New York Giants: Pat Shurmur Response To Jenkins Shows Lack Of Understanding

New York Giants, Pat Shurmur
Nov 10, 2019; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants head coach Pat Shurmur leaves the field after losing to the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

Pat Shurmur isn’t helping himself keep his job as the head coach of the New York Giants.

Many believe that the ship has already sailed and that it’s simply a matter of waiting for the offseason to come and for the team owners to pull the trigger and announce the start of a new head coaching search. Ron Rivera, Jason Garrett, Matt Rhule, and others have been mentioned as potential option’s to take over for the team’s current coach. But for now, Shurmur still has the job.

He likely won’t have it much longer if this is how he’s going to handle certain situations.

Shurmur has replied to criticism from cornerback Janoris Jenkins about the schemes used on defense by the Giants, and while the problems with cornerback play and the secondary in general have been well known and well publicized this season, Shurmur has chosen to defend the current system of doing things rather than admit that Jenkins might be right and something might be wrong with what the Giants are doing.

“I think his assessment of we’re the only team that doesn’t travel isn’t quite accurate. I just came from the Minnesota Vikings who don’t. I think there’s a lot that goes into that. Again, he’s a competitive guy and I’m sure those are just immediately after the game comments,” said Shurmur.

The comments, of course, criticized a lack of movement when it comes to playcalling for the secondary. Jenkins claimed to spend most of the game on one side of the field rather than traveling from side to side like other cornerbacks in the league.

“Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to talk to him, he left immediately [because] there was an illness in his family that he had to go attend to. I’m sure I’m going to have a conversation with him when he gets back,” Shurmur added.

Whatever the Giants have been doing in the secondary this season clearly hasn’t worked, though, and Aaron Rodgers was able to exploit that for a number of touchdowns on Sunday. Shurmur chose to defend his defense and shrug off the concerns from Jenkins – but based on how the team has played so far, the better option might have been to listen to the players once on a thing or two and see if any improvement presents itself.

The fact that Shurmur is doubling down just makes it look less likely that he’ll come back again next year… After all, the last thing the Giants need right now is more of the same, when ‘the same’ hasn’t been working for the past two years at least.