Giants Official Podcast Network | New York GiantsOn this episode of the Giants Huddle podcast, John Schmeelk chats with Shaun O’Hara to discuss how this Giants team can bounce back against the Saints, the quarterback room, and the offensive line.
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Welcome to another episode of the Giants Little Podcast, brought to you by Citizens, the official bank of the New York Football Giants. I'm John Schmelk. I'm with a very well dressed man next to me. Here tie nice sweater?
Is that cashmere?
Well, yes it is. I don't know, right, cotton, you know you look good. I don't know nylon.
Maybe, I don't think it's dial I don't think sweater.
I don't know's it's TJ max whatever. So whatever that is all right?
How dooing man? Everything good?
Yeah, everything's great. You know. It is the season, you know, I feel like the holidays, like you just like getting dressed up, like you kind of just start getting in the mood and it makes the eggnogg takes takes better when you, you know, when you're you're dressed up.
A little bit.
So when you pick that the sweater, was it?
I'm gonna take the sweater that Shan O'Hara eye blue because it really does, like it really does match the color of your eyes.
No, I just actually kind of went. I wanted something to kind of compliment the tie, okay, and and something that you know, would kind of take the attention away from you know, other areas. But no, it's more just like it's kind of cold out, like layer, I was walking around the city a little bit today, so definitely wanted that extra warmth. But anytime you can, anytime you can throw blue on an outfit, I think it works.
I'm with you on that, all right.
So the Giants could use a little bit of warmth there, Sean, because they are they are some nice cold at two and ten here trying to figure out.
What to do.
So let's start with some of the news from today. Drew Lock named the starter Tommy DeVito, still making his way back from injury. Brian Dables spoke to the media, and the way he phrased it is that it sounds like Tommy DeVito would have been ready to go this week, but after seeing what he saw from Drew Lock last week, he wants to see what he would look like with a full week of practice under his belt.
Your thoughts, Yeah.
I mean I definitely think that that was less than ideal circumstances last week. The way that Drew Lock kind of got thrown into that position. You know, obviously in a short week like that, even if Tommy Devido had been able to play, there's not a lot of practices when you're playing on that Thanksgiving Day game, so it's really walk throughs. But for Drew Locke to have not gotten a single live rep with the ones leading up to that start, I think that that definitely was a little tough. But I think, you know, look, the reality is just like at this point, try everything, like everything's on the table, you know, when you're two and ten, like you have to be willing to try everything, give everybody a shot. And you know what that's not to say that, you know, you don't rotate guys in and maybe Tommy DeVito, you know, it gets a couple series here too. Maybe you let them, you know, both kind of share the game. I don't know. I think Quarnerbacks kind of would like to start and finish the game if they can, just so they can kind of progress. But look, Drew Lock, I mean, the one blemish that I think everybody takes away from that game is that pick six, Like it was just a heck of a play, and I feel like we've said that so many times this year. Other teams are making a heck of a play against us every.
Week, a giant player that was made a heck.
