football was supposed to look like If the New York Giants were going to have any realistic chance of having a successful 2018 season they had to have a victory Sunday against the Houston Texans. They got that desperately-needed victory by a 27-22 score New York Giants Hats , and it wasn’t an accident.For the first time this season, Giants’ football looked the way new coach Pat Shurmur and Co. hoped it would.The Giants were efficient and explosive on offense, especially in the first half. They were opportunistic, especially in the second half, on defense. They didn’t hurt themselves on special teams.Sunday began with the news that Ereck Flowers was no longer a member of the Giants’ starting offensive line. It ended with the first victory of the Pat Shurmur era. And renewed optimism that the Giants, underdogs on Sunday and facing the potential of a disastrous 0-3 start, could do good things in 2018.The Giants once again failed to reach the 30-point plateau, a mark they haven’t hit since the final game of the 2015 season when Tom Coughlin’s career with the team was ending. Still, when J.J. Watt wasn’t wrecking their plans, they showed the variety of weapons that could make their offense special.The Giants scored the first four times they had the ball, with a pair of touchdowns and a pair of Aldrick Rosas field goals. Saquon Barkley, again showing that he is virtually impossible for the first defender to tackle, took advantage of the best run-blocking the Giants have given him this season. Barkley had a 15-yard scoring run, a 24-yard run, and ended up with 17 carries for 82 yards.When it was winning time in the fourth quarter, nursing a 20-15 lead and needing a drive, it was Barkley the Giants leaned on. On a 9-play, 77-yard drive that ended up giving them a commanding 27-15 lead with 5:29 remaining Barkley carried the ball three times and caught two passes for 27 yards New York Giants Hoodie , including a 21-yard catch when he lined up as a wide receiver.“We found a way to finish the game. We started with a nice play to Shep, then we ran the ball a little bit. We found a way to complete some passes, and then obviously at the end, score there,” Shurmur said.Eli Manning was an incredibly efficient 25-of-29 for 297 yards, two touchdowns and a passer rating of 132.3. He was sacked four times, three by Watt, but generally had time to set his feet and step into his throws. Shurmur also moved him left and right, creating some easy throws. Manning was as good as he’s been in a long, long time.Manning took advantage of mismatches all day, just like the Giants hoped he would be able to do if they could block well enough to give him a chance.“That’s how I see playing offense. You deal up a progression. Dial it up and then the ball goes where it’s supposed to go. If it gets out on time, we really trust all of our players out there,” Shurmur said. “The last touchdown was designed really to go to Odell (Beckham Jr.) isolated. They doubled him, so Eli went back and threw the ball to Shep (Sterling Shepard). That’s just the way this thing works, and it was good.”Manning was told after the game that he seemed more comfortable in the pocket than he had been the first two weeks.“I thought we did a good job having a good plan to get the ball out. The ball was coming out fast, could see what they were doing. The offensive line was blocking, doing what they were doing, they were blocking things up and we didn’t have the mistakes Customized New York Giants Jerseys ,” Manning said. “I thought we kind of condensed the offense a little bit and made sure guys knew what they were doing. Plays that they knew, they were playing fast, the offensive line was playing fast and we have good players, just let them go play. Let’s not try to be perfect and trick or do too much. Let our guys go win, because we got good athletes.”Relying heavily on various crossing routes, Manning completed 9-of-10 passes directed at Odell Beckham Jr. for 109 yards. When the Texans jumped Beckham and left single coverage elsewhere, the Giants took advantage of that. Sterling Shepard caught six passes for 80 yards, Rhett Ellison three for 39 and a touchdown, Barkley five for 35, Evan Engram one for 19 before being hurt and Cody Latimer one for 15.Defensively, as the game rolled into the latter stages and it looked like momentum was shifting to the Texans, the defense came up with a pair of critical takeaways to keep Houston at bay.Late in the third quarter, Kerry Wynn knocked a ball away from Lamar Miller and Donte Deayon recovered at the Giants’ 25-yard line. Houston’s next possession reached the Giants’ 8-yard line, but a penalty, sack and outstanding athletic interception by Alec Ogletree in the end zone ended that opportunity.Wynn was terrific. Damon Harrison dominated the middle. B.J. Hill and Lorenzo Carter got their first sacks. The Giants did enough in the secondary. They survived a game without Olivier Vernon and Eli Apple.Can the Giants build on this?That’s a really good question.Shurmur said his first victory as Giants’ coach “feels special because we’re making progress.”Will they, however, sustain it and make it meaningful?The Giants return home next week to face the New Orleans Saints, 2-1 after a 43-37 overtime victory Sunday over the Atlanta Falcons. That won’t be an easy game against Drew Brees and Co. www.authenticsnewyorkgiants.com , a team with a terrific offense but a defense that can be taken advantage of.The Giants showed us Sunday what they can be. What they will be remains to be seen. “This is what we were itching for, itching for a win. Guys had a great week of preparation, so it shows us how we should prepare, and if we want to keep this feeling then that’s what we have to keep on doing,” Shepard said. “Everybody was freaking out about the two games but we remained calm as a team.”Beckham was well aware that one victory does not mean all is well in the Giants’ world.