Listening to Papa on the Giants defense he pointed out that 8 touchdowns have been scored against the Giants this year with the defense not on the field.
Add to that 7 possessions where the opponent's offense took over the ball inside the Giants 20, and you can see the Giants defense has been pretty solid all year, not just recently.
If you concede chip shots field goals from inside the 20 that would be 77 pts. the defense should not be charged with.
But there is no doubt, that before the season started, that this offense was going to have to carry this team to the playoffs....
Unfortunately, the offense has fallen on it's face.....Wilson was not ready for prime time.....Counting on Brown with an injury history, derailed the running game....Randle was still on the bottom end of the learning curve at the start of the season....Nicks is not Nicks.....While Cruz has played well at times, with Nicks playing poorly, defenses can concentrate on him....Murphy has done nothing.....Jernigan is a project that has not panned out....and the TE's on this team are practically non existent...
The OL is a shambles.....Boothe has finally had a bad year....but is it him, or playing next to Cordle, and the miscommunication between them? Cordle is a fill in, nothing more....there is no push from him in the running game, and he makes too many mistakes in the passing game.....Diehl, is not the player he once was....any pass rusher with some kind of move, will make him look bad....Pugh is a rookie...he makes rookie mistakes sometimes....Beatty is a disappointment this year....he was the Guy, the Giants were going to build their line around....not anymore....
Now, with this mess in front of him, and all around him, Eli is not in a comfort zone.....the trade mark of past Giant defenses against stellar qb's, is being used against him and it's having an affect....sometimes he sees pressure that is not there....sometimes the pressure makes him make poor decisions....lack of confidence in his receivers, makes him stare down one receiver....why did the coaching staff wait so long to implement a shorter passing game? This offense, still, is only managing one long drive per game....the offense has shot itself in the foot, more than opposing defenses have....and because of this, we are 4-6, instead of 6-4....
So the defense has carried the team, the last four games....and yet, we do not sack the qb....we have made some easy int's because of very poor throws by inept qb's....the main thing this defense has been able to do is stop the opposition's RB.....by taking out the running game, we have forced bad qb's to win games....but that all changes now with the rest of the season....Wilson, RGIII(yes, he is not as good as last year, but he certainly is better than the last 4 qb's we faced), Rivers, Romo, Stafford, etc.
This defense will certainly be tested.....we will find out if this defense is as good as we think it is, or if the "mirage of 4 bad qb's" was the reason....
This next game is our "season", without a doubt....it's one game at a time....if the defense can continue to play well, if this OL can get just a little better, it bodes well for the Giants....otherwise, it's all over....
This same defense blanked the bears for the second half and served up a game-winning drive the offense threw into the trash. A game that would have been won if we had a functioning offense and weren't starting players that didn't belong at this level.
This same defense has allowed 1 100 yard rusher all season.
There is a lot discussed about the fact that our wins were against 4 teams who did not have a starting QB. At the same time, we pretty much stopped the run against decent RB's. Now that we will be going up against a quality QB, it will be interesting to see whether we can stop both run and pass this weekend. It looked like in prior weeks we focused on stopping the run and dared the opposing teams to pass...waiting for that mistake. The wind may be our 12 defender vs Romo.
the sign of a great D is everyone making plays...taking turns.....coming from all angles
right now it is scary playing against this D! i will kick back and enjoy it, its been a while
It was his passive style, not disguising the defense, the run defense, etc. We are challenging receivers on the outside this year whether it is man or zone where the last few years we were constantly off. We are dialing up more blitzes or at least it seems that way since we seem to be getting closer to the QB. This was also another complaint of mine in the past because we would blitz on occasion and it wouldn't work. I'm not saying we needed to be a team that blitzed constantly but we needed to be more efficient when we did. Blitzes need to be practiced and practiced often because a lot of it is timing. Just calling a blitz to try to make something happen when that is not what you are practicing will usually lead to big plays for the offense. Our blitzes were not great in the beginning of the year but have been better of late. You actually see guys running free now which is what a well schemed blitz should do. I hated hearing Fewell in the past saying guys need to win their one on one battles. That is lazy coaching and favors an offense. An offense cannot double team every player. If they get a hat on a hat they like their chances. I think Fewell has come to realize that unless you have an LT out there you don't scheme to get one on one match ups on defense.
Now, Beason's play has been great but I think his attitude is what has taken this team to the next level. We now were giving Antrel help with the leadership role. I love Tuck but he always seems to be lacking energy. Antrel has always been that energy guy but it is tough to do on your own. Beason and Rolle have been great. Then you add in Hill's energy and it is starting to be contagious. I haven't seen Tuck play this well in years. I also think T2 being back on this team has been tremendous as well. Talent-wise I don't see any drastic changes from years past to this year. What I do see is huge increase in positive leadership. Add in the fact that the defense now feels a sense of urgency with our offense sputtering out and you can see the change.
It is never one man that changes an entire group of men around, imo, because each person has to make a change to buy in but Fewell has made noticeable changes this year and I applaud him for that. I applaud him for not becoming passive late in games. I applaud him for turning this running game around. I applaud him for challenging receivers off the line more. And I also applaud him for dialing up some more well designed blitzes. I'm still not 100% satisfied with the disguising of the defenses BUT they have definitely improved from last year. A lot of that has to do with corners being pressed up on receivers. You can run almost all of your coverages when CBs are up on WRs. When a CB is 8-10 yards off your coverages are limited.
Let's see how they do against Romo, Bob, Rivers, Wilson & Stafford.
I mean, I'm happy they're winning again and things are looing up. Players getting confident.
I'd had like to see them succeed against the successful QB's. I would love to see Russel Wilson and Matt Stafford roughed up; I'm not impressed by containing Matt Barkley and Terrelle Pryor. The tests start now, no more backups on this schedule from here on out.
Hahahahahaha.
Fire the loser! What has he ever done right for us?
Competent NFL coach. Even during the 6-game losing streak to start the season, you saw in his game plans a competency and thoroughness in confronting the opposition. Give him an elite corner and another edge rusher. It would be inspirational. One last thing: The pivotal player on this guy's D, the fulcrum, triphammer or whatever you want to call him, is the guy who replaces the third linebacker. Deon Grant, Terrell Thomas-that guy. When Fewell has this guy, his defenses stand up against the best offenses in the game. Tony Romo is a great quarterback, who when he goes on a burn, can be unstoppable for large segments of the game. Let's see how the Giants do today.
Thank you