Yeah, can we get one. We don't have a single interception. We have one, right, we have one interception on the entire season, week one on defense. So we'll take anything, like we're not greeting greedy. It doesn't need to be a pick six. We'll just take the pick. But that that kind of stuff seems to be happening week in and week out. You know, Look, I think Drew there are obviously things that he would like to have back. I thought the protection broke down big time, and that's hard. I mean, we've been talking about that for way too long here. That Look, it's you're retired pretty much. And Tommy DeVito he got sacked, you know, thirty seven times last year too, So it's kind of we're in that same position here, all right. Like the offense line struggling, Evan Neil was struggling. We have no Andrew Thomas. It's hard for the quarterbacks to kind of build that rhythm. So I think this is this is a tough, tough time of year. I've been through one of these seasons. John. My rookie year in Cleveland, we started out two and one. I remember Chris Palmer came into the meeting room and say, hey, guys, we're tied for first place in the division with Pittsburgh at two and one, and I'm like, hey, this is great, all right, my first year in the league, Like we're in first place in the division. We went three and thirteen that year, so that's week three. We're going in the week four, Tim Couch and then he got hurt, and then we went through all kinds of different quarterbacks Spurgeon, Win, Kevin Thompson, Doug Peterson. Doug Peterson we picked up I think we might have traded for him or picked up so he ended up starting some games. Todd Denmer blue his achilles out in the preseason, so we already kind of cycled through him. But yeah, that was that was rough. That was a long stretch and what you know, as my rookie year, so I didn't really have anything to compare it to. But these games are tough, and like what you really find out is like, Okay, who loves this game? Like who who really loves football? Not just you know, on game day, But like, who's willing to come in here and still continue to put into work. You know, you keep your same routine, You're still working out whether you're ten and two or two and ten. You have to to create that energy, and you know, sometimes it's false enthusiasm, but you've got to do it. And I think that's where this team is right now. And it's look, it's not about we're gonna save the season, turn around the season. No, that ship has sailed. This is about respect for yourself, for your team, for your coaches, for your ownership, for your fans. That's really all it is. And it's like, look, I got how many more games we have that five games? I got five more chances to kick the crap out of somebody. Like that's what this game is about. Like, all right, we're gonna show up, We're going toe to toe. You got five more opportunities, get your mind right, and let's go to battle. Let's see what we got.
A couple of specifics having to get to you, but you brow up the leadership part of this for us, So I'll go there. The Giants right now, of one healthy captain left from the start of the year, show and Bobby ocarrigated in practice it with a back injury, Dable kind of turned him week to week with the chance to play this week.
We'll see what that means.
But Dexter Lawrence out, Carrika out, Daniel Jones obviously not with the team anymore. You know, the guys that got nominated captains at the start of the year, Andrew Thomas that they're all out. Casey Croder is the last one standing. So when you're in this situation, you're two and ten, you're down four of your captains in terms of guys that are able to play and suit up, assuming okayc he doesn't play this weekend, we'll see how does a team do what you're talking about when a lot of the guys that was considered the core part of the leadership of this team might not even be suiting up on Sunday.
Yeah, that's tough. I mean, that's less than ideal circumstances. And I think you know, in any case, you know, just like if a player is no longer able to play on the field, somebody's got to replace him physically, somebody else has got to step up. This is an opportunity now for a younger kid. You know, maybe there's a guy who's second or third year in the league and he would never speak up in a moment because he has a veteran guy. There's a guy twice my my seniority ahead of me, and he's the one that's gonna speak. So this is opportunity. That's what the NFL is, all right, son, Your captains aren't there.
That sucks.
Who's gonna step up now? Who is going to be that guy that's gonna take ownership and say, hey, look, I'll pick up the slack and I'll be the guy to step in because you know, ultimately, when you go on the field, like you're in the huddle, it's like nobody on that side of the field cares about our problems and our drama and what we have going on. When I'm in the huddle and I'm looking at ten other guys like I gotta know, I'm counting on you guys. And you know, even if some of you guys may be new, maybe I just met you, look look at me like we got to go like this. It's go time, you know, and people get hurt if you go out there not ready and not messing around. But the leadership thing definitely is tough. I think that's one of the things as a head coach you gotta find out, all right, maybe I need to start giving some of my guys different duties. Maybe I need to start letting different guys be vocal and letting them have a say in things. You know, I think when you're in a position right now as a head coach, like the season is sideways two and ten, nobody predicted that, nobody wants that, But this might be a good time to go to your players and say, what do how do you guys want to finish this? Like, what do we want to do? What can I do as a coach? What can we do to get the best out of you guys and put you guys in the best position possible? And what can we do for your bodies? Like do we need to kind of scale back? I mean they go out there and make up a blood bath during the week in practice, it's probably not gonna win you over and nobody's gonna enjoy that. So you try to find a way to look, let's make something out of these next five games, and let's do it together.
