Sunday night was a whirlwind, yesterday was a time to flip through the medical dictionary... So today, with the players off and healing, let's go over the game and its consequences:
THE GOOD
Eli: Don't think anyone out there should underestimate just how well he played. Completion % almost 70, four TDs and almost a fifth to Toomer, one INT that was no one's fault (maybe Plax for slipping, I guess) and real poise as the blitzes got stronger in the second half.
As for the shoulder... The truth, I think lies somewhere in the middle of "day-to-day" and "out for a month." Every one of us with pen and notebook in hand has heard of similar injuries and tries to make our own conclusions, but we ain't doctors. Even if we were, how would we know what the MRI looks like?
Personally, I think ESPN was a little irresponsible for going with a story, hearing a denial and then just hammering their version home on every telecast across all the networks... But you can head over to Best's Must Love Blogs to see what the media pros have to say.
And I don't absolve myself from the responsibility factor, people. I ran with a report on the blog yesterday, then I heard contradicting things and changed it... Of course, there's a difference between this thing and ESPN, but all we have left at the end of the day is our own responsibility.
Anyway... Gut feeling here is that J-Lo starts on Sunday and Eli returns in D.C. Here's another plus for young Manning: The kid is durable. He's taken some big hits over the last three years and bounced back every time.
Derrick Ward: Not sure he can sustain it against a much better defense this Sunday, but he might be the surprise of the team. I'm still a bit more surprised that he's not returning kickoffs -- Ahmad Bradshaw is good back there, but I think Ward's better -- but he's got some bigger shoes to fill now. If he can go for 90 yards on 10-15 carries while Jacobs is out, I bet TC would sign for it right now.
The O-Line: With a couple of exceptions, it handled everything thrown at them. DeMarcus Ware had a couple pressures, but did he do anything else? No. So Dave Diehl passed his first test. In fact, every guy was quite good, and Rich Seubert avoided throwing any punches when a few Cowboys defenders got upset with him.
Plax: Lest you all forget, I pronounced him to be the biggest disappointment for the upcoming season... So I've got that going for me. I should know by now there are athletes in every sport who only shine when the bright lights are on, and Burress is the champeen of them among the Giants.
Lawrence Tynes: Did he even make one over 40 yards in the preseason? In camp? Ever? Guess TC made the right call there, though remember to hydrate, LT.
THE BAD
Linebackers: Seriously, I could start anywhere, but Kiwanuka/Pierce/Mitchell (and then Torbor) all looked too passive... A lot of getting caught in between. We'll never know whether there were zones that were called to keep T.O. in check and that's what left the middle of the field wide open for Jason Witten, or whether any one of the LBs just plain blew an assignment keeping track of the Dallas TE.
Kiwanuka just looked like he was thinking way too much... Going one way when he needed to be going the other, tentative and then over-committing and flying by the play... He's a DE, and in tomorrow's Chalk Talk for the dead-tree product, I'll try to explain why he needs to be a DE again.
James Butler: Maybe it's just the position, but first it was Will Demps who couldn't take anyone down, now Butler's having problems. If Michael Johnson could figure out the calls, I bet he'd be a decent option back there, because he can hit.
Michael Strahan: I almost went for the, "Is his holdout over?" gag -- oh, wait, I guess I just did. Oops.
He looked... small. Flozell Adams is no joke, but Strahan was getting pummeled on passing plays. Just rag-dolled around. You can't expect 92 to be 92 right from the start, but that's what the Giants needed with Osi down. Didn't happen.
Jay Alford: Tough start for the rook. Bad snap cost the Giants the extra point early, had a couple other wobblers and then, in some DT action, got absolutely detonated at the point of attack a few times.
THE UGLY
Officiating: TC mentioned Patrick Crayton's false start that went uncalled on the clinching Dallas TD late and Bradie James hanging off Chris Snee's face mask for about 10 seconds seemed like it might have been a foul... Of course, when Ed "Welcome to the Gun Show" Hochuli is identifying players as "the nose guard" on calls, there are problems.
The Texas Stadium turf: This makes seven pretty serious injuries to Giants players in their last two visits. Not all of them can be blamed on the turf, but I'll tell you what: I stood down there for the last couple minutes of the game, and it was like standing on your grandma's Astroturf welcome mat. And that crowned field? I could barely see the other end zone from where I was.
That's all for today... Remember, it's one game. Listen to your pal BB and just chill.
Comments (14)
Jerry Reese first year grade "F" this guy does not know what he is doing but totally believes in his decisions, another George Bush. So far his decisions have made the Giants a young, inexperienced and hurt team,
Reese is not the problem the Oline is fine without Petitgout better actually and Arrrington couldn't cover just like Kiwanuka. We did draft plenty of defensive players past 3 drafts and I thought Reese a good job. They should improve. They just ran into a wall of an Oline in Dallas and got brusied up a bit.
I said it Monday morning, and I'll say it again - is it too early to declare the Kiwanuka to LB experiment over? So far it has not been good.
Arthur,
Any update on Dockery? What chance do you see of Ross taking over for RW? Thanks!
I'm no Reese fan either, but it's pretty obvious that he has set TC up to fail so that he can hire his own coach. There will be some BIG names out there next season. I'm betting that the goal of the NYG is to hire a new coach after this season so that he can have time to put a good team in place for 2010 when the new stadium opens, which is probably the next time the NYG will have a upper echelon team.
I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that any GM would deliberately set his team up to fail. After all, a lousy season reflects badly on him and reduces his margin for error in future years.
On the other hand, if the defense keeps playing like that, Coach Cowher should be able to draft a really good DB.
