As Giants' offense gets healthy, their O-line will determine success

TAMPA – Saquon Barkley will be in the backfield against the Bucs on Monday night in Tampa, playing for the first time since Oct. 10. Wide receivers Kenny Golladay and Kadarius Toney are healthy after using the bye week to recover from nagging injuries. They are still without Sterling Shepard, sidelined with a quad injury, but the Giants are as close to the way they were designed to function as they have been all year long.

And offensive coordinator Jason Garrett knows it might not matter.

He knows that all of the resources the Giants allocated to surround quarterback Daniel Jones with playmakers this offseason, all of the work the trainers and banged-up players did to bring them back for the second half of the season, all of it will be useless unless he and the team can figure out how to manipulate their once again underperforming offensive line into something close to a functional unit.

"That’s obviously a big part of it," Garrett said this week. "Football starts upfront in the run game and in the pass game. It’s about offensive and defensive linemen. That’s what it is. The best teams have built their teams that way. That goes back through history. The game is won on the line of scrimmage."

He knows it because he used to be part of such a team. When he was the head coach in Dallas the Cowboys had the benefit of one of the league’s top blocking units. It made it easy for him and the rest of the offense to make plays.

"It was a process for us in Dallas," Garrett said of how the Cowboys accomplished that kind of line of scrimmage dominance. "At different times you have to make the decisions and say, ‘OK, we’ve got to allocate this resource because this is important to us.’ We did that time and time again and all of a sudden, you built a really powerful, strong offensive line that’s still going today. They’re really good players, cornerstone players. That’s what you have to do."

It’s also what the Giants have not done. At least not yet. And not with success.

"It’s just part of where we are," Garrett said, practically sighing. "We’re trying to rebuild a team and that’s a process."

Garrett said he thinks the Giants do have one piece in place for that plan. They drafted Andrew Thomas with the fourth overall selection last year, and he figures to be activated off IR for Monday night’s game after missing three games on injured reserve with separate foot and ankle maladies. A year ago, Thomas’ absence might have been heralded and his return met with derision as he struggled through a disappointing rookie season, but this year he has shown himself to be the team’s top blocker.

"I think we’ve all seen his progression," Garrett said. "He’s going to be a hell of a football player for a long time, so he’s one of those guys [to build with]."

The Giants think they might have some others, but they’re not on the field. Nick Gates and Shane Lemieux were supposed to be two of their starting interior linemen, but they’re both on injured reserve for the rest of the season. They’re holding out hope that Matt Peart, who has played in Thomas’ absence, can continue to develop.

The group they put on the field Monday night, though, is mostly placeholders for what many in the organization hope is a future line that receives as much offseason attention and resources as was spent on accumulating playmakers this past spring. Offensive line coach Rob Sale said the team is "scratching and clawing" to come up with plays that don’t expose their many weaknesses while capitalizing on the things they can do sufficiently.

It’s a schematic struggle.

"You have to somehow, some way create an environment [for success] with the guys you have," Garrett said. "The guys that we have here have done a hell of a job coming to work every day, practicing, doing everything they can to compete as well as they can. We love that as coaches. We love the group of guys we’re coaching."

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.