New York Giants: Ben McAdoo Still Believes in Ereck Flowers

The New York Giants didn’t get the level of production they were hoping for from Ereck Flowers. However, his coach still has confidence in him at left tackle.

Overall, 2016 was a great season for the New York Giants. They were able to reach the playoffs in their first season with Ben McAdoo as the head coach, but it felt like they could have done more.

With one of the best defenses in the league, the Giants’ offense wasn’t asked to do a lot. Despite having a lot of talent on that side of the ball, the Giants’ offense was a disappointment for the most part.

One of the issues for the offense was at left tackle. After battling through a tough season with some injuries as a rookie, left tackle Ereck Flowers didn’t get much better in his second season. Giving protection for your quarterback is critical for any passing offense to succeed, and the Giants gave up a lot of pressures on Manning despite the sack total being low.

Due to the Giants not being able to protect Manning properly, their offense was limited in what they could do. Despite having a great down field threat in Odell Beckham Jr., the Giants weren’t able to exploit defenses down the field like they would have liked.

Even though Flowers didn’t have a good season, McAdoo still believes in his young left tackle.

"“I have a ton of confidence in Ereck,” McAdoo said to Dan Duggan of NJ.com. “He’s a guy that’s all-in. He’s working at it. You could make a case that he could be here right now preparing to go out there and run at the Combine. He’s a young player that has a lot of room to grow. We expect him to grow. I have confidence that he’s going to grow.”"

There has been some talk that the Giants should be trying to acquire a left tackle in the offseason. Moving Flowers to the right side and getting a proven left tackle would really help solidify the Giants’ offensive line. However, McAdoo didn’t elude much to those possible plans.

"“Where he ends up is where he ends up,” McAdoo said to Duggan. “Right now, he’s playing left tackle like he’s always played for us and we’ll go from there.”"

As a young player, Flowers can certainly improve. It isn’t easy playing left tackle in the NFL straight from college. Unfortunately, that has been what was asked of him.

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Furthermore, if the Giants truly want to contend for a Super Bowl in 2017, they will need better play from the left tackle position. Whether or not that will be Flowers is yet to be determined.