Killdrive vs. Eli

[Sephiroth]

So I'm starting to wonder really who the problem is on offense when it comes to our crappy passing game.

 

On one hand, you have Killdrive. He of the 40-plus-passes into 50 MPH winds and the seven-step drops with three linemen on IR. It's baffling how little he adjusts in-game and how slow he is to go to a short passing game.

 

But on the other hand, you have Eli. Eli has never been good throwing short to intermediate routes. I remember absolutely losing my shit during his third season after the tenth time he missed Tiki Barber in the flat... an eight yard pass. We still can't run a screen, and his passes in the flat (Da'Rel Scott) always seem to be a bit off. Additionally, his intermediate throws always seem to be too high (see: Plaxico Burress' back problems), or a bit behind the receiver.

 

Maybe Killdrive goes for the bomb all the time because it's the only pass Eli can throw with some consistency. On the other hand, Accorsi said when he drafted Eli that "this is a kid you have to just throw out there and let him play," and Killdrive's system obviously is not that.

 

I think Killdrive is the odd man out this season, but I'm starting to have serious concerns about Eli as well.

 

Discuss.

[Sephiroth]

Also, Buddy Ryan's commentary is spot on.

 

"He came at me... hit him...."

[Dragon]

There's plenty of blame for both but I put more on Gilbride. His offense relies way too much on the QB and WRs to "think the same thing". I'm pretty sure no one on this team is telepathic so expecting that style to work consistently is insane. I watched part of the '93 Oilers story last night (was actually listening and doing something else) and one of the things I recall them talking about was how shitty Gilbride's play calling became in "Goal to Go" situations. Sound Familiar? I honestly can't stand that guy.

 

Now that being said, Eli has been in the league for 10 years and there's no excuse for the mistakes he's been prone to make this year.

 

BUT at the absolute center of the problems for this team is none other than Jerry Reese. Reasons have been stated over and over again so I won't continue beating that dead horse, but until Reese is given the ultimatum of fix the situation NOW or gtfo... we can expect more of the same.

[Treehugger]

Both. Eli's struggling and Gilbride isn't adjusting to the players' capabilities.

 

I got really mad on the near-pick by Eli last week. He threw the pass directly to Cruz, who had stopped dead, then seemed to be blaming Cruz for not cutting in. If Cruz was on the wrong route, DON'T FUCKING THROW IT. And if he had cut inside, it would have been towards the defender and an even worse option.

[CrazedDogs]

LOL, did you watch Houston '93?

 

I understand where Buddy was coming from. But I thought it was great that Ryan crapped all over Gilbride ('he'll be selling insurance in a year'), but then Kevin Gilbride has since then had twice as much success in the NFL as Buddy ever did.

[JMFP]

Also, Buddy Ryan's commentary is spot on.

 

"He came at me... hit him...."

 

It's on Gilbride, mainly....but Eli is having a bad season and he's making some unforced errors. I think it's a situation where Eli feels like he has to do everything, and do it perfectly. There is zero comfort level back there, and it's a combination of a bad line, lack of offensive adjustments, lack of tempo, and simply bad play on Eli's part.

 

I think with a better system, and a better line, Eli would be much better. It's a fact that Eli has won 2 Super Bowls, and in both cases, it was with better offensive lines.

 

As far as Buddy Ryan is concerned, he's always been a world class douchebag......his players had to physically restrain Mike Ditka from beating the shit out of him in the locker room during halftime of their Dolphins loss.

 

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-top-ten/09000d5d807433f4/Top-Ten-Feuds-Buddy-Ryan-vs-Mike-Ditka

 

No way in hell would Coughlin have put up with Ryan's bullshit either....which is one reason why Ryan never won dick as a head coach himself.

[BleedinBlue]

Gilbride has run his course and it's time for him to watch football from a couch instead of the sidelines.

 

Eli seems to have lost the fire in his belly. He seems to be simply going through the motions and acts like his head just isn't in the game. Makes me wonder if he's having marital problems or something else is weighing heavy on his mind, because he just plain doesn't seem to have his head in the game.