Hoddle up, get in here. If you're lined up here.
You gotta go over the middle with at the score great.
How do we make that happen?
I don't know, but Citizens does.
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Johnson, a podcast brought to you by Citizens Official Bank of the Giants, from game day celebrations to your everyday financial needs. Big Blue fans can get the most out of every moment with Citizens. Learn more at Citizens bank dot com slash Giants. All Right, you mentioned the protection. We know it was rough at the tackle positions last week.
We don't know if Evanil was going to.
Play this week, could be josh A Zudu. We'll see Hubbard at left tackle. You could touch with them if you want, Sham, I want to focus on the interior, specifically the center position with John Michael Schmidtz and he sets some good moments this year where he's got to the second level. He's uses mobility and stuff like that, but he's had some struggles when he's gone up against some of the bigger, more powerful guys, even a guy like Mazzie Smith who struggled that you gave him a lot of trouble. Again, you go back to the Vita Bay game with Tampa Bay had a lot of issues in that game getting pushed back and it wasn't even him. Greg Gaines got him once and in that game too. So again you can touch on the other stuff, but specifically on Schmidt's what does he need to do? You are a smaller center, right, you weren't like it just three hundred and fifteen.
I was undersized. Yes, my entire career undersized.
So how do you deal with that when you're dealing with some of these bigger guys and they're trying to get in How can he know fix some of those things that maybe haven't gone right.
For Yeah, it all comes down to your hands. Like I knew I'll be undersized. I gotta have quicker hands, strong hands, like I mean, that's basically what you're working the entire offseason. Yeah, you're training your body, your legs and everything, but as an alignment, this is your gold right here, Because if you can't block people with your hands, if you can't shoot them and get them in their chest and get ahold of that jersey, this is not holding. If I got my hands in there and I'm squeezing your jersey like this, or your shoulder pads. That's not holding, that's cold.
Blocking, and that's how you control them.
That's how you got to control so especially at center, I used to just work all the time and in the off season you're trying to increase your strength on your grip and your hands, and as a center, sometimes it had to be one hand. I'm moving that left hand up as I'm snapping the ball. So that's kind of an art form you kind of I didn't start out doing that. I would have my arm on the elbow, and then I kind of realized, like, all right, I can get an advantage, especially against a bigger guy. I got to get on quick. And what I would do is I would boom. I would already have my hand on him and I'm still handing the ball to Eli, like I start that movement going. Because the key is like, look, I was two hundred ninety five pounds, this guy's three sixty. If I snap him on back up, he's going to roll me over. So I got to get on him now before he gets the momentum going, and I got to try to stop him right at the line of scrimmage. So that's the number one I think for JMS. You know, he has struggled a lot with the change of direction, the stunts in both the run game and in the past game. We saw it in the Dallas game there was a a guy on the right side of him and he cross faced him and he just never recovered, never got to punch on him. And I think there's a couple of things that he can do in that situation. Number One, the anticipation's got to be better. Like last year, he was a rookie, I didn't expect him to see blitzes or stunts or understand that. But going into a game, we knew, you know, Richie Chris, Me, Dave Kareem, we knew every blitz that they were gonna do. And when we would come up, we could literally come up to the line and as soon as they move set up the defense, we would know, like, all right, we're getting the will Mike' scrape heer, like what's coming. You have to know that, like, and the only way you know that is by studying, by understanding the alignments. Linebackers give it away like they can't help themselves. They're trained pigs, like they're like they're like I'm like this is like, oh, he's definitely blitzing, like like they can't help themselves, so you know they give it away. It's a dead giveaway. All you got to do is be prepared and you just got to watch it and you know, and then you alert and say we'd have bingo. Bingo was a code words, say bingo, bingo, bingo if you saw something you thought there was a blitzer, a twist that mental ast way of it. Like g I Joe said, no one has half the battle. If you know that pre snap, now you got a chance. If you're just you know, flopping in the wind out there and just reacting, now you you know, you put yourself at a detriment and we've kind of seen that. I will say this though, like John Michael Schmidtz, I think is a He's a heavy legged guy. He's a thick bodied guy. So I never expected him to be like you know, Jason Kelcey running out in front of the you know, pulling on outside perimeter plays. He's not that kind of center. He's he's a masher like he's he's you know, let's run the football, getting a straight line and go. I think he's gotten better at up the second level. But what I didn't expect from him was to get bowl over like he did, like Peta Vea just kind of pushed him back like that play like watching that, I was really surprised. Now, I will say this now.
