Giants Q&A: Was the new offense more productive? Well, about that . . .

What’s the old saying? The more things change …?

The more the Giants’ offense stays incapable of scoring points. This time, with Freddie Kitchens voicing the play-calling (mystery solved after the Giants refused to announce who would be on the radio during the game) and a system that Joe Judge continues to insist is a collaborative effort among all of the coaches to devise the game plan, they scored the same number of touchdowns in a 13-7 victory over the Eagles that they did a week ago in a 30-10 loss to the Bucs. They still are not able to get their big play-makers involved in game-changing plays. And they still struggle to protect the quarterback and establish the run.

So was Judge unhappy his shake-up of the coaching staff did not yield better results?

Hardly. In fact he seemed tickled with the way the unit functioned in terms of its operation.

"Obviously there are some things that we’ve got to go ahead and continue to do better, and make sure we have avenues for plays to put ourselves in a position to be more productive in some areas," he said. "But I was pleased with some of the adjustments down the stretch … I was pleased with how those guys all worked together throughout the week, got those players prepared."

Was there anything new at all?

A few wrinkles, including a flea-flicker screen pass that seemed to work for a gain of 20 yards, and an end-around run handing the ball off to Darius Slayton which did not seem to work and lost 13. There were some other tweaks to route-running, but as Saquon Barkley said, it’s Week 12 so it’s hard to overhaul everything at this point.

Why was Daniel Jones wearing a wristband with play calls for the first time in his career?

To help improve the communication with the sideline. Judge said during the week it was something that the players and remaining coaches thought might help.

"The way we were calling [the game], yeah, we used it a good bit," Jones said afterward. "It was something we practiced throughout the week and got used to over the course of the week. It went well and I thought the communication was good."

Were the Giants at least able to get Kenny Golladay and Saquon Barkley more involved? Wasn’t that one of the big the impetus for the change?

Yes. They tried to hit Golladay in the end zone twice to no avail, although the first-quarter effort probably should have drawn a pass interference flag against cornerback Darius Slay. Golladay did catch two 18-yard passes for first downs on back-to-back plays during a key drive in the fourth quarter that resulted in a field goal but ate up 7:22 of time as the Giants led 10-7. Barkley had difficulty getting anything going with the exception of a 32-yard run that accounted for 80% of his rushing yards and 60% of his total yardage.

At least it was good to see Barkley have a run like that coming back from his ankle injury, right?

It showed that Barkley still has such explosiveness, even though he insisted afterward he never once thought he did not. "I already knew I could do it," he said. "It’s not like ‘Space Jam’ when the monsters come and take everything away from you. I still got it."

Now that Chris Myarick and Andrew Thomas have scored the only Giants touchdowns in the last two weeks, are other players asking Jones to throw it to them? Is Matt Peart begging for the ball?

"Don’t give him any ideas," Jones said, adding (as a joke) that he threw this touchdown to the recent practice squad tight end Myarick because "they were doubling him" and "they had a safety over the top for 'Drew there."

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.