 

Also, Eli used to work many extra hours with his receivers getting them familiar with their routes and his throwing style. They'd watch hours of film together. But this year, Nicks didn't bother showing up for practice and Cruz spent most of the off-season sitting them out while negotiating his contract. I don't know how much time Eli spent with Randle.

 

I think Gilly should go, and we should let Nicks walk (might be the biggest mistake of our lives), and hopefully next year, Eli will work extraordinarily hard with Randle and Cruz (and Myers and Murphy), and get their shit together before the start of the season.

[JMFP]

One other comment: it's not like Eli was drafted just because he was Peyton's brother. Sure, bloodlines factored into it, but for a good reason.....Archie, Peyton, and Eli are natural QBs.

 

Eli took a mediocre Ole Miss team and won a Sugar Bowl.....the last time that happened, Archie was their QB. And since Eli was drafted, I don't think Ole Miss has come near the sort of success they had with Eli....I could be wrong there, but honestly I don't ever hear them mentioned as a major BCS contender.

 

I think Eli would greatly benefit with a better line, in a run-first offense, featuring play-action, screens, and the occasional deep throw. Eli has the arm to keep defenses honest with his long ball and play-action.....he would greatly improve a running game because defenses would be forced to respect the pass.

 

I look at those 2 Super Bowl wins, and honestly, I can't help but conclude we won because of Eli, not Gilbride.

[JMFP]

Gilbride has run his course and it's time for him to watch football from a couch instead of the sidelines.

 

Eli seems to have lost the fire in his belly. He seems to be simply going through the motions and acts like his head just isn't in the game. Makes me wonder if he's having marital problems or something else is weighing heavy on his mind, because he just plain doesn't seem to have his head in the game.

 

Also, Eli used to work many extra hours with his receivers getting them familiar with their routes and his throwing style. They'd watch hours of film together. But this year, Nicks didn't bother showing up for practice and Cruz spent most of the off-season sitting them out while negotiating his contract. I don't know how much time Eli spent with Randle.

 

I think Gilly should go, and we should let Nicks walk (might be the biggest mistake of our lives), and hopefully next year, Eli will work extraordinarily hard with Randle and Cruz (and Myers and Murphy), and get their shit together before the start of the season.

 

 

For what it's worth, I realize I'm usually very critical of Gilbride, and he probably doesn't deserve half the shit I throw his way.

 

But yeah, it's time to change gears. The team has changed, Eli is getting older, and they need to switch focus.

 

I keep coming back to Elway......it wasn't until they brought in Shanahan and Kubiak, and revamped the running game under Terrell Davis, that Elways won his 2 Super Bowls.

 

To me, it always comes down to offensive line play, and an effective running game, plus a defense that will force the occasional turnover and make the opponent gut it out on every drive. If you have those elements, and a QB who can make clutch throws, you can win championships, as Eli has demonstrated twice.

[JMFP]

Good story on the evolution of Gilbride's attack.....this was back when the Giants were about to win the Super Bowl.

 

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7481235/chris-brown-victor-cruz-new-york-giants

 

 

 

 

Victor Cruz, the New York Giants, and Shades of the Run-and-Shoot Offense Good strategies may fade away, but they never die

By Chris Brown on

January 19, 2012

• PRINT

Nnew York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz has been nothing short of a phenomenon this year. In 2010, his first season, the undrafted free agent had the kind of woulda-coulda-shoulda start to an NFL career that more often leads to telling your grandkids that you almost made it rather than to a fruitful career. Cruz followed a breakout preseason game against the New York Jets — 145 receiving yards and three touchdowns — with a season-ending injury. Your grandfather once played for the Giants! I scored three touchdowns in one game! After that, little was expected of the undersized and unheralded receiver who claims to be 6-foot-1 in cleats. But Cruz returned and delivered one of the most memorable seasons for a receiver in memory. He racked up 1,536 yards on 82 catches for a staggering 18.7 yards per catch and produced some of the season's most memorable plays, like a 99-yard touchdown against the Jets and a 74-yarder against the Cowboys in Week 17 that helped propel the Giants into the playoffs. And, of course, he capped off each score with his patented salsa dance, which is the only touchdown move I've seen be analyzed by a dance instructor. It all amounts to a pretty good bedtime story.

