Been told that just about everybody really enjoys the little homilies we often start the report out with. Without comment other there just might be a message in there somewhere here are a couple of our favorites:
Think we’ve talked about this one before, but back early in his tenure at South Carolina, Steve Spurrier found himself down something 28-7 at the half and when the cute young sideline reporter asked him what his team was going to do in the second half to slow down the other team which had been moving the ball up and down the field at will Spurrier replied: ’we’re sure as hell not going to do what he did in the first half!’
In happier times, at least for him, former Cincinnati Reds’ manager Pete Rose was quoted as saying that the key to the job was as much as possible maximizing the opportunities for the players to do what they did well and minimizing the times they were forced to do the things they did poorly.
Otherwise we’re just about as speechless as everybody else after Sunday’s tumultuous loss to Philadelphia in which the Giants rang up over 500 yards in total offense and 38 points only to see the defense give it all back with ridiculous ease in a game that ended badly in a 45-38 loss.
Not surprisingly, there’s been a lot of gnashing of teeth in Giants land trying to figure out just what has gone wrong with a defense that was supposed to be the Giants strength this fall, but has fallen to 28th in the NFL in scoring defense. Indeed, in the 8 games since going 5-0 (a stretch in which they allowed under 15 points per game), the Giants have surrendered 32 points per game; they have also allowed at least 21 points in every game since including 3 in which they gave up 40 or more.
And while there is a ton of blame to go around, here’s a quick chronology of when and how it all seemed to go wrong:
Training camp: The Giants front office went to great lengths to add depth to the defense, especially the front seven, which really wore down at the end of the previous season. The best made sense, but then the injures started to multiply such that be the start of the season DTs Chris Canty (hamstring), Jay Alford (season ending knee), Barry Cofield (knee), Freddie Robbins (knee), and Rocky Bernard (hamstring); LB Michael Boley (hip surgery and later knee); and CBs Aaron Ross (hamstring) and Kevin Dockery (hamstring). Other than Alford all are now playing, but a pretty good case can be made that other than perhaps Boley, none of the previously injured players is playing anywhere near their pre-injury potential.
Week two at Jerry Jones Temple to himself: DE Justin Tuck, the heart and soul of the Giants defense and one of two defenders the team really couldn’t afford to lose, damaged his shoulder when tripped by Dallas OT Flozell Adams and has for all intents and purposes being playing with one arm. And with DE Osi Umenyiora clearly not 100% back from the ACL that ended his 2008 season before it started, the Giants outside pass went poof! Then just days after the Dallas game, emerging FS Kenny Phillips, the other defender the Giants really couldn’t afford to lose, went on IR with a potentially career-threatening chronic knee condition.
Katrina II strikes in New Orleans in week 6: C.C. Brown, a career run-stuufing SS who was trying to replace Phillips at FS, is burned for three long TD passes, the difference in a 48-27 loss to Drew Brees and the Saints.
All that left the Giants’ defensive brain trust with a double-edged headache: one, they weren’t getting much pass rush at all if any, and two their secondary, particularly the safeties were terribly vulnerable to the deep ball. And what the NFL manual in such a situation calls for is for the defense to back off, play a lot of zone and try and keep everything in front of them. It also makes a lot of common sense; the problem with a lot of common sense, though, is that it doesn’t really work that way and that’s what happened to the Giants D. They backed the safeties off to protect against getting beaten deep, but that has left acres of open space in underneath zones that opposing teams have been able to exploit almost at will.
It also appears that the Giants have dialed up far fewer blitzes of late which is part of the NFL book on how to deal with the kind of situation the Giants are currently facing. In particular, the Giants appear to have really reduced the number of blitzes on 3rd downs. The current M.O. seems to be to try and get the other team in a 3rd and long (or at least longish) by coming on second downs and then forcing something underneath on 3rd down by dropping off on the 3rd down. Again, though, the Giants zones have been dropping so deep that there is almost always plenty of room in the middle of the field for opposing teams to convert just about anything they want.
Of course, it doesn’t help that when they have blitzed the Giants still haven’t gotten much consistent pressure. Of course, you also can’t blitz on 3rd down if you don’t get the other into a 3rd down as happened Sunday against when the Eagles were able to really put a stake in the Giants heart when they drove 91-yards in the final quarter for a TD that put the game out of reach without ever being forced to convert a 3rd down.
And the fact that the Giants secondary, again in particular the secondary, appears to have repeatedly also blown assignments also hasn’t helped. Sunday against the Eagles SS Michael Johnson, the one supposed constant in the secondary this fall who the team should be able to rely to get people in the right spot, got caught out of position for the too many timeth, when he jumped a TE - who for the record was already double-teamed - and left a gaping hole in a 2-deep zone that Eagles’ receiver DeSean Jackson ran through enroute to a 60-yard TD. What really hurt was that the score came all of one play after the Giants had just taken the lead after battling back from not one, not two, but three two TD deficits.
That particular play, to mention 2-3 others on which Jackson was wide open, also begs the question how a guy who the Giants had to identified as the player they weren’t going to let beat them could be so consistently wide open. It appears, though, that the Giants really took to heart defensive co-ordinator Bill Sheridan’s preaching about the need to switch-up coverages to keep opponents off balance. In the Eagles game the plan seems to have been we won’t cover Jackson in a zone, then after a while we won’t cover him while we’re in man. That’ll really confuse.
And anyone hoping that the Giants come up with a new plan given the extra day until Monday’s game in Washington is probably going to be disappointed. Certainly, based on his public comments, when admittedly he doesn’t say much, head coach Tom Coughlin appears to be taking the approach that the problem is one that can be fixed by working ‘harder’ with the players and through ‘better preparation‘.
