No NFL team looked worse over the weekend than the New York Giants did against the Carolina Panthers. Tom Coughlin’s team desperately needed a win after starting the season off with back-to-back losses. Instead, the Giants turned the ball over three times in an embarrassing 38-0 loss. Hakeem Nicks did not see a single target.
After the game, Nicks was asked about his lack of involvement. Rather than chalking it up to a horrible day offensively where nothing went right, he took a veiled swipe at Eli Manning.
“It’s part of the game. You’ve got to control what you can control,” Nicks said, per Charles Chandler of The Star-Ledger. “I can’t throw it to myself. As I’m running routes, I can’t see what’s going on with the line. I’ve just got to look at the film to see that, so we’ll know tomorrow.”
When he looks at the film, Nicks will see that his quarterback was under attack the entire game. Manning was sacked seven times and barely had any time to get the ball out, so he couldn’t exactly make a second, third, or even first read in some instances. When asked if he was open, Nicks gave the following response.
“I feel like I’m always open,” he said.
Nicks caught nine passes for 197 yards in the Giants’ first two games. He was targeted 16 times, so Manning looked his way plenty. Sunday was just one of those days. As you might expect, Coughlin was not happy with what Nicks seemed to be inferring.
“I’ll talk to him,” he told The Star-Ledger’s Connor Orr. “That’s not a smart thing to say.”
Everyone is frustrated after a 38-0 loss. The amount of balls that went Nicks’ way are the least of New York’s concerns at the moment.