Cruz's success is even more fascinating for how he accomplished it. He put up huge numbers by playing what has historically been an unheralded spot — the slot receiver. Cruz lines up inside rather than on the outside of a formation. This season, Cruz's production is not quite as unusual, since several of the league's top receivers played some form of inside receiver spot, whether it was Wes Welker or Rob Gronkowski or Jimmy Graham. Even so, the classic image of a great wide receiver isn't a diminutive speedster lined up in the slot; it's Calvin Johnson or Jerry Rice — bigger, more physical, lined up out wide and ready to streak down the sideline or run a deep route. Yet Cruz's success is in no way unprecedented. Indeed, Cruz is the latest in a long line of slot receivers who have operated within the run-and-shoot offense, which forms the backbone of the Giants' passing attack.

The run-and-shoot was supposed to be dead, at least in the NFL. The offense (at least one form of it) was conceived by Glenn "Tiger" Ellison back in the 1950s, while Darrel "Mouse" Davis developed its modern form throughout a four-decade coaching career that has touched nearly every level of football imaginable. The offense had its moment of glory in the NFL in the early 1990s. Back then, the Detroit Lions, Atlanta Falcons, and Houston Oilers (and the Seattle Seahawks, extremely briefly) ran the 'shoot, which featured four wide receivers and one running back on every snap. The offense used no fullbacks and no tight ends.¹ These teams had mixed success. The Lions won 12 games in 1991; the Falcons won 10 and made the playoffs twice during their 'shoot days. But the NFL team that most exemplified the run-and-shoot, in both its glory and its shame, was the Houston Oilers. The Oilers made the playoffs in seven straight years with the run-and-shoot (and fielded a top-10 offense in each season), and quarterback Warren Moon blitzkrieged defenses with his four-receiver aerial assault. But the Oilers never reached the Super Bowl, and they managed to be on the wrong end of the greatest playoff comeback in NFL history. Against the Buffalo Bills in the 1993 wild-card round, Moon threw four first-half touchdowns, but he wasn't able to burn the clock and the defense collapsed in the second half of a 41-38 loss. The Oilers became part of an even more ignominious moment the following year, when Buddy Ryan, Houston's defensive coordinator, punched the team's offensive coordinator in the face.² Ryan was no fan of the run-and-shoot, which he called the "chuck-and-duck."

Eventually, a consensus formed around the league that a team couldn't win championships with the run-and-shoot, and teams abandoned the offense. Without a tight end or fullback, they said, the 'shoot was "finesse only" and lacked the physical element necessary to win.³ But not everyone agreed. When Hall of Fame safety Rod Woodson heard Houston had given up on the offense, he said: "Tell the owner thank you, and tell the front office thank you. The run-and-shoot got the Oilers where they are, and I think defenses all over the league are going to be very relieved when they hear about it."

But the run-and-shoot went out of fashion for a reason. In a modern NFL full of tight ends and multiple formations, an offense that limits itself to one personnel grouping — whether it's four receivers and one running back or two running backs and a tight end — can't be successful. The run-and-shoot forced the Oilers, Lions, and Falcons to protect their quarterback with six players; without multiple looks, today's defenses would develop schemes to destroy those protections. Indeed, what killed the run-and-shoot wasn't the playoff failures or the perceived lack of physicality, but rather the zone blitz, which was designed to defuse the kind of six-man protection schemes that run-and-shoot teams used on every down. For a while, at least, everyone around football seemed to agree that the run-and-shoot had died and would never come back.

But the run-and-shoot never left. No, I'm not talking about the increased use of multiple receiver sets or the emphasis on passing in this year's NFL. Both trends exist, but they aren't necessarily tied to the 'shoot. Instead, I'm referring to the famous route packages that Mouse Davis invented and every 'shoot team since has used: "streak," "switch," "go," Choice, and so on. What made the 'shoot special — and truly explosive — was that it was backyard football writ to the NFL. Instead of the traditional pro football approach, where a team might have hundreds of pass plays, each with multiple variations, that the quarterbacks and receivers were all required to practice and memorize, the run-and-shoot was simple.