Was expecting when I looked at the tape that maybe someone call it his foot tripped or something like that.
A little bit so Greg Van Rodin stepped on outside of his right leg. I think he was already kind of reeling like he was already getting pushed off the cliff, and that just kind of like finished it. But that's something that I didn't expect from Jams. I expected the anchor to be there, to be better. But I think those are all things that are fixable, things that he can correct. He's plenty strong enough, he's plenty smart enough, and I know he cares like he's he's putting in the time. So I think this is his second year. I assure you there will be a lot of growth in your three. I kind of go back to Andrew Thomas. Andrew Thomas' first two years, like we're not good. They were not pretty, He got hurt, his technique was not good. People were already starting to kind of talk about like is this guy really worth the fourth overall pick, and then boom. Third year, everything changed and it was like boom, totally different person. So I think that there is that possibility for Jams all.
Right, final thing on the offenshow and then two of the defense.
I'll get youat here. I know you got a role offensively.
I like for the final five games here to be the Elie Neighbors and Tyrone Tracy show love that. You know, we talked about like you know this season at sideways, like you can't recover.
You can win as many games as can, but you're not going to the playoffs obviously.
But I think those two guys legitimately have a chance to be top players at their positions. I think Tracy has probably been the team's best offensive player over the past month and a half. He's been that good. Yeah, I just want I want those two guys to be featured. And you've seen plenty of explosives Tyrone Tracy. I want to see more explosives from Leak Neighbors. I don't think you've had enough of those. He talked about that in the locker room today, and I want this. I want to say whether or not those two guys can show that. Look, we can be sent their pieces for this offense as playmakers moving forward.
Yeah, I think that's you know, really, that's what you've got to build on, because offensively, those are your two best players right now, Like when you put the ball in Tyrone Tracy's hands, like he's a threat to score, Like he's got that explosive ability. Same thing with Neighbors. Now, I will I will say I agree with what you're saying. As of lately, Tyron Tracy has been the spark book, like he's been the go to guy. You need to feed him, Like there is no reason why Doyrond Tracy should not get twenty five carries every single game for the next five weeks.
At least get to eighteen, like right.
I don't know why we're I don't know why we're asking Drew Locke or Devido to throw the ball forty times, Like I'm done with that. I don't. If I'm the coach, I don't want them throwing more than twenty passes. That's it. We're gonna run the ball like that's what we're doing.
And I must have run it fairly well, so I like they've run it poorly. It hasn't been as great as you would like to dead down down, but it hasn't been bad with Tracy back there.
I think given what's going on with the offensive line too, like you've got to you've got to keep this like you've got to keep everything positive.
You have to protect your tackles.
We can't be a second and sixteen because we got sacked on first intent Like that can't happen. They're not good enough to overcome that. I think the thing with Neighbors is, you know, it's it's almost like I feel like he's trying so hard to make a big play, like he's kind of pressing, and it's like, hey, you know what, man, Like five yards is okay, Like just take the five yards, take the six yards, take the seven yards. All of a sudden, they start crashing in on you. Now you're gonna make the guy miss, Like don't try to go for the home run every single time and the big play. But I think, you know, really i'd love to see Neighbors in the backfield too, Like why not, let's put them back there, Let's get creative, let's put them on, Let's give them some more action in the backfield. Let's put them a running back and throw a screen to them, you know, try to find different ways to get in the ball that way. I think there's no reason to not get creative. And look, if you ever had an idea to run a play, now's the time to do it. Yeah, let's get it out there. What's the worst that gonna happen? If you want to know how to manage two minutes of crunch time football, I'm your man. But if you're wondering about a long term financial plan, you should talk to Citizens.
