The New York Giants are underperforming in all passes of the game this season. Their offense is last in scoring and yards and their defense is ranked 28th overall.
Their special teams, a unit the Giants have prided themselves in the past few seasons, has also had its challenges. They are averaging just 6.5 yards per punt return (30th) and the reason is fairly clear – they have failed to find a reliable returner.
“That’s on me,” general manager Joe Schoen told reporters on Monday.
“To be honest with you, that’s another — we tried to address the punt returner. We knew it was an issue. In the draft, some of the guys we liked went probably higher than where we deemed you would take a guy.”
The Giants ended up settling on rookie running back Eric Gray, a fifth-round pick out of Oklahoma who averaged just 4.0 yards per return on 28 attempts and had serious ball security issues to boot.
Gray was injured in Week 8 and has been out with an ankle injury ever since. He returned in Week 12 but the Giants have moved on, adding free agent Gunner Olszewski, who has stabilized to the role, averaging 9.3 yards per attempt.
Schoen spoke about Gray and his background, which led to the Giants believing he could handle the responsibility of returning punts over several veterans, including Jameson Crowder, who the Giants cut.
“Eric had done it at Tennessee, and he had done it at Oklahoma and the coaches were comfortable, we were comfortable going into the regular season based off what we were seeing,” Schoen explained.
“I know Crowder is having success in Washington, you bring him up — we kept seven receivers; we couldn’t keep eight. Do the math, who do you move on from, from the group if you kept Crowder? So, there was some moving parts in there and that’s me being candid with you and that’s on me, the returner. I’m glad we got (wide receiver) Gunner (Olszewski) here, though. He’s done a really good job for us.”
Schoen didn’t quite close the door on Gray. The Giants still need him for depth in the backfield and could still try him as a returner in the future.
“Eric’s got a bright future and we probably put him in a spot that wasn’t most comfortable for him either, but he went out there, didn’t flinch an eye, didn’t bat an eye, and did what he could, but again that’s on me, early on. We couldn’t do everything overnight and as much as we wanted to and that was a position we continued to look for and Pittsburgh let Gunner go and we were able to get him,” Schoen said.
Meanwhile, out in Washington, Crowder is seventh in the league with 207 yards on punt returns.
