NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news

My apologies to those of you who tried access the blog while we were having technical issues. We should be back to normal now – just in time for training camp!

So where to start with training camp? Well I am a defense guy so when ESPN said “Fewell has been the story of camp” I can’t help but think we start there. Spagnuolo was good for the Giants and while credit the players, you can’t help but think the right coordinator can make a big difference. So far, Perry Fewell seems like the right coordinator.

Also on defense, Inside Football has a nice piece on Aaron Ross in camp. Easy guy to root for. As they talk about Ross fighting for the right CB spot (battling Terrell Davis) they mention this on Fewell’s philosophy:

What will also make the defense better than in previous years is the new philosophy installed by Perry Fewell in which the secondary is putting more focus on watching the quarterback rather than the receiver.

“I love it. That’s something we did at UT (University of Texas),” Ross said, his face breaking out in a huge grin. “I had a chance to really make plays on the ball, and it’s something I fell like is a strength for me when I get to watch the quarterback and react to him instead of playing man-to-man all the time with my back turned to the ball; it’s a nice change up. You get to both. The two years before it was basically just press coverage, back to the ball, so it’s more PBUs (pass breakups) than interceptions, so this year I think we’ll have a lot more turnovers.”

Sounds good to me.

Interesting article here on the Giants defensive coordinator, Perry Fewell, and secondary coach, Peter Giunta and safeties coach, David Merritt, and how they plan to approach coverage schemes.

If I’m reading this correctly, it seems players will be making more decisions: We’ll obviously give them some guidance and direction, but hopefully they’re going to be able to say, ‘Hey, this is how we’re going to play it.’

I find this a bit surprising – I thought it might be up to the MLB or a safety to make defensive calls but it sounds like each player in the secondary will have a coverage decision to make…

Here’s an article on the Giants new defensive coordinator. Basically his former players say he knows the game and treats his players right. Sounds good to me.

While it would be nice to see Pepper Johnson get the Giants defensive coordinator position, I don’t think now is the time for sentimentality.

A lot of guys have more experience:

Jets’ linebackers coach Bob Sutton was the defensive coordinator of the Jets under Eric Mangini.

Former Bills and Bears Head Coach Dick Jauron.

Former Browns Head Coach Romeo Crennel used to be an asssitant coach for the Giants during some good times.

Perry Fewell was the Bills’ defensive coordinator from 2006 to 2009 and the Bills’ interim head coach for the last seven regular-season games this year. He was the defensive backs coach for Tom Coughlin in Jacksonville for a while.

I’m afraid that by writing much about the Giants 41-9 defeat to the Carolina Panthers it’ll get stuck in my memory though…

The one thing that scares me most is that I don’t know for certain Bill Sheridan will be gone next season. It makes no sense to bring him back but until the Giants officially fire him you just don’t know…

The New York Times has a pretty objective look at Coughlin’s and players’ reactions to the bad defense. Paul Schwartz calls it a swiss cheese defense. Both articles mention an important lapse from Giants safety Michael Johnson who I think many of us would like to see replaced as much as we want Sheridan gone.

In Mike Garafolo’s review, I think Osi is the only Giants defensive guy to get a game ball. Sure the forced fumbles are nice, but I don’t think 6 sacks is nearly good enough from Osi who seems to be a liability against the run.

Some stats. The Giants are 28th in the league in points given up per game (25.4). Prett pathetic if you look at our company:

28 NY Giants 3993 307.2 2685 206.5 1308 100.6 330 25.4
29 Kansas City 5008 385.2 3083 237.2 1925 148.1 342 26.3
30 Tampa Bay 4699 361.5 2603 200.2 2096 161.2 356 27.4
31 St. Louis 4810 370.0 2896 222.8 1914 147.2 361 27.8
32 Detroit 5206 400.5 3537 272.1 1669 128.4 406 31.2

In 2008 we were giving up 18.4 points per game. We were ranked #5. Big difference…

Giants pride took a big hit today when Bill Sheridan’s joke of a defense gave up 46 points to the Eagles. The personnel can not be this bad so i guess we have to blame the defensive coordinator.

Osi coming back was supposed to make the Giants defense even batter than last year despite the new defensive coordinator. That didn’t happen and Bill Sheridan has been taking some heat. At least now he’s doing something. Fred Robbins is also joining the second team. If only we had someone to take over the linebacker and safety spots now…

With the return of Osi to the Giants defensive line (not counting the addition of Canty or Boley for obvious reasons) the Giants defense was supposed to get better. The only question mark was the new defensive coordinator.

This Mike Garafolo article doesn’t come out and say Sheridan sucks but it does present a pretty big problem when Sheridan says he didn’t know there was a communication problem on the Giants defense. Like Mike G. says, you see the Giants players looking around confused as fullbacks rip them for big gains and receivers run around uncovered…