New York Giants special teams coordinator Chris Horton spent his week defending two choices that looked avoidable from the sideline and, in his telling, were the safer play in the rain.
The conditions at MetLife Stadium last Sunday did more than test the New York Giants' specialists. They framed the two calls special teams coordinator Chris Horton had to explain afterward: When to let a punt die, and when 10 men are better than a late 11th.
Horton was asked about Braxton Berrios and punts that looked catchable before they skipped and spun deep into Giants territory. One rolled back to the 29. In a game already shortened by the wind and rain, those bounces handed the offense a longer field at a bad time.
The Giants reached the red zone only twice
and again failed to score a touchdown. Horton did not see a miscue.
"Braxton made great decisions the entire game," Horton told reporters on Thursday. "Our number one goal is to get that ball back to the offense. Don't put yourself at risk to field the ball."
That is the textbook answer, and it's also the tension. Berrios did get the ball back. He also left it inside the 10 and near the 30 in weather that already had the offense stuck. Horton's view is that a returner does not have to catch every punt, and that forcing one in the rain can turn a bad spot into a turnover.
"Sometimes you have to live with some of those decisions," he said.
The ones Berrios did take, Horton added, the unit made the most of. Living with the others meant living with field position that only compounded what the offense was already struggling to do.
The other call was Horton's. On a Titans field goal attempt, the Giants had 10 players on the field, the second time in two weeks the unit has been short. Linebacker Jack Kelly was yelling for a body. Horton kept the sideline quiet.
"When we do end up in a situation where we have 10, that's on me," Horton said.
He would rather play a man down than send a substitute across the line of scrimmage and turn a play the unit can survive into one it cannot. 10 men, he said, "you might be okay with." A player on the wrong side of the formation is how a small problem becomes a bigger one. He called it a coaching issue, not a weekly plan, and said it will be cleaned up.
Both answers come from the same place. Horton is protecting the process he sold his room before the storm: Do not invent a worse play trying to fix a bad one.
Against the Titans, that held. It also left the offense pinned deep in the rain and left Horton owning a personnel mistake he does not intend to repeat against Arizona.
This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: Giants' Chris Horton explains 10-man, Braxton Berrios decisions
