Looking Back, Moving Forward, Week 1-2

"If the Giants can keep this close and keep the Washington Redskins special teams from scoring on us, then I think we'll pull out a close victory, 10-7."

What the hell was I thinking?

Instead of a close, hard-fought battle between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins we ended up with a game in which Rex Grossman - career backup - out-played Eli Manning. Instead of an opening day game in which the Giants defense would come out and prove to the world that were not in trouble, we got a defense that looked like it couldn't stop the run, play the pass, or get pressure on the Quarterback. Instead of a game where the offensive line got a chance to mesh together, we get an offensive line that just couldn't do anything.

Instead of a close game, we ended up with a horrible excuse of a performance. Looking back is going to be a touch painful this week.

Eli Manning was 18 of 32 for 268 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception returned for a touchdown. If there's one thing I'm tired of, it's playing the blame game. Last year I was willing to let Eli slip past his poor interception numbers, but not this year - and not this interception.

Kareem McKenzie needs to take a lot of blame for the interception - how do you get a defensive lineman get air like that on a pass play, I'll never know - but Eli is just as much to blame because he simply had a horrible game.

With a 56.3% completion rating and a 70.8 passer rating you're simply not going to win many games, and, quite frankly, there are better passers out there on the free agency market. Simply put: while you can play the blame game Eli Manning sucked on Sunday.

Then again, so did his offensive line. I'm watching a replay of the game and they simply couldn't do anything. After the first 12 carries Washington honed in on what they were doing - running to the strongest two run blockers on the line - and shut them down. Ed Valentine questioned why the Giants stopped running after 12 carries and to me it's very clear: the Giants offensive line cannot open holes for anyone. By the time they had shut the running game down Washington was keying in on the two gaps that the Giants could run to.

The passing game didn't fare any better. With Victor Cruz dropping passes and the offensive line not giving Eli enough time to get the pass off, there just wasn't much going on outside of pure talent between Eli Manning and Hakeem Nicks.

Do you really want to know how bad the offensive line was in this game? they gave Eli Manning an average of 2 seconds inside the pocket. Most analysts consider 3 seconds the standard and the minimum amount of time the Quarterback can spend in the pocket to get a play off. 3 seconds is enough time to get your receivers into position and make a play. 2 seconds is enough time to dump off the ball to the short pass on the outside, or run for your life, and when you run you make bad decisions.

Eli Manning did a lot of running on Sunday, which led to some bad decisions.

I could talk about their 1-for-10 third down efficiency but why bother? The problem for the Giants isn't in converting - they were 2 for 3 in the redzone - it's in execution and play calling. you don't go 1 for 10 on third down without having a serious lack of execution on the line. Really, it all comes down to the Giants offensive line here - they were the ones who made didn't make the plays necessary.

On the other side of the ball, the defense has some glaring issues that just aren't going to be fixed anytime soon.

Rex Grossman has a career passer rating of 72.1. On Sunday his passer rating was 110.5.

That really says it all here: the Giants defense made one of the worst Quarterbacks in the league look like Tom Brady picking apart a playoff contender.

Now, not everything is bad here. Before we pick apart the defense let's just say that the defensive front on pass-rushing looks good. They had 4 sacks and kept Grossman thinking. The bad part is that when they didn't get pressure on Grossman - which was frequently enough that he had a 11.5 passer rating - Rex burned the Giants secondary for 305 yards and two touchdowns.

The secondary for the Giants looks abysmal. Grossman was throwing to Corey Webster all night because Corey was confused and getting beat left and right. In fact, if you look at the game you'll see a lot of mix-ups in the backfield and a lot of opportunities that were missed by Grossman that better Quarterbacks would have gladly exploited for big plays.

To put it bluntly: the defense needs serious help. Unless that front four can consistently put pressure on the Quarterback to hide their glaring defects in the backfield, we're going to give up a lot of points.

Finally, let's take a look back at the Special Teams. Oh, they were special. I don't think I need to remind you that Lawrence Tynes was 0/1 on field goals. The blocked field goal wasn't on the special teams line - the kick was just so low that it managed to find a players hand. That's a problem that Tynes needs to address, because being unable to kick a field goal is going to severely limit this teams offensive output.

Steve Weatherford was OK. While his directional punting wasn't anything special, but he at least managed to keep players close to the sidelines, giving our players a definitive point of attack.

Punting and Kicking coverage looked much improved this Sunday, giving up an average of 24 yards on kickoffs and 13 yards on punts. That 24 yard return average on kickoffs is entirely on the kickers shoulders, though. While the majority of kickoffs in the NFL have landed in the back of the end zone, the weakness of the Giants kickers is very evident - Tynes just doesn't have a strong leg. It's really pathetic when a kickoff lands at the 20.

In summary: the New York Giants sucked.

Moving forward to Week 2, the Giants are facing a few problems that may cost them the game on this Monday night matchup.

The biggest challenge we'll be facing, of course, is the St. Louis Rams defensive line versus our offensive line. With three sacks last week against Michael Vick and the Philadelphia Eagles, the Rams defensive line is pretty darn good. That means those four sacks the Giants gave up to the Redskins could easily turn into 6 or 8 sacks if out line play isn't significantly improved.

On the bright side, the Rams aren't the most dangerous team in the league. They gave up 236 yards on the ground and 167 yards in the air. While we only had 75 yards on the ground, we managed to put up 240 yards in the air. 

We're not the Eagles. We don't have Michael Vick - a Quarterback who needs to be spied because he can break a huge run at any time. What we do have is Eli Manning, a Quarterback who shines during the two minute drill and can thread a pass when he wants to. We also have Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw - two running backs who, when given the ball more than 12 times a game - can put up 100+ yards every game.

On offense the Rams just ... well, they're not impressive. Sam Bradford is slowly coming into his own, but while their passing game is the best offense they have, it's not the most impressive, either. Sam Bradford threw for 188 yards and no touchdowns. They had one rushing touchdown and two field goals against a defense that, while better than ours has its own set of weaknesses - those of which simply were not exploited by Sam Bradford.

I anticipate more of the same from the Rams this Sunday. They are not a team that can exploit big weaknesses in the backfield because their Quarterback and receivers just aren't that good. When Bradford comes under pressure he makes bad decisions, and with a week of preparation designed around our defensive line getting pressure on the Quarterback, I think the Rams are just going to make too many bad decisions in the throwing game.

The running game is going to be a different story, and depending on what they do during the game, I think we can effectively shut it down - assuming, of course, our Linebackers can pick up on the run a bit quicker than they did against Washington.

Overall, look for Eli Manning and the offensive line of the Giants to have a bounce-back game next Monday against a particularly weak team, and look for the defense to play to its strength - putting pressure on a young Quarterback and taking advantage of a weaker offensive line - to help the giants pick up the win 24-10.

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