The Giants Must Do Better to Get Better

                           

The 2014 New York Giants finished off a year which saw the team miss the playoffs for the third consecutive season and fifth time in the last six. As they goes back to the drawing board, there are sure to be changes to the way they approach 2015.  It's never easy to go over all of the things that went wrong, but when you are in the same boat of disappointment as the Bears, Redskins, and Jets, it can make it all the more humbling. The Giants must find a way to get the team back to respectability and doing so will require them correct mistakes that have lingered too long.

                                          

Injuries - The Giants sent a total of 21 players to injured reserve this season, forcing them to bring in other teams scraps just to fill a roster spot.  While this is a common occurrence in a violent sport such as football, it is alarming to see so many players go down at the same rate as a front line battalion during the Civil War. The Giants need to place greater onus on strength and conditioning if they want to prevent this from ever happening again

                                         
                                                 
The Draft - Each year the Giants, like all other teams look to draft impact players that can both help the team immediately and create a solid foundation for the future.  However, that has not recently been the case as the Giants have tried to draft potential diamonds in the rough instead of picking sure talent (Odell Beckham Jr. being the exception).  This strategy has worked for the team in years past, but has now affected their ability to properly scout and draft the best players available to them.  The diamonds in the earth took billions of years to form, and I'm pretty certain the Giants don't have that kind of time to wait.
                                         
                                         
                         
Coaching - The team announced that head coach Tom Coughlin will be staying for the 2015 season and so will Ben McAdoo and his new offense.  This leaves defensive coordinator Perry Fewell's job in great jeopardy as the Giants were one of the worst defenses in the league.  Despite the vehement defending of Fewell from Coughlin, one has to believe his time has run very, very thin.  The team must find a coordinator that can not only get the most out of the defense, but reinvigorate a system that has parted like the Red Sea against most of the NFL.