Notes & quotes from a disappointing night

OK, it is still early and we are still 5-2 but these last 2 weeks weren’t just ‘a couple of losses’ they were disasters. In the Saints game, eventhough the Saints are clearly the real deal, our Giants were out coached on defense ( was there a defensive plan? why no adjustments?) and on offense – the Saints defense ran our offense better than we did and anticipated almost every move.

This week, again the defensive scheme was exposed, we actually allowed the Cards to develop a running game that they did not have before. On the offense side, how can Steve Smith get no throws for the entire first quarter? What is going on witht he thinking on the preparation?

The Cards came into the game with a stingy run defense and a porous passing defense. So, lets hit Smith and Boss in the seams to establish the pass, run Jacobs and options to bring in the corners and hit Manningham and Hicks.

I think that the new Defensive Coordinator is lost at sea. His defensive line is not schemed into getting to the quarterback, they arfe being picked up and neutralized. I mean how does Osi got zero tackles ????

Bad coaching and bad schemes on both ends of the ball is my verdict.

There is no Backup plan with this team…when something is not working they don’t change it, they just try again, and again, and again…

2 passes to boss.

13 carries for Jacobs.

and no knowledge whatsoever on how to run an effective screen pass.

this team has problems….that are fixable, but they refuse to fix them.

that zone D that sheridan is running is laughable…i saw Webster covering two guys at one point….and that was when they had 5 guys playing in the secondary.

We never got drives going – well you don’t when you run it on first and second down and throw it deep on 3rd down!

What we need to do is get the ball control long drives going so the defence has to respect the underneath stuff so you have a chance at the deep stuff later – but until you have the defence looking short the long stuff fails unless you get lucky (yes you Mr Nicks).

The second consideration of the three and outs is that the defence is not getting a rest and whilst the DL is not at full strenghth they are getting tired like last year.

So let’s forgot the bombs away on 3rd and 2 and play move the chain football!

i asked Ed before the season if we could expect another 33 catch season from Boss…

and it looks like that’s the game plan with KG calling plays…

if a guy is good enough to trust in the 4th quarter, well guess what Kevin, he’s good enough to trust the entire game. he should be abusing teams on those short 3rd downs….forget throwing the ball to Hedgecock already.

This is a great team w/ horrible coaching…I’m sorry to say it and I know i’m gonna catch flack…but when Eli is missing, you reel him in and run the ball or throw short…you don’t ask him to throw long.

No adjustments at all…by the time Sheridan finally caught on but it was too damn late.

quick passes. If we’re gonna pass over giving it to Jacobs, then at least let them be high percentage stuff.

On the passing to Hedgecock, I think Eli’s getting rattled a bit and not realizing that he has more time.

I don’t think its a pass they’re planning to do, its actually more like a throwaway pass.

To which…I ask why the MF is Hedgecock not in there blocking?

Beat hte Eagles, I don’t care about the 1-2 thing…..

without linebackers or safeties. We could REALLY use some help from the Walking Wounded.
The offense wouldn’t have to worry as much about “finding a rhythm” if the defense kept giving them a short field. But you guys have already made most of the points that need to be made: Defensive play calling = bad. Offensive play calling = less-than-great.
WRs need to make plays.
Speaking of which – did Ramses Barden hit Coughlin’s car or something? Steal Eli’s lunch? I just fail to see why we don’t TRY the ol “Throw It To The Really Tall Guy” play.
Anyway, no panic…but let’s get to work.

1. Feagles looks old if you need him to put the ball into the corner at the 10 yard line he is your man, but he can no longer kick the ball down the field for 50 or 60 yards.

2.Jacobs needs to get the ball more. Bradshaw only need to come in and get the ball 10 or less times per game. Let Jacobs be the work horse he is.(ohh and yes he isnt slamming into guys everytime he gets the ball now) He has matured a little bit and looks like he wants to play int he league for a while and you dont do that by finishing off every play with a full power hit into another player.

3.If i had to place this loss on anyone player it would be Feagles. I dunno if TV coverage showed this but after every bad kick he was shaking his head and saying something to the Ref like he wanted some kind of penalty. I like the guy but if you remmber in the preseason he was looking really fat and had a huge gut. It looks like he lost a few pounds before the season started but i think his age is finally catching up with him. Might be worth it if possible to bring in a young punter to punt for distance and keep Feagles the rest of the season for coffin kicks.

There’s a reason this offense has no consistency, or for the worse, the consistency of what they give you. The Giants are only mixing and matching a couple few plays, on any given down for the entire game!

A simple run between the tackles or an ill advised draw play. There’s our running game! A dink-or-dunk pass to the sideline for the WR and hope he gains considerable YAC! Or, the “stack the box” and Eli will check-off to something deep down either sideline or deep middle, for a low percentage of success! While i’m at it, the screen!

Not too hard to game plan if your an opposing DC, if you ask me.

