September 30, 2004
Gibril Wilson vs. Farve
The Packers may want to test the Giants rookie safety, Gibril Wilson. So far Wilson has been a pleasant surprise: he's the first Giant since 1978 to ahve interceptions in consecutive games and he was the Giants leading tackler against the Browns. I'm voting for him to Rookie of the week. So far he's only got 15% of the vote so it looks like Roy Williams or Ben Roethlisberger is going to win. By the way, (not to sound like a braggart, but) just remember that I said I liked Roy Williams way back in April before the draft.
More on Gibril Wilson and other defensive backs comes from Mike Garafolo, who likes what he sees. He did get that 15 yard penalty for a helmet to helmet hit, but Coughlin probably should ahve challenged:
On the second situation, first-time starter Gibril Wilson leveled Brown receiver Quincy Morgan at the sideline on a 29-yard pass to the Giants' 17. But Morgan failed to hold onto the ball when he hit the ground.Here's a bit more. This is really from Giants.com, but theinsiders claim it as their own on http://story.theinsiders.com/a.z?s=123&p=2&c=299781 - I ahve no respect for them and will never quote from one of their articles again:Officials ruled a catch, however, and gave Wilson a 15-yard penalty for a personal foul on the hit. The play was replayed on the big screen at the stadium several times and it looked pretty obvious that Morgan neither came down in bounds nor held onto the ball.
Instead of challenging the catch, Coughlin let it go, and the Browns had a first-and-goal at the 8, which led to a touchdown.
''I didn't have enough information at the time,'' Coughlin said, ''and, to be honest with you, the flag distracted me a little bit, too. … I couldn't understand what they were trying to accomplish there.''
Mistakes, like turnovers, add up, and Coughlin was very lucky the mistakes didn't come back to haunt his Giants.
Q: How did Gibril Wilson look on tape after his first start?A: He did a good job, you know he had been situational and he handled that well…it wasn’t too big for him. He had an opportunity to play in all situations last week and he did well. He was at the line of scrimmage, they’re were some occasions where he was a little bit late or a little bit out of position here or there, but by and large he did a good job and Brent Alexander helped back there as well. Now Brent helped the understanding of the responsibilities, getting the calls out, making sure people were in the right spot…I give credit to Brent for that as well.
Q: What is your opinion on the hit that Gibril Wilson got called for unnecessary roughness?
A: I looked at it real hard on tape this morning and talked to the coaches about it and we thought it was shoulder pad to shoulder pad. These things happen so fast…for people that have to make calls, it’s a difficult job, nobody is saying that it isn’t. The thing that I try to refer to after the game is that you know you have a guy catching the ball right on the sideline and you have a safety flying off the hash attacking that guy who is about to catch the ball…the angles are sharp…the player is basically in a position where he is going insure that the receiver gets knocked out of bounds. He isn’t going to take a chance on leaving his feet or in most cases he’ll move to the sideline under control or with good balance and take the guy on high, and it was a shoulder to shoulder hit…is what we felt. An aggressive play on the part of Gibril and I don’t know how else you can teach it or enforce it.
Posted by James Trotta at September 30, 2004 9:03 AM