(Hey, I saw Greisen got cut at the end of preseason - did anyone sign him? Does he have anything left? Surely he would be an upgrade over Kiwi, who would be an upgrade over Awasom and possibly Strahan '07)
Let me start by saying, no way am I a Jet Fan... Die Hard Giant fan annoyed at the personnel decisions made by Jerry Resse in the off season.
BB, I like his coaching moves a lot, not the player ones. Spagnolo will be solid and getting rid of Huffnagel was a good move too.
But, you say its his job to draft the corner and then its up to Coughlin/Spagnolo to play him. Its up to him to draft a player in the first round that is going to leave the coach with no doubt that he should be starting. I guarantee you that Coughlin would love to start Ross and that he just hasn't shown the first round skill yet.
2nd thing about Reese,
At the end of last year our LB core was not good at all and a lot of that was due to injuries... When i look at the starters from Sunday night, i would have taken last years starters over them in a heartbeat.
He cut Arrington (this was before the motorcycle accident) and let go of Emmons (good move) and didnt resign Brandon Short (I would take him back in a second, i thought he was underrated last year).
We are worse off at LB this year now.....
I wasn't upset that we picked a corner with the 1st pick because the secondary was so bad last year. But that pick needed to be someone to come in and play immediately. I'm not saying Ross isn't going to be a good or great player. I think that your 1st round pick on D should be starting when your D is so bad.
Why didnt we go after a stud LB like Paul Poz from Penn State? The guy is an animal and would have made an impact immediately. Somehow he slipped to the second round and had 10 tackles last week in his first start for the Bills.
Arthur,
Hate to beat a dead horse here, but has anyone confronted Pat Hanlon and confirmed the report that he told Mort Eli would be down for one month?
Jerry Reese goal in the off season was to turn the Giants from a older, experienced and hurt team into something else which is now a young, inexperienced and hurt team. Go Jerry!
Andrew,
You bring up some valid points.
Sorry I called you a Jets fan.
-Big BB
Amazing how many GM's there are on this board. The Giants big mistake is not coming to this board to seek scouting reports and potential GM candidates. Appears that the talent pool here is unlimited. Wait, isn't this the same group who said Pettigout was an All pro and Diehl couldn't replace him? Isn't this the group that touted how poor the Giants O line was and how Reese was stupid for releasing Luke. I guess that's one for Reese. Also seeing the season is all of one game complete it seems to me that maybe Reese should get a few more games before the brilliant personnel board here goes after his job. As to drafts as a long time Giant sufferer, I have seen my share of bad drafts, none of which have come over the last decade. I remember Rocky Thompson so if you want to bring up poor first round decisions that one stands out. Yet over the last 20 years or so, I think the Giants organization has done a pretty decent job providing its fan base with a competitive football team. 3 Super Bowl appearances and 2 victories is something the vast majority of teams in this league would take in a heartbeat. SO there were periods of dynasty type teams. What have the Cowboys done in the last decade? How bout those Skins? The Giants and the Eagles have been the most successful in the East over that period of time. Certainly there is not a super bowl on the horizon for this team, yet making the playoffs 2 years in a row isn't as bad as you make it out to be. There is no reason to hype re-building as this team needs to re-load some pieces over the coming years but not re-build. That is NONSENSE and I doubt anyone who understands the game would tout re-building, especially in League mediocrity where every team looks like each other. This team has a balanced offense and needs to put the defense pieces together. If they can become a middle of the pack defense this team is still capable of winning 9-10 games. So you can root for them to lose or you can objectively identify their talent. Thankfully you won't become the GM anytime soon! Stop reading the NFL so-called pundits, who basically are wrong more than 50% of the time.
PS It is easy to look back on a draft 3 years later and identify mistakes, which by the way all teams make. You want talk about consistently bad drafts just look at the Cardinals! Look back at the Bengals (who have finally joined the NFL)yet the Giants drafts are above average which in itself is a pretty good record. Focus on all the mistakes and overlook all of the good picks. I dare say from the 3rd round on the Giants have probably out performed the majority of teams in the draft. Look over the roster and find how many 3-5th rounders have provided the Giants with solid performance. No the Giants have not been a bad drafting organization, but when you only look at it with hindsight then every NFL organization is poor with their drafting. It is on draft day that you have to step up and make projections. ALl of you buried ELI along time ago as a draft day bust, now you suddenly think he is good. Bottom line is ELI is going to be just fine and will lead this team to a Super Bowl. I dare say if any of you are Old enough you are probably the same lame fan base that buried Simms prematurely and certainly believed that Simms was a wasted Draft pick. I guess his career suggests differently. Bottom line is every team has draft picks that don't pan out, it doesn't automatically mean that they should have drafted someone else. That is pretty easy after the fact, not so simple in projection. PS I was a MLB scout for over 20 years so I know something about projected talent and how very fickle the results are!
Just wanted to point out that Romo got away with at least 2 delay of game penalties, on big 3rd downs including the Hurd TD that pushed the game back to a 10 point lead late. Not sure if anyone else mentioned this as I haven't had a chance to read all the other bloggers comments but someone needs to put a gun to "Gun Shows" head.
To think that if selfish Michael Strahan had let the Giants know he was considering retirement/holding out earlier in the offseason, they NEVER would have moved Kiwanuka to LB and instead would have pursued an impact linebacker (Kiwika Mitchell?) in free agency or the draft. Linebackers must be shifty, take short steps and be able to change direction easily. Someone lanky with long strides like Kiwanuka is ill-equipped to play LB. And the Giants staff was ill-advised to make the move, especially considering the success he had at end as a rookie. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!