Defensively, well it did have a pulse against the Cards, but seemed pedestrian. I believe there was time in the game and Sheridan went back to the vanilla rush four only and Warner had time to start his grocery list! IMO, though we did blitz more, it was nothing that Warner hasn’t seen before! As far as i’m concerned, Sheridan seems hesitant to blitz, a far cry from what was advertised as he was suppose to add a twist to this unit? The Cards, actually didn’t have a problem showing Eli a look or two, for the most part.

But for some reason, why is it that a handful of fans (from a blog) seem to recognize this, but these guy’s are paid 7 figures to appease the masses and in the process, they don’t seem to have a clue with their failures, but it’s still the same?

I’m not going to jump off the ledge, but there seems to be too many inconsistencies that can be corrected that we know, but the trust we have, is now in question!

Well, it was Labour Day in New Zealand yesterday. That meant a day off work … and ESPN were showing the Giants-Cards game live (1.30pm), and the sun was shining. That’s where the fun ended! I don’t get to see the Giants often, except highlights, but if yesterday was a ‘regular’ performance then I can see why. The Cards were amazing, their D-Line was intimidating and solid. BJ made a couple of good penetrations, but generally there was little space. Their pass coverage easily outshone the Giants WRs, who were generally poor at running their routes. The Giants pass rush was weak … ‘nearly getting there’ is not the same thing as ‘getting there’. Yes, Warner got knocked down, but he got the ball away first. I fully agree with previous posts that the G-Men appeared to have no plan-B, in any department. No plan-B about how to ramp up the pressure on Warner, no plan-B about dealing with the excellent Cardinals blitz pressure, no plan-B about how to progress the ball … 1 or 2 3rd-downs in the second half is simply not acceptable. Senior players need to take a long look in the mirror, but the numbskulls calling the plays need to get better prepared .. and quickly. Did they not expect the blitz pressure from the Cards? The same thing happened last week vs Saints. Surely one of the defining characteristics of sentient life it the ability to learn from past experience. Simply living in the past (2007) will not cut it.

 Have we forgotten that we won the whole thing just 2 seasons ago with this coach? I do agree that we need to change some things and I have confidence that TC will do just that, its October and now is the time to to work these things out, I’d rather peak in January, let the Saints own September and October, it’s who’s left standing at the end.
 So lets not panick just yet, remember now that everyone thinks we suck we can get back to having a chip on our shoulder and playing Giants football!

The Giants also need to realize that the fans and announcers knew what Omaha meant in their snap count, and it was obvious that Arizona did too. They were getting a great jump off of the ball because every team Eli says “Omaha”, it means that the next “Hut” out of his mouth means to snap the ball. This has been ongoing, but hopefully now that it is so obvious it will get fixed.

the cardinals defence really look like the giants D out there, not to mention for the past 2 games our offence has been exposed. basically bring saftys in the box and 1 on 1 press with our recivers. mark my words, we are going to be seeing that from opposing teams until we get it fixed. dont be surprised if the eagles do that to us next week, esipecally with their talented corners. as for sheridan? that man looks lost. at 1 point in the game i saw the giants have 3 down lineman and tuck was moving around the b gap and the c gap like he was a LB. i do like the 34 “teq” but we dident have the personal on the field to make it sucessful. tuck looked very very angry.

And we can still make some noise in the division and the playoffs — with that said TC is right, this team has a lot of work to do — The O looked worse this week than it did against the saints – I’m putting that on Gilbride and Eli. We all know about Gilbride but it seemed as if Eli would audible right into the cards D last night, which is not like him and they just did not execute well. Ball control, short passes, where was Beckum? I know he is unproven but why not give it a shot. Gilbride said he didn’t know Nicks looked faster with the ball than running routes, maybe there’s a surprise waiting if you try something else. The cards strength is their DB’s why not work on their LB ‘s . On the other hand the D for playing on a short field held the cards to 3/14 on third down, but when it counted they were not in position to make a play. I thought this was a man press blitzing team? Was the loss of KP really that big? I know Boley being out has made a difference in the match ups but even if he was in there I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in a zone defense covering air which has been happening the passed two weeks.

Defense must be abolished.

w/ 5 minutes left in the Game it was like sheridan finally realized “oh crap” i gotta get to Warner…so what did he do, he put the secondary in Man coverage and rushed extra guys…and what did we do? Get the ball back.

it sounds simply i know, but we gotta get rid of this zone crap.

Kill the QB and let the corners do their job!!!

Webster was guarding 2 guys all by himself on one occasion….if Warner saw it it woulda been an easy TD.

and what about the blown coverage when Boldin was wide open in the endzone.

it’s clear this team can’t play zone coverage. Wake up Billy.

I have to get on Gilbride a little bit more than I did

Rushing plays Cardinals (last in the NFL) 22 Giants (Power running team ? ) 26

There have been a few posts on the theme of imposing the ‘Giants game’ on other team rather than trying to second guess the opposition. The advantage of this is playing to ones own strengths and making the opponents react, change, and make the mistakes. So here is the question … what is the Giants game? This team has been built on the run and powerful defence. The passing game is in its infancy at this time. I guess a couple more years will see Nicks, Smith and Manningham really show their potential. In the meantime the watchword is KISS … Keep It Simple Stupid! … run and tackle, run and tackle, run and tackle. How hard is that?

