'Kudos & Wet Willies' ... finally
by Ed Valentine on Aug 23, 2009 6:57 PM EDT
in Kudos & Wet Willies
20 comments
Now that I am back home, here is your 'Kudos & Wet Willies' review of Saturday night's debacle in Chicago. Head coach Tom Coughlin said after the game that his team was "embarrassed." I watched every snap, unfortunately, and I don't disagree. Thank goodness the game didn't count.
Anyway, there were a handful of bright spots. I will start with those.
Kudos to ...
- The running backs: Brandon Jacobs 'Laron'd' Bears' middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, and that made my night. If I ever think about Saturday night again, that's what I want to remember. Danny Ware ran 8 times for 34 yards, caught 4 passes and had an impressive 34-yard kickoff return. Ahmad Bradshaw had 6 carries for 54 yards. Derrick who? There is nothing wrong with the stable of running backs the Giants still have.
- Jonathan Goff: The young middle linebacker was all over the field in the second half. I had been wondering if Goff was on the roster bubble. After his impressive work Saturday, I don't think so.
That's about all the good stuff I can remember. And, no, I'm not going back and watching this bit of ugliness again. Let the coaches and players suffer through that.
Wet Willies ...
The hardest question here is .... where to begin. I think I will start with ...
- The first defensive unit: All of it. Every last one of 'em. This is supposed to be a dominant, historically good Super Bowl caliber group. Even without Antonio Pierce or Kenny Phillips. Instead, the front seven got blown off the ball so often they looked like an expansion team taking the field for the first time. Pathetic. No linemen in position, no linebackers coming up to make plays, more missed tackles than they had pretty much all of last season. I don't know what they were trying to do, but Bill Sheridan's front seven played as bad as humanly possible in the first half. Now, to single out some players.
- Chase Blackburn: Nice stats with six tackles, but Blackburn was terrible subbing for Pierce in the middle. On Ike Forte's 32-yard touchdown run, Blackburn got blown at least 15 yards off the line of scrimmage by a single blocker. I'm not sure I have ever seen a professional linebacker get pushed back like that.
- C.C. Brown: Pray with me that this guy does not have to play many meaningful downs this season. He made 8 tackles, but he missed a whole bunch more. And Brown cannot cover anyone. On one play Devin Hester blew about 10-12 yards past the safeties (Brown was closest), and Jay Cutler managed to overthrow him. I don't even think Brown knew Hester was back there.
- Guy Whimper, Andrew Carnahan, Orrin Thompson, Cliff Louis, Terrance Pennington: The sooner the Giants get all of these backup offensive linemen off the roster the better. Terrible is not nearly a strong enough word to describe the work of these guys in the first two exhibition games.
- Carl Banks: Now, I loved Banks as a player. What Giants' fan doesn't? And I know Saturday night was awful to watch. But Banks' negativity and condescending 'we were better in the old days' tone didn't help. He was critical of anything and everything right from the beginning. He even went so far as to criticize, and circle a player on the monitor, for apparently missing a tackle -- when the runner was already three yards out of bounds. C'mon, Carl. The game was bad enough, and you made it worse. Sideline 'reporter' Howard Cross didn't help much, either.
0 recs |
20 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
chase...
yes, he got blown out on the TD run so did Cofield. But chase did make a nice play when he got in chicago’s backfield and tackled the RB for a loss…made a nice tackle later on a short pass to a WR. It just seemed like when the LBs weren’t rushing they were dropping way back. everything underneath was wide open. and like you pointed out the deep stuff was there too…the score coulda been much worse.
by andiamo708 on Aug 23, 2009 7:53 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Cross' speaking ability
matched his receiving ability from back in the day. I remember a game in the 90’s when Dave Brown or Kent Graham was the QB and we lost to the Steelers by a few points, Cross had the late game winning TD bounce off of his chest in the end zone. And I had forgotten about that comment Banks made on the play where the receiver is out of bounds, I’m pretty sure the Giants player made a good move to avoid hitting him and getting the flag (although maybe it would have been inexplicably picked up like another call). Over all terrible production value. No replays on key downs, getting the down and distance wrong numerous times, cutting to commercials during live action! Oh yeah, the Giants played mostly awful as well. Hopefully the lack of blitzing and screens was to keep things under the vest, because I don’t know if I can go a whole season with such vanilla playcalling.
Homer: Aw, twenty dollars! I wanted a peanut!
Homer's Brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!
Homer: Explain how!
Homer's Brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services!
Homer: Woo-hoo!
by bigbluethruandthru on Aug 23, 2009 7:58 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Vanilla
Well, when you can’t block anything you can’t reach too deep into the playbook.
by Ed Valentine on Aug 23, 2009 8:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
But like andiamo said on the other post
calling some screens is how you make the Dline slow down a little. They were pinning their ears back the entire game. And I was more concerned with the defensive play calling. It looked like about 90% four man rush and 7 man drop into coverage.
Homer: Aw, twenty dollars! I wanted a peanut!
Homer's Brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!
Homer: Explain how!
Homer's Brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services!
Homer: Woo-hoo!
by bigbluethruandthru on Aug 23, 2009 8:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Play-calling
Like I said last week about the offense, I don’t think it’s fair to criticize pre-season play-calling. You stay vanilla for the most part in these games. You don’t show all your packages, you just try to see how guys handle their man-on-man assignments.
by Ed Valentine on Aug 23, 2009 8:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Well than the Bears cheated
‘cause it seemed to my untrained eye that I saw more than four rushers on numerous occasions. I don’t know why, they seemed to be doing fine with only four.
