th best in the league. There have been 10 three-and-outs (on 41 possessions) in the first four games, which isn’t great but not as bad as in these parts.

The Giants also move the ball. They have a total of 12 trips to the red zone, tied for 15th in the championship.

They’re certainly not great, but they’re not terrible either when they get there, with six touchdowns. That 50 percent red zone success rate ranks him 17th in the league.

“If you watch our games, we moved the ball every game,” right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor said. “Obviously in the Vikings game we could have moved it a little better, but we still moved the ball in that game. If you look at the Vikings now, many teams struggle against this defense. I feel like we played a really good game against them, but we just didn’t get clean enough and didn’t execute enough. But then you look at the other three games, we moved the ball up and down the field in those three teams and those three teams have really good defenses. So, I think we’re very close and I think we’ll see it this week.

And now something completely different. There are several statistical indicators that indicate the Giants are not extremely close to breaking through.

Their yards per play of 4.7 ranks 27th. Their rushing yards per attempt of 3.4 is last at 32nd. Their passing yards per attempt of 5.8 is tied for 25th. Their six turnovers are tied with four other teams for sixth in the league.

Last weekend gave the Giants a chance to relax after their frustrating 20-15 loss to the Cowboys, a respite before Sunday’s game against the Seahawks in Seattle.

At 1-3, the Giants are alone in last place in the NFC East, mainly because their offense continues to let them down.

“When you watch the NFL in particular, you start to realize that sometimes you think everything is going well for one team or another,” Slayton said. “For example, the bills before (Sunday evening) were rolling. I think they put up close to 40 or they put up at least 30 and more in every game. And then last night, they played the Ravens, and it looked like they were in hell. The NFL is like that.

“You realize that sometimes you have a perception because of the media and major events and things like, ‘There are bombs over Baghdad over there.’ It kind of shows that this league is really competitive. You’re not just going to go out there and slow everyone down.

At this point, the Giants would be content to find enough points to beat anyone, period.