They seem to be on a mission to prove that Eli and this young core of WR’s can light it up week after week. This O could not do that with Plax, Shockey, & Toomer. Bombs on third and short and to start the game. I think they are trying too hard to prove they can win by throwing the ball without Plax. I understand taking a couple of shots because guys are in man coverage and their are opportunities but sometimes it’s about moving the sticks and sustaining drives. Even if your not getting much with the Run because teams are gearing up to stop it let Jacobs where them down and put yourself in 3rd and 5 situations convert a few and as the game goes on you’ll were the oppenet down. All of these low percentage passes are giving downs away. Use your best and most relaible route runners and recievers Smith & Boss over the middle on 3rd and less than 8 and stop going for the TD all the time. I don’t know maybe it’s Eli being too much of a gambler, he has a history of that, or play selection but put some shorter passes in. How about a slant with Mario Manningham or Nix, Tommer and Plax ran those plays well. Maybe the learning curve with these younger guys is bigger than we think and the coaches are just letting them do what they do best which go deep, but Smith and Boss are reliable 8-12 yard guys that should be more involved on third down. When they won the SB it seemed as if in the playoffs they decided to simplify the O and run first and then let Eli convert third and short. Sure they took their shots but for the most part it was intermediate passing to the sticks to keep drives going and a lot of it was to possion guys like Smith and Toomer. Obviousely a lot of that was made easy by Plax being there but they still seemed to play within themsleves and were not hell bend on going bombs away. I love Eli but he’s not his brother and along with Gilbrith I think they see this young raw talent and speed with these WR’s and think they can become deep ball passing team. Even when Payton Manning won the Super Bowl he won it with a lot of short and intermediate passing to the RB’s and TE’s in the playoff wins. Go back to basics with Eli. Let him manage the game, take a few shots deep, and let him loose in the 2 minute drill late in the game if its close.
I’m scared for this game against Philly becasue you know Philly is going to play 8-9 guys up and blitz up the gut and I guarentee you the Giants open the game by passing the ball deep and I think the Giants will be out of Sync like they were last night and like they were late last year against Philly. Change the plan this week. Philly has lost two LB’s, run the ball and get Boss and Smith over the middle in missmatches against the depleted LB’s and young safteys. I could guarntee you one of the first plays this Sunday is a deep bomb to Hixon. I hope it works for once.

1) Eli
I’m eli’s biggest fan, and I took some flak at school saying Eli is the most clutch qb in the game. But yesterday was mostly on him. All that changing plays, and not hiking right until the play clock is near zero shouldn’t be. A good chunk of his throws weren’t very good. And that last desperation throw into double coverage, I saw a free nicks underneath, and others said boss was free at the seems. Eli needs to step up his game to what we know he can do

2) Shotgun
Why were we in shotgun 90% of the 2nd half? We were winning, had loads of time, and we kept passing the ball. At least pretend to be interested in running. Which leads me to my next reason

3) Lack of Play Action
Isn’t that what this team is based off of? Establishing the run and using Play Action? Maybe some of those deep routes would have worked with Play Action. Can anyone tell me about how many times Play Action was called last night?

4) Personnel Decisions (e.g. Hixon on deep routes)
Hixon is a scrawny little guy who should never be running deep. That should be Nicks, Smith, or even Manningham’s job. Putting Hixon in takes time away from our better receivers

5) Lack of Boss and Smith until too late
Smith was the #1 receiver the last few weeks. Why not throw it to him before the 4th quarter? Boss showed us what he can do, and he always makes big plays.

They’re are more. The officiating was much better, only one call that should have gone our way (PI, not even pretending to make a play on the ball), but can’t complain since the Cards had more penalty yards. Feagles had an uncharacteristically off day.

The D played its heart out. There were maybe only 2 or 3 plays where we were completely out of play (Fitz wide open, Boldin for 40 some yards, and Pierce getting manhandled). But if the D gives us 3 chances in the 4th quarter to tie it, we need to take it and run wild with it

with all of the injuries to Philly’s LB’s and a couple of young safteys still getting their legs under them as starters Boss better be more involved this week over the middle. He made some big plays last year in the playoff loss and yet the Giants kept going deep to the outside.

KG won’t do a damn thing about it…it’s something I said coming into the season, and i’ve been extremely disappointed.

I’m expecting another 33 reception season from Boss….and it’s killing me.

and ones I’ve argued with friends, family, and coworkers. But remember fellow fans, if we win next week we are still in first place with a 3-0 record in division. For me at least, win next week and all is forgiven (especially against the Iggles). Lose, and I’m reaching for my pitchfork and torch.

Why dont we use Boss! I think he can be a major weapon in this offense, but he never seems to be a significant part the offensive gameplan. No TDs yet this year- WHY! It is so frustrating watching this offense!!!