How NY Giants Head Coach Brian Daboll is Holding Guys Accountable for Penalties 

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll is not a fan of penalties, especially the pre-snap variety, of which the Giants ranked above the league average in several categories last season.

So it was refreshing to see that Daboll, whose Giants have been committing pre-snap penalties at an often alarming rate the last several days, has taken an approach to hold guys accountable, and that is to yank them out of the lineup whenever a pre-snap penalty is made.

So far, the approach seems to be working.

“Yeah, (Friday), we cut them in half from one practice to the next,” he said before the team took the field on Saturday. “We’ll see if we can cut it in half today. But yeah, I took them out.” 

Of the Giants 41 stalled offensive drives last season, 26 such drives had at least one pre-snap penalty, the breakdown being 13 false starts, eight delay-of-games, and five illegal shifts.  

Those pre-snap penalties resulting in stalled drives are a big reason why the team struggled to put points on the board. 

Besides holding guys accountable, the head coach said that pre-snap penalties are addressed every day in practice. 

“Part of it is hearing the snap counts and staying onsides, part of it is the rhythm with the snap count, and part of it is staying onsides – the defensive linemen, particularly in situations where they think you’re throwing the ball and giving them a different cadence,” he said. 

As part of his efforts to curtail pre-snap penalties, Daboll has had the staff turn down the music that has otherwise been consistent through the practices so that the players can hear the cadence calls and stay focused.

“We do it in walk-throughs, turn the music down, and make sure we’re very vocal in it and just continue to practice it.”

The hope, of course, is to finish under whatever the league average ends up being at season’s end as well as to eliminate the high number of stalled drives which have forced the coaches to adjust the play calling strategy.

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