New year, new position, same old Ereck Flowers.
The New York Giants right tackle kept up his alarming trend of bad games as an NFL offensive lineman with a stinker in Week 1 against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
After making the move from the left side of the line to the right after new general manager Dave Gettleman acquired former New England Patriots tackle Nate Solder, Flowers provided a clear indication that nothing is going to change for him.
He committed a tripping penalty on the first play of the Giant’s season and then a hold just two plays later.
If that wasn’t enough, he allowed seven of the 18 pressures quarterback Eli Manning faced from the vaunted Jaguars defense in a 20-15 loss.
It did nothing to get in the good graces of new head coach Pat Shurmur as a new-look offensive line that contains Solder, Patrick Omameh and rookie Will Hernandez looked eerily similar to the poor line of protection that had Manning on the run for much of the 2017 season.
Flowers, though, was by far the weakest cog in the sputtering machine.
Ereck Flowers continues to be a problem
Now in his fourth season after being selected ninth overall in the 2015 NFL Draft, the 24-year-old’s leash with the Giants should be running thin. He’s shown little growth at the professional level and with an offense that has plenty of offensive weapons, an inability to protect the quarterback will guarantee a repeat of a dreadful 3-13 2017 season.
The tests for Flowers is not going to get any easier come Week 2 as the Giants travel to Arlington to face the Dallas Cowboys in their home opener on Sunday.
It is there that he will be matched up against Dallas’ feared defensive end DeMarcus Lawerence, who is coming off a stellar 2017 season in which he put up 14.5 sacks and 58 tackles.
He hasn’t missed a beat so far in 2018 as he sacked Cam Newton once and racked up seven tackles in the Cowboys Week 1 loss to the Carolina Panthers. Expect him to feast off Flowers on Sunday.