Homer: Aw, twenty dollars! I wanted a peanut!
Homer's Brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!
Homer: Explain how!
Homer's Brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services!
Homer: Woo-hoo!
by bigbluethruandthru on Aug 23, 2009 8:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Also, my Sintim man-crush came down from last week
specifically the play where he was defending Olsen on an out route. You read things like “needs to work on drop back coverage skills” and you forget about them when you get excited seeing him rush the QB. But then you are reminded when you see him actually stop moving in coverage, and stand still looking into the backfield, while Olsen runs four feet to the side of him and catches a big first down play.
Homer: Aw, twenty dollars! I wanted a peanut!
Homer's Brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!
Homer: Explain how!
Homer's Brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services!
Homer: Woo-hoo!
by bigbluethruandthru on Aug 23, 2009 8:02 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
to be expected...
we knew sintim had to get up to speed in pass coverage…last game all we asked him to do was rush the passer. truth be told, he needs this…let him get beat now so he can get better.
by andiamo708 on Aug 23, 2009 8:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Oh absolutely
it was just a stark reminder of the work that needs to be done. Actually, that’s what this whole game was.
Homer: Aw, twenty dollars! I wanted a peanut!
Homer's Brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!
Homer: Explain how!
Homer's Brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services!
Homer: Woo-hoo!
by bigbluethruandthru on Aug 23, 2009 8:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I think the whole team deserves..
A big “wet willy”..Some of us remember those awful years where one or two players were all we had to root for and cheer while we watched them lose. They scored 3 lousy points against a lousy team..Nothing we all were starting to get excited about on both sides of the ball ever showed up Saturday night. Yes it is pre-season but we are well into it, and I see no improvement from a “team” standpoint. Where was our defense that we thought was going to be awesome?..and those back-up OL guys are going to kill us. What if anything can the coaching staff glean from a game like that to evaluate players?
by Bobbiblue on Aug 24, 2009 4:49 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I saw the game on the local Chicago broadcast.
They were going nuts—Cutler to the HOF, Bears to the SB, etc. As for the Giants, the negative comments were minimal. It was almost as if they wanted the Giants to be Supermen so that the Bears win would be more impressive.
WOD, the game was a bummer, although there are lots of explanations for what happened. The positives are that TC can use it to motivate the players and the players will themselves should be consumed with the desire to prove how much better they are than they showed.
Maybe it’s time to recognize that AP is the best we’ve got at MLB and hope he can return to form this year.
by blue gonz on Aug 24, 2009 5:07 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Yes..we can hope
that this is a good time to learn a lesson, and “pins” all their ears back going forward..and we did have alot of guys inactive, but that is scary..If that happens during the regular season, we’re screwed…and AP?..he calls the shots on defense..They looked lethargic out there without him.
by Bobbiblue on Aug 24, 2009 5:19 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
if they are better against the jets
you can say it was the short week between the 2 preseason games
by lou b on Aug 24, 2009 9:10 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
We can only hope that's that it was
LETS GO GMEN
by I_Formation27 on Aug 24, 2009 9:20 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Banks
If you thought Sat. night was bad, you should have heard him on the WFAN last year. He blasted this team all day long whenever he had the opportunity.
by Cody K on Aug 24, 2009 1:10 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
he aint no cheerleader
I’m not sure what to think.. he could be like a lot of other explayers and refuse to critize other current players, but a part of me likes his honesty because I get a real view of whats happening but I think he should cut the boys in blue a little slack.. He does parise them when the make a play though
by jim dandy on Sep 5, 2009 8:52 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
So they're not gonna just handover the Lombardi Trophy?
I’m really hoping we didn’t wanna show our hand and were perhaps impeded by a late start to training camp and extremely short work week between games. Wow, what a stinker!
The backup O-Line was atrocious, but our starting 5 weren’t doing so hot either.
Our secondary was horrible! I know we were missing Phillips and Ross but I’d like to have a lil more confidence w/ this group, and I completely don’t.
I’m pretty sure that was my HS JV squad at LB. It sure wasn’t a professional football team’s.
R we trying to kill Jacobs? They were pounding him like this was a cold weather playoff game. I guess we want to get him in form, but lets not wear him down in preseason.
W/ that in mind, y I’d like to see some of the younger receivers get some looks w/ the first string.
R we just writing off Bhomar? Not even giving him a look? Isn’t that just a waste of a draft pick? Woodson hasn’t shown much, so y not?
Also would like to point out that Carolina was pretty vanilla w/ their first string D and I do believe Chicago saw that. They brought a lot of heat on us. It was like they were trying to make a statement. If there was a statement we were trying to make, I think it was, “Coach Coughlin, can we please run gut busters all next week?”
by YankeeDudeL on Aug 24, 2009 1:38 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
right on Jacobs
He knows the plays, he’s in peak shape. Can we just give him 3 runs a game until Week 1? SOmeone already suggested this earlier… it’s enough to get him through 16 games, never mind 20. WHo’s going to be more durable this year, B-Jake or Westbrook?
You play to win the game!
by Simms-McConkey on Aug 24, 2009 2:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Westbrook is already hurt........
and Jacobs has 2 guys that can carry the O if given a chance (then again, Bradshaw seems to love to take his chances away by playing poorly in practice)
Do what Jerry Hairston do
by FreeBradshaw on Aug 24, 2009 3:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Community Guidelines
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
Get Your Giants' Gear
Certain photos copyright © 2009 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
