NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news

The Giants and the Eagles both need this game according to Ralph Vacchiano. Week 4 might be early to alk about being out of the playoff race, but I’d still love to kick the crap out of the eagles.

The Canadian Press says that the Eagles are bad before the bye week. Maybe. With Lito Shepherd out and William James hurt (the former Giants Peterson), teh Eagles may be in cornerback trouble.

Of course, the giants may be in receiver trouble with Burress hurting but likely to play. Still I’d like to see the Giants go 3-wideouts early and often. Moss or Mix and/or split out Shockey – someone has to be able to catch the ball.

Vinny DiTriani has a good list of injuries that could change the game.

Anyone else impressed with Derrick Ward?

I knwo I am. He is getting kudos from the media. Plus he seems to get along well with his offensive line since he and O’hara give each other lots of credit.

Now you figure Jacobs will get his job back in a couple of weeks. That seems to be how it works – but it’s not as much as a give as it was in week 1 when he went down. Now Ward has earned playing time and Giants coaches have some thinking to do.

Goal line stand to beat the Redskins! What can I say but that this season might not be so bad after all if our defense shows up once in a while. I don’t sound as thrilled as I am – that was awesome!

He doesn’t want to talk about the Giants defense. He has an air horn to prove it.

“I want to talk about the Redskins. I don’t want to talk about our defense,” Pierce said, as if the two were mutually exclusive.

Sadly, the Giants defense has been mutually exclusive with all things football the first two games,,,

Apparently my call for the defense not to suck fell on deaf ears because they sucked again. The Packers scored touchdowns on 4 out of 5 possessions. It’s true that the offense and special teams put the defense in a couple of bad spots, but there’s still no excuse.

The defense could help us win the turnover battle if they weren’t so busy giving up embarassing plays. Obviously the offense is going to turn it over once in a while – I’m not really sure we can blame them for each and every turnover.

Not that the offense was great fun to watch either with all the penalties. Shockey and Toomer got especially bad penalties called on them (though Shockey’s should still have been a first and Toomer’s I’m not so sure about). Speaking of receivers, Steve Smith is hurt and will miss some time.

I honestly don’t care too much if the Giants win or lose against the Packers. Well I want them to win, but mostly I just don’t want to get sick watching the game. All that depends on the defense.

If the Giants continue to have the worst defense in the league, I don’t what I’m going to do. All I know is it hurts to watch really terrible defense, especially the Giants really terrible defense.

At least Strahan has a sense of humor still:

Q: What’s the difference in the feeling between sacks and sex?

A: After a sack, I get up and celebrate; after sex, I take a nap.

Q: Who haven’t you sacked you’d like to sack?

A: I would like to sack the heck out of (Tony) Romo. I like him, he’s a nice guy, he’s a friend, but all the hoopla, I just want to bust him up and plus he’s a Cowboy.

I just hope I’m still smiling when I see Strahan and the rest of the Giants defense on the field…

A list of reasons for Giants fans to drink heavily:

1. The score 45-35 means that not only did we lose, but our defense absolutely sucked.

2. Speaking of the defense, Kiwi was asled to do an awful lot of coverage – not his strength.

3. The safeties can’t cover either, particularly Butler. Time to convert a CB to free safety. In fairness, Wilson did play well in run support. Too bad he and Pierce are the only tacklers on the team…

4. The defensive line got kicked in the nuts and took it like babies.

5. Injuries. We seem to get slammed every year. Just getting an early start in 2007. Manning, Jacobs, Umenyiora, and Dockery – it’s like a nightmare. Hopefully these guys aren’t hurt too bad.

6. Manning was under lots of pressure. Sure the offense played well and we balme the defense for this loss, but we still saw Manning under lots of pressure. I don’t blame the offensive line too much – running backs need to do better picking up blitzers (Droughns was OK here). Manning was hurt thanks to an unblocked Cowboy.

7. Alford’s snaps look like a problem.

8. The refs screwed us. On the long touchdown pass to Sam Hurd on third down and seven , Cowboys wideout Patrick Crayton stepped forward in his stance. The play should have been blown dead and there should have been a penalty. No doubt our defense would then give up a different big play considering how badly they sucked.

Things that weren’t so bad:

1. Derrick Ward played real well.

2. Diehl is really an NFL left tackle.
Manning played real well – his one interception was a great throw where Burress fell down.

3. Burress (despite the fall) and Toomer played real well.

4. Tynes played fairly well. Sure there were some low kcikoffs with not enough hangtime, but let’s face it – we didn’t even know if this guy was an NFL kicker or not.

5. Bradshaw can return kicks. Too bad he got so many chances thanks to our crappy defense though…

Here’s an interesting story about Ahmad Bradshaw. He’s clearly got more talent than you’re average 7th rounder but character concerns dropped him way down in the draft. So far it looks like the Giants are getting a bargain – kick returner plus change of pace back for 7th round pick money.

Here’s an article on Dallas’ injuries.

Of course the Giants have their own concerns. For some the question is Eli Manning’s leadership. I don’t really care how he talks but how he plays will be pretty important…

And the New York Times is writing about Romo.

Thanks to a few injured Dallas players, this Texas writer thinks the Giants have a shot.

This is due mostly to a lack of depth at linebacker (isn’t a 3-4 with too few linebackers kind of silly – I mean is this bad luck or just Dallas being stupid) and the fact that Terry Glenn might not play (he’s their only deep threat).

Personally, I think the Giants will dominate both lines of scrimmage and kick some Dallas butt in a low scoring game that isn’t really as close as the final score.