Tiger Ellison's 1950s book on the run-and-shoot described the coach's experience of going to a playground to watch how kids actually play football outside of organized teams. He didn't see anyone getting in a power formation and running the ball off tackle. Instead, he saw the kid with the best arm run around and search for someone to throw the ball to. The receivers had no predetermined routes; they just looked for open areas and ran to get away from their defenders. Ellison had a revelation: High-level football shouldn't have to fight this impulse. It should be based on what comes naturally to every kid who picks up a ball. And the run-and-shoot was born.

Prior to Ellison's insight, the great leaps in football strategy had been rooted in increased organization, increased precision, and increased discipline. Coaches like the great Paul Brown of the Cleveland Browns drew on the lessons of World War II — and installed martial-style techniques like huddles, playbooks, game plans, and rigorous drilling. Football, with its brief outbreaks of battle and long stretches of quiet planning, is more steeped in militaristic virtues than any other sport.

Ellison saw another strand running through the game, one closer to rugby, football's Continental forebear, as well as sports like basketball and soccer where fluid, on-the-fly athletic intelligence matters as much as planning. While teams like the Browns achieved victory with the inevitability of a Roman legion marching through some soon-to-be-conquered territory, Ellison's "Now Attack" was ad hoc guerrilla warfare.

Mouse Davis organized Ellison's insights into the offense the Oilers ran 40 years later, and he did so by combining Brown's military approach with Ellison's free-flowing game. Each pass play was designed with the rigor of Brown's battle plans, but instead of a single assignment, each wide receiver was given a decision tree. If the play was "go," the slot receiver might run deep; he might stop and turn back to the quarterback after about eight yards; he might run 10 or 12 yards and then break across the field; or he might go deep, but instead of going straight he'd run diagonally upfield. Ultimately, the decision didn't really belong to the receiver. Just like backyard football, it depended on the defense. Just as Ellison taught, while a receiver might have a variety of different assignments on a given play, he is ultimately given one overarching, all-encompassing command: Get open.

It's true that the "pure" run-and-shoot is never coming back to the NFL. But this aspect of the offense — the read-and-react style that rang up huge numbers in the early 1990s — has never left. It was merely co-opted into other attacks. For an offense that is supposedly defunct, it may be surprising to know that almost every team in the NFL uses some piece of the old Oilers offense, whether it is a type of read route or an entire concept. In this way, Victor Cruz and the Giants' success is no surprise. Cruz is a current-day Ernest Givins — the gutsy, undersized slot receiver who has a knack for reading defenses (and uses that skill to shatter receiving records). And let's not forget the name of the Oilers' offensive coordinator at whom Buddy Ryan took a swing: It was Kevin Gilbride, offensive coordinator for the 2011-12 New York Giants.

After leaving the Oilers, Gilbride joined the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars under their new head coach, Tom Coughlin. Given the sorry history of expansion franchises, they searched for an offense that would give the Jaguars an edge. Coughlin had no interest in running the "chuck-and-duck," but over the next few seasons Gilbride and Coughlin blended their styles into an attack that helped Mark Brunell lead the league in passing in the franchise's second season and brought Jacksonville to the AFC championship game twice. Gilbride left after the 1996 season and bounced around as a coordinator before reuniting with Coughlin in New York.

The Giants' offense is different from what Coughlin and Gilbride ran in Jacksonville, but it retains many of the same elements: a mixture of traditional sets and spread looks, along with several old run-and-shoot favorites. As long as Coughlin coaches the Giants, they will be a run-first team, but it's also clear that this season's Eli Manning-led passing attack has been the one constant for an inconsistent 9-7 team that now hopes to complete another run from the wild card to the Super Bowl.

Cruz is the player who makes the New York offense truly dynamic. From his slot receiver position, it's his job to, well, get open. Earlier this season, when Gilbride described Cruz's job and development on the field, it sounded like a flashback to the run-and-shoot Oilers:

"When you are in that inside position and that is where we needed somebody to be, there is a lot going on. It is so much easier outside because you have a corner, and if the corner goes deep or rolls up and the safety is over the top, that is it. But inside you have somebody over your head, you have a linebacker, a safety and the other safety across, you have so many more variables in the equation of [Cruz] making the final decision. ... [Cruz] has really reduced the number of errors he makes and he is making a lot of good decisions, and you saw the great plays. Even on the ones where he reads it right and his decision was right. He is doing the right things and I am really proud of him and what has taken place because I don't know how fair it was to expect so much. We always knew we had a guy that we knew could do it but you never know if they are going to do it."

