NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news

Who to blame for the Giants being crushed by the Seahawks?

Here's a Seattle game recap that reminds us Seattle had their way with the Giants. Our defensive ends did nothing; Osi's big game against Walter Jones last season was a fluke.

Eli gets the blame for the Giants offensive struggles, although some people are blaming Plaxico Burress. Coughlin said Plax was playing hurt, and Plax is owning up to his mistakes. Let's hope he keeps his promise: "I chose to go out there and play and that was the outcome of the way I played," he said. "You best believe that when I come back in two weeks I'll be ready."

On defense, I already mentioned our defensive ends not showing up for the game. Tim Lewis also gets some blame. This article outlines some of the Giants problems on defense. It's about Tim Lewis getting fired from the Steelers. Seems he had the same problems then:

Lewis, however, mostly utilized a three- or four-man pass rush, preferring to stay in two-deep zone coverages - often called cover-2 - to minimize the risk of long pass completions.

Lewis decided to be more conservative on defense after the Steelers chose not to replace either of their starting cornerbacks, Dewayne Washington and Chad Scott, after they had below-average seasons in 2002. But by protecting them, the Steelers had far fewer sacks - 35, down from 50 a season ago - and far fewer disruptive plays by their defense.

The cover-2 schemes also left the middle of the field exposed to running plays up the middle and to short pass routes.

I'm no defensive coordinator, but I will say that we need to bench Arrington or blitz him because he is useless in coverage. And do something about the middle of the field. Guys are supposed to be scared to go over the middle but Giants' opponents are probably begging their coaches to let them go over the middle against us. That's not the Giants defense we know and love.

Posted by James Trotta at September 26, 2006 8:00 PM