Eli Manning.jpg

Eli Manning and the Giants have struggled in the red zone this season.

(Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger)



Through 11 games, the Giants are 27th in the NFL when it comes to scoring a touchdown inside the red zone. The 46.43 percent clip puts them just ahead of division-rival Philadelphia (45.71 percent) and two slots below the Jets (48 percent), according to Team Rankings.

On Sunday against Dallas, one of the more notable gaffes took place when the Giants went for a throwback pass to Brandon Myers on a first-and-goal from the Dallas 9. Or, on the following drive, when the Giants ran the ball on third-and-goal from the 10.

During his weekly spot with the media, offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride tried to explain.

"Each time it’s different," he said. "You wish it was one thing and then you could solve that problem, but the bottom line is we’ve had chances. You get down there last time and we tried that throw back screen to the tight end where everybody sprints to the front side and they had only shown man coverage and then they had two deep, so the corner fell off and was able to come back and minimize the gain and then we ran and didn’t gain a yard.

"So now it’s third and seven and they played a little different coverage… They played a coverage that we’d expected, but they played it a little differently so we couldn’t throw where we had intended to throw it so we had to come back inside to Andre and we picked up five yards and the bottom line is, if you don’t stay close enough where you can run or pass and you get yourself backed out of it, it’s hard.

"And the next time we go down there we get down to the five and we lose five yards, six yards on the first play running the ball. It’s frustrating because they were great drives and they need to culminate in points and touchdowns and when you don’t do that, you’re disappointed that you didn’t finish it the way you’d like and probably even more disconcerting is you’d know the potential for it being a difference in the outcome of the game is usually pretty significant, especially in an evenly matched game like that. We were disappointed, but what are you going to do? You keep playing and the last time we had a chance, we went down and put it in the end zone, but you wish you had done it one of the earlier times."