A perfect example of Cruz excelling in a run-and-shoot play this season came in Week 3 against the Eagles. On third-and-2, Gilbride called an old staple — the "switch" concept. At the snap, the inside receiver, Cruz, and the outside receiver, Hakeem Nicks, were to "switch" their releases by crisscrossing past each other. But that's just where the fun begins. Each receiver still had multiple decisions to make. Nicks' job was to run an inside "seam read" route. Depending on how the defense played him, Nicks might go vertical or he might break across the field. Cruz's first responsibility was to get deep, but if the defense played him over the top to take away the deep ball, his job was to stop and look for a pass in the open space. On the play, the Eagles blitzed and Cruz found an open spot in the defense and waited. Manning found him, and 74 yards and several broken tackles later, the Giants had a touchdown.

The image below is an actual page from Coughlin and Gilbride's playbook with the Jaguars, showing how they run the old Switch in modern football with a tight end.

Courtesy of Chris Brown

Examples of these run-and-shoot concepts abound in the Giants' game plans. Cruz reads the defense on almost every pass play, and the Giants' favorite passing formation is a variant on the run-and-shoot's Choice concept, with Hakeem Nicks as a single backside receiver with multiple route options while three receivers to the other side run a different formation. This forces defenses to pick their poison: Guard Nicks one-on-one and Manning will throw to him all day, just as Warren Moon once did with guys like Haywood Jeffires. If the defense sends additional players to Nicks' side, space opens up for the run game inside or for the other receivers, just as it did for Cruz on his 99-yard touchdown against the Jets. For a dead offense, that's pretty good.

In football, the narrative is never as simple as it seems. Do the Giants run the run-and-shoot? No, of course not. But they use pieces of it, just as every other NFL team does. Drew Brees' best pass play is four verticals, where the receivers can adjust on the fly — a 'shoot staple; the Patriots use a plethora of option routes, where receivers are given the freedom to get open and break in any direction they want; and even Peyton Manning's great Colts offenses frequently asked receivers to read routes on the fly. Maybe these players and coaches use run-and-shoot concepts without knowing where they came from, but they use them.

There are few absolute truths in football. One is that championships are won with talent and hard work more than anything else. Another is that good ideas don't die. They merely get assimilated. This year's Giants are the proof.

[Nas]

Both... We also need a QB coach to reinforce throwing techniques for Eli. I don't think Eli is untouchable

[JMFP]

Both... We also need a QB coach to reinforce throwing techniques for Eli. I don't think Eli is untouchable

 

I think it starts with the offensive line, but we really need a new coordinator to breathe some life into this offense. This offense should be imposing it's will.

[UK-Giantsfan]

Eli has been an inaccurate erratic interception machine all year long ( from that very first pass in the opening Dallas game infact ) . I blame him for a lot of our offensive struggles , mainly because he is paid to be an elite top 5 NFL QB .......and he just bloody well isn't.

 

Having said that .......we have had no O line and no running game ( until Brown came back ) and our so called #1 WR hasn't even caught a TD pass this season .......so Eli was pretty much fucked this season before he had started.

 

I blame Gilbride for becoming old , stale and unimaginative .....but to be honest I think a lot of this lands at the door of JR too.

 

What a fucking shit season ..............im now supporting Carolina for the rest of the season because one of my daughters has become a fan !!!

[CrazedDogs]

I think when we evaluate Eli, we should remember how much its worth have a QB who can take a hit and will be there every snap of every game.

 

What would you prefer, 12 games of Aaron Rodgers, or 16 games of Eli?

 

I think I'd take Eli.

[Nas]

I think when we evaluate Eli, we should remember how much its worth have a QB who can take a hit and will be there every snap of every game.

 

What would you prefer, 12 games of Aaron Rodgers, or 16 games of Eli?

 

I think I'd take Eli.

Factor in the maddening interceptions, measure the spike in our blood pressure and I think id take Rogers.

