Giants Going Forward on O

Tonight the Giants left their comfort zone.   While many expected them to bring back Mike Sullivan as OC, they went off the Giant/Coughlin coaching tree entirely by picking Ben McAdoo.  What's more Coach Coughlin will welcome McAdoo's WCO ideas and concepts to the Giant offense.    That will be a refreshing change for Eli and Cruz and whoever else is left when the 2014 season starts.  Because the Giants have a lot more work to do on O.

First, I'm not sure they are done with the coaching staff.  Ideally I think they want to add Mike Sullivan back as Eli's QB coach, and perhaps get Karl Dorrell in as WR's coach.  That would eliminate two more of the current positions coaches whose units underachieved this year.  I won't be surprised if one of both of those moves are made.

Next, they have to go through their long free agent list and decide who they want to keep and who can be let go.   On offense, Hakeem Nicks is the big question mark.  Will McAdoo think the once great player is still in there, or will he want to move on.  They have to make decisions on the running backs and TE's too.  Do any of them make sense anymore?

Then it's time to, start fixing the OL.   The Giants currently have one plus player there, and that's Justin Pugh.   Because of the old tape and the dollars invested, they will probably give Will Beatty one more year to put it back together.  But their overall  goal - and this could take two off seasons -  should be to get 4 more guys like Justin Pugh.  It will be massively helpful if Chris Snee can get healthy enough to give them one more year.  He was a Pugh type before there was Pugh.  But barring that, they'll need two guards and a C.

Finally, they'll need playmakers.  They need one more playmaking WR if they let Nicks go.   They'll need at least one more TE who can contribute right away.  McAdoo is a former TE coach and will probably have pretty good insights on whether he'll be able to get anything out of Adrien Robinson and Larry Donnell, or whether or not they need a more dynamic option there.   And then, they will need a running back or two who can start, and execute all the assignments including the screen game that has to be fixed.

So that's a lot of players they have to find between FA and the Draft.   And that not even looking at the Defense, that will also need help on all 3 levels.

So hiring McAdoo was an exciting move, but it was only the beginning.