October 24, 2006
Giants 3-0 in the NFC East after beating Dallas on the road
The Giants are sitting pretty in the standing having beaten all of their NFC East opponents on the road. A Cowbiys blog places most of the blame on Dallas; they don't have the talent to compete with good teams like the Giants. The blog rightfully puts alot of blame on the offensive line. While this article takes too narrow a view, blaming TO. No doubt the 4th down drop hurt, but TO played well most of the game while the Dallas offensive line was roughed up by the Giants defense.
Fred Robbins played real well (even picked up his second interception). Strahan tied LT (officially anyway - not all of LTs sacks made it into the official record books) in total Giants sacks and he still plays the run well; clearly the best DE in the NFL right now. Osi looked good but was hurt. 6 sacks overall tells the story. So does 4 interceptions.
Arrington was having a breakout game until a ruptured achilles knocked him out of the game and probably the rest of the season. Dallas got something going for a while when Arrington went down, but it didn't last. They also remind us that "cornerbacks Sam Madison (cramps) and Frank Walker (hamstring) also were sidelined by game's end."
Unlike the Cowboys' offensive line, the Giants offensive line is playing real well. Dallas had the #1 rushing defense in the league but the Giants averaged 4+ yards / carry (27 for 114 yards from Tiki, 10 for 40 yards from Jacobs). Dallas was able to get some pressure on Manning, but every offensive line gives up pressures and the occasional sack.
Basically, we saw the Giants outplay a good team in a division game: "They out-played us, they out-coached us, they out-everythinged us," Parcells said. "I am ashamed to put a team out there that played like that. I apologize to the people that come out and watch that. That is not good football." The Cowboys are now desperate.
Here's an article on how NFL officials are monitored. It's not quite satisfying because it doesn't ask why there seems to be no accountability. Plus there's no discussion of the Giants - Cowboys game.
Posted by James Trotta at October 24, 2006 9:17 PMESPN sure does suck. I used to enjoy football commentary during the game.
Posted by: James Trotta at October 26, 2006 2:47 AMDid anyone else see the horsecollar tackle that Roy Williams used to bring Tiki down? Has that flag ever been thrown since the NFL made it against the rules? They have yet to adequately define what is and what is not a horse collar tackle to anyone's satisfaction. I myself have witnessed dozens of the 'so called' illegal tackles in the two and a half seasons since Roy broke T.O.'s leg. I think it may have flagged once in that time. Roy continues to use that method as his signature take down. Does someone need to to permanently disabled or worse before they actually start penalizing defenders? I also think that the time will soon come for officials to be subject to some sort of fines
for bad calls. Maybe not for simple missed calls or "no calls" but for obviously bad game altering calls.
JMO.