“We have to get some more wins and start putting them together,” he said. “We can’t get too far ahead of ourselves, because it’s just one game. Now we have to start tacking it on, build off this today and keep improving.”What they managed to do Sunday, though, is to get a reprieve and make things interesting going forward. The second half of the season is going to be an important one for the New York Giants. They’re not pushing for a playoff spot, but these next eight games will help give a glimpse into what the Giants have heading into the 2019 season. While the defensive side of the ball will have a focus on what players will be there next year, the offense has the players (for the most part) and needs to focus on how to use the talent at hand better than it has been during the 1-7 start. Let’s look at some steps the Giants can take to get the offense on track in the second half.Figure out the offensive lineThere’s no other place an offensive breakdown can start than where the offense most often breaks down. The left side of the offensive line has not and likely will not change. Nate Solder is financially locked in as the left tackle and Will Hernandez is the legitimate bright spot on the line. Outside of those two spots, though, nothing has been good or consistent. Ereck Flowers was benched. Patrick Omameh was benched. Jon Greco might be on his way back to the bench.The Giants claimed guard Jamon Brown off waivers from the Los Angeles Rams last week. Brown is just 25 years old and started all 16 games from the Rams in 2017, but a suspension to start the season and good play from fill-in Austin Blythe made Brown expendable. Last season Brown played the most snaps (1,077), had the second-fewest blown blocks (18, three behind Andrew Whitworth’s 15 on 155 more snaps) New York Giants T-Shirt , and allowed just one sack, per the Football Outsiders Almanac. He might be in line to start for the Giants as early as Monday night against the 49ers. If that’s the case, it will be the the fourth different starting combination the Giants have used this season. It will also have three different starters than the Week 1 lineup. For a unit where continuity and communication are important, that’s not great turnover to have.2018 Giants OL startersWeekLTLGCRGRTWeekLTLGCRGRTBrown is on the last year of his rookie deal, so if he does play well and the Giants want to keep him, they’ll have to re-sign him. If that’s not the case, the Giants might still be looking for three new starters on the offensive line come the offseason. That won’t be an easier task than it was this past offseason.Any complaints about the running game also fall into this category.Get in motion, pick up the paceLast season with the Minnesota Vikings, Pat Shurmur used pre-snap motion to create mismatches with the defense. This season, that’s gone away. Per Sports Info Solutions charting, the Giants use pre-snap motion on the ninth-lowest percentage of plays in the league.But they also have the sixth-biggest difference between yards per play with motion and yards per play without it. This should be an easy element to add to the offense since it’s something they have used at times already and it’s something Shurmur used way more often in his last stop.If the Giants aren’t going to use motion to make defenses uncomfortable, then maybe they can start to use pace. As it stands right now, the Giants are one of the slowest teams in the league when it comes to the pace of the offense, per Football Outsiders. On situation neutral plays — basically non-garbage time — the Giants run the 28th quickest offense in the league. At any point in the game when the score is within six points either way, the Giants are the 32nd-fastest offense.When the deficit gets to seven points or more, the Giants turn into the league’s fifth-fastest offense and that is when the unit has been the most dangerous and done its most damage. Since the Giants don’t change personnel as much as expected, getting to the line quicker and using pace to create mismatches for the likes of Odell Beckham and Saquon Barkley would help.The Giants don’t have to turn into the Chip Kelly Eagles (though, Shurmur was that team’s offensive coordinator) New York Giants Hats , but a combination of limited misdirection, whether it be play-action or pre-snap motion, and a slow pace is the exact opposite of what’s happening with the evolution of modern offenses.Reinvent the wheelSaquon Barkley’s role in the passing game has been underwhelming at best over the first half of the season. He’s still been more productive as a receiver than a runner (minus-3.78 Expected Points Added on the ground and 13.1 EPA on pass targets), but his receiving production could be even better. He’s consistently targeted as a check down option and only recently has he gotten more work past the line of scrimmage.The easiest way to get Barkley involved past the line of scrimmage and limit the time needed to pass block is the wheel route. By EPA, the wheel route is one of the most efficient routes in football and when done correctly out of the backfield it sets the running back up with a matchup that’s nearly impossible for the defense to win.What makes the wheel route so hard to defend is that the defense usually has a linebacker on the running back when it’s man coverage. The route starts like it’s going to be a flat route, which gets the opposing defender moving horizontally, and then the running back turns up the field. There aren’t going to be many linebackers who can go from lateral movement to chasing a back on a vertical route. There are fewer who would be able to keep up with an athlete like Barkley.On this play, the Rams used it inside the 10-yard line and got Todd Gurley on linebacker Anthony Barr. When Gurley got out of the backfield, Barr had to stop and try to read Gurley’s break, but there was none and Gurley was able to run past him up the seam for an easy touchdown.The wheel can work on its own at any part of the field, but it can be opened up even more when there’s a route combination with it from the receiver on the same side. Typically that’s a slant or hitch that creates a natural pick that adds an extra element the defender needs to get through on his path to the running back. The Carolina Panthers used this on Thursday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Devin Funchess ran a quick slant and turned to get in the way of the linebacker while Christian McCaffrey ran an uncontested wheel out of the same side and had a clear path to the end zone.Opposing defenses against the Giants will already be focused on the slant potential from Odell Beckham, so adding a layer to that with a Barkley wheel outside of it creates a dangerous combination that shouldn’t be able to be defended. On this note, the Giants should use more combinations with Beckham and Barkley on the same side of the formation, wheel or not.Getting Barkley more efficient targets will help open up the passing game for others (more than a good running game would). The ability to gain yards on quick passes is something the Giants have tried to accomplish, but getting those routes open past the line of scrimmage will be significantly more useful than the high volume of dump offs Barkley has seen in the passing game so far.