[CrazedDogs]

Factor in the maddening interceptions, measure the spike in our blood pressure and I think id take Rogers.

 

Yeah, I'm probably in the minority on that one.

 

But I still don't see the Giants dropping Eli anytime soon.

 

Which means that if this is an either/or proposition, I keep Eli, dump Gilbride.

[Treehugger]

I think when we evaluate Eli, we should remember how much its worth have a QB who can take a hit and will be there every snap of every game.

 

What would you prefer, 12 games of Aaron Rodgers, or 16 games of Eli?

 

I think I'd take Eli.

 

It's not like Rogers is fragile, or that Eli has an adamantium skeleton; he's very lucky not to have been hurt...yet.

[Sephiroth]

 

It's not like Rogers is fragile, or that Eli has an adamantium skeleton; he's very lucky not to have been hurt...yet.

 

Actually, he's had a good run of late, but has been pretty fragile. He ended up on IR after breaking his foot against the Pats early in his career, has had three concussions, and now this. He's not in Michael Vick territory or anything, but he's no Brett Favre or Peyton Manning either.

[fringe]

I think when we evaluate Eli, we should remember how much its worth have a QB who can take a hit and will be there every snap of every game.

 

What would you prefer, 12 games of Aaron Rodgers, or 16 games of Eli?

 

I think I'd take Eli.

I'd take Rodgers with our defense.

[Nas]

I'd take Rodgers with our defense.

Exactly... Rogers has been arguably one if the best. GB's problem is their defense.

[TaylorBanksCarsonVanPelt]

So I'm starting to wonder really who the problem is on offense when it comes to our crappy passing game.

 

On one hand, you have Killdrive. He of the 40-plus-passes into 50 MPH winds and the seven-step drops with three linemen on IR. It's baffling how little he adjusts in-game and how slow he is to go to a short passing game.

 

But on the other hand, you have Eli. Eli has never been good throwing short to intermediate routes. I remember absolutely losing my shit during his third season after the tenth time he missed Tiki Barber in the flat... an eight yard pass. We still can't run a screen, and his passes in the flat (Da'Rel Scott) always seem to be a bit off. Additionally, his intermediate throws always seem to be too high (see: Plaxico Burress' back problems), or a bit behind the receiver.

 

Maybe Killdrive goes for the bomb all the time because it's the only pass Eli can throw with some consistency. On the other hand, Accorsi said when he drafted Eli that "this is a kid you have to just throw out there and let him play," and Killdrive's system obviously is not that.

 

I think Killdrive is the odd man out this season, but I'm starting to have serious concerns about Eli as well.

 

Discuss.

Eli always has and always will throw two to three hospital balls per game. Why do you think his TE's always suffer concussions all over the place...

[TaylorBanksCarsonVanPelt]

One other comment: it's not like Eli was drafted just because he was Peyton's brother. Sure, bloodlines factored into it, but for a good reason.....Archie, Peyton, and Eli are natural QBs.

 

Eli took a mediocre Ole Miss team and won a Sugar Bowl.....the last time that happened, Archie was their QB. And since Eli was drafted, I don't think Ole Miss has come near the sort of success they had with Eli....I could be wrong there, but honestly I don't ever hear them mentioned as a major BCS contender.

 

I think Eli would greatly benefit with a better line, in a run-first offense, featuring play-action, screens, and the occasional deep throw. Eli has the arm to keep defenses honest with his long ball and play-action.....he would greatly improve a running game because defenses would be forced to respect the pass.

 

I look at those 2 Super Bowl wins, and honestly, I can't help but conclude we won because of Eli, not Gilbride.

Many NFL coaches and coordinators predicted that the Giants would win despite Saint Gilbride ...not because of him.

[Herc]

eli will get hurt eventually. luck is a big factor in his streak

[CrazedDogs]

eli will get hurt eventually. luck is a big factor in his streak

 

I think it is more about him curling into a fetal position immediately after he releases the ball.

[BronxRik]

Also, Buddy Ryan's commentary is spot on.

 

"He came at me... hit him...."

 

I'm willing to bet when Gilly does leave, he'll be packing his things in the same rusty white Mazda pickup truck.