Problem is that the Giants staff looking like they are trying to pound square pegs into round holes, particularly with the guys they are trying to work at safety. Aaron Rouse, the guy the Giants are trying to use a lot at FS these days is at best a strong safety who a lot of teams thought would be best suited to play LB at the next level. Green Bay obviously had their doubts as they released him a month ago. Of course, it’s a bit unfair to single out Rouse, who has actually been solid enough against the run with the Giants, because its probably unfair to ask him to try and run 40-45 yards downfield with a jet like DeSean Jackson as he was on another devastating play when McNabb hit a wide-open #10 for a 44-yard gain on a 3rd and twenty in the final minute of the first half that set up yet another demoralizing score just after the Giants had cut into the lead.
If nothing else, it appears the Giants simply can’t afford to play zone. Indeed, just about all the big plays going the other way of late have come with the Giants in a zone. And for whatever reason so many of those big plays have come when receivers have been passed off from one DB to another but the connection just hasn’t happened. The bottom line is that the Giants have an offense that can score points in bunches, certainly enough to get into the playoffs. However, while the defense doesn’t have to pitch shutouts, it has to top somebody once in a while.
Fact is what we’d do if we were in DC Bill Sheridan’s shoes, if they’d let us, and that’s a huge if, is junk the pro forma 4-3-4 defense and simply find some way to get my best 11 players on the field and let them do what they do best. Right now the Giants’ base defense has a very read-and-react look to it as they line up the 2 or LBs 4-5 yards off the line of scrimmage and between the OTs. We’d be sorely tempted the rest of the season to bring the OLBs up to the line of scrimmage and try to get them into the backfield as much as possible, especially in passing situations. It would also be tempting in the secondary to simply line-up the 4-5 corners across the field and have them cover man for man. That would make the Giants somewhat more vulnerable to the run, but it ain’t the run that’s killing them these days.
We aren’t holding our breath though. First, it would be totally out of character for head coach Tom Coughlin and company to start thinking outside the box at this point in time. Secondly, with Washington and Carolina, a pair of teams that just offer the same kind of offensive threat as most of the Giants’ recent opponents, the thinking at the Meadowlands likely will be that they just may be able to get away with what they have against the Redskins and Panthers. Washington, though, could present an interesting challenge for the Giants on Monday night. The Redskins are only 4-9, but lost consecutive heartbreakers to Dallas, Philadelphia and New Orleans in games which they had the lead in the final two minutes before breaking out against Oakland last weekend. If there is a silver lining to Washington’s 34-13 rout of Oakland its that teams coming off that kind of win often find it hard to get back up the following week. The much bigger issue, though, will be what game the Giants bring. The Giants have been playing well enough to win at home in the past two months, however, they were flatter than pancakes in their three road losses since going 5-0 to start the season. Obviously, if they aren’t able to generate more intensity than they showed in New Orleans, Philadelphia and Denver, then all the scheming in the world isn’t going to make a whit of difference.
While the Giants don’t play until Monday evening, the NFC East race picks up again Saturday night when Dallas plays the unbeaten Saints in New Orleans. In fact, to have any realistic hope of making the playoffs, the Giants have to win both the Washington and Carolina games as they simply can’t count on winning at Minnesota the final week of the schedule even if the Vikings have clinched the NFC North and end up resting a bunch of starters including QB Brett Favre. Meanwhile, Dallas has to lose at least twice the rest of the way. Hard to see how the Cowboys win at New Orleans leaving them to wrap up with divisional games at Washington and at home versus Philadelphia.
Bowl season kicks off … For the record, if the 2010 draft were held today the Giants would have the 20th pick overall and with the college bowl season kicking off this weekend, there’s another chance to get a final look at some of the Giants’ likely targets come the early rounds of the upcoming draft. And one can warm up for the Cowboys-Saints encounter Saturday evening by checking out the early moments of the St. Petersburg Bowl on ESPN at 8 PM ET on Saturday when Rutgers plays Central Florida. Indeed, if we had to put together a list of the top 5 or so prospects for the Giants this coming April, Rutgers’ junior OT Anthony Davis (#75, 6-5, 325). Davis doesn’t get quite the same national pub as the LTs from Oklahoma - Oklahoma State’s Russell Okung and the Sooners’ Trent Williams - but he’s a true wide-body in the Giants’ mold with long arms and great feet. In fact, Rutgers actually has a couple of OTs with NFL potential as RT Kevin Haslam (#78, 6-6, 295) should get some late round consideration. Meanwhile, the Knights defense also has a couple of people to watch in LB Ryan D’Imperio (#44, 6-2, 240) and CB Devin McCourt (#21, 5-10, 185). For its part, UCF has a DT worth a look as a potential late rounder or free agent in Torrell Troup (#98, 6-2, 315).
Saturday’s early bowl game - the New Mexico Bowl between Nevada and Wyoming also on ESPN at 2:30 PM ET - has at least one player to check out in Wyoming DE John Fletcher (#91, 6-5 275) who is a rarity in college football in that he’s a full-sized DE with the size to slide inside to DT on passing downs. Nevada also has a pair of emerging DEs in junior tweeners Kevin Basped (#99, 6-5, 240) and Dontay Moch (#55, 6-1, 240), the WAC defensive player of the year, while FS Jonathan Amaya (#49, 6-1, 190) could be something of a sleeper in the deep secondary. Meanwhile, OT Alonzo Durham (#73, 6-4, 290) isn’t overly big but is very dependable.
As usual, have a great weekend…
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