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Gihnts to the podcasts brought to you by Citizens Official Bank and the Giants. Citizens will donate seven hundred and fifty dollars of the Giants Foundation for each scoring drive during the twenty twenty four season. Learn more a citizensbank dot com slash Giants. I alway ask Carl Banks this. He is a stock answer for me, which is accurate. But I want to get the offensive lineman's take on this. When you see the Giants run defense, if you're an offensive lineman, you watch how the Giants played the run on tape, how would you attack it? And where do you think their weaknesses are? Obviously now with Dexter not here, we'll talk about that. That's a whole other conversation. Even with Dexter there, What were the issues that you see with the Giants just inability to stop the run this year?
Yeah, I mean, I think it definitely changes things without Dexter. Lawrence there going into that. You know in this defense playing them with Dexter, I would say, we got a perimeter runs like we're getting outside. We're not going to run, try to run in between the tackles. If we do running between the tackles, that has to be gap scheme. We're pulling somebody. I want a double team on Dexter and we're kicking out the defensive end. I'm going to make that metal linebacker tackle you want to want, Like that's kind of the power scheme in between the tackles. So I think that the Giants have struggled with some outside run plays. And you know, look, obviously you know what Thibodeau getting hurt. I thought, I thought o Jeli came in and played pretty well. But you know, the Giants don't have big defensive ends.
He's more of a pass rusher than an edge.
So you have ojalr and and you know, Burns is not a huge guy. I mean he's tall, he's lanky, he's lengthy. But I think the perimeter run game is really where the Giants have struggled. That's probably where I would want to try to attack them. And look, it's tough as good as Bobby Ocake is, it's tough as the Mike linebacker to have to always be the guy to make that tackle on outside perimeter plays because your angle is not very good. It's not conducive to bring a power So I would I would stress that and then I would try to make the corner's tackle. Like you know, that's always a big point in the run game. It's always if we can get this get our running back one on one versus a corner, that's where we want to try to take advantage of.
And is it as simple in order to get this pass rush reignited, you got to stop the running early downs. Because that's the way I've talked about it a lot. You just haven't put teams in bad situations where the pass rush can you know, get off and do their thing.
Yeah, no doubt about it. You earn the right to rush the passer. And if you can stop them on first and second down, third and nine, just that little difference. Now, all of a sudden, it's a difference between a sack and a quarterback hit.
If you're third and fourth, third and nine, a completely different thing.
Yeah, third and third and three, third and four, that ball's out. Like even if you beat your guy, the balls out before you get there, go third and nine. You beat your guy, it's a sack. And so that's the biggest difference.
I finally, what the heck can you do to survive with that dexter lawrence in the middle.
I hadn't run a five to three defense. I don't think you want to change up the whole scheme. But you know, look, he's he's a monster of a man, and you cannot replace him with one guy literally, Like I mean, maybe two guys, you know, would equal his weight. I don't know, But look, I mean it's an opportunity, Like I said, it's an opportunity for somebody else to come in and play. And I think if you're Shane Bowen, you're not coming in and saying, all right, somebody's gonna come play Dexter spot. It's okay. The stuff we used to do with Dexter in there is different. I'm gonna come up with different stuff. Maybe we'd go with a smaller guy and maybe we do more movements, mean we do more stunts, Like dex are so big, you didn't have to do enough stunts because he could just penetrate and handle on his own. Now, maybe you go small ball and you kind of move the guys around a little bit, get a little more creative that way.
Good stuff.
Sean O'Hara Giants Little Podcast, brought to by citizens Official Bank of the Giants.
We'll see next time.
Everybody,
