Giants' McAdoo singles out Manning for offensive struggles
After one season as head coach of the New York Giants, Ben McAdoo wasn't shy about assigning blame for the team's 25th-ranked offense.
While many pointed to the Giants' sputtering run game and poor offensive line, McAdoo feels that 13-year veteran Eli Manning is at fault for New York's lack of offensive production.
The quarterback accounted for 20 of the Giants' 27 turnovers in 2016 (16 interceptions, four fumbles), which McAdoo took issue with while speaking at the NFL Scouting Combine on Wednesday.
"We all know that turning the ball over 27 times isn't acceptable," McAdoo said, according to Ralph Vacciano of SNY. "We're fortunate to have the wins that we had turning the ball over the way we turned the ball over.
"So we can't turn the ball over that way. We need to handle the ball better, so we need to catch it better than we caught it, and we need to handle it in the pocket better."
McAdoo pointed to Manning's lack of patience in the pocket as an issue - saying the quarterback needs to play with "fast feet" to give his receivers more time - and refused to blame the offensive line for not blocking better.
And despite running a fairly bland offensive system that regularly put Manning in the shotgun with three receivers split out, McAdoo wouldn't blame himself or his system, either, instead blaming the execution by his players (which is partially his responsibility).
"We weren't as explosive the way we need to be," McAdoo said. "We had third downs that were makeable, and we didn't execute the way we need to execute there. Then you go back and take a look at explosivity, how you can be more explosive. And there are things that we're going to work on schematically to try and get that done, but they're tough to generate.
"Everyone works at being explosive on offense. It's about execution."
In his first year with McAdoo as head coach, Manning had his worst season since 2013, throwing for 4,027 yards with 26 touchdowns and the aforementioned 16 interceptions.