NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news

Good article here on how the Giants and Patriots differ in defensive philosophy and stuff.

Lawrence Tynes kicks the game winning field goal in overtime, beating the San Francisco 49ers at home and moving the Giants to 5-0 in NFC Championship games. The Giants will play the Patriots in Indianapolis on February 5, 2012 in Super Bowl XLVI.

Amazingly, the Giants won this game on special teams. I say amazingly because special teams have not always been special in recent years in New York. Today, though, the game winning field goal was set up by a special teams turnover. And the game reached overtime thanks in large part to a 49ers special teams turnover.

Playing for return specialist Ted Ginn Jr., Kyle Williams was the 49er who gave up both fumbles recovered by our NY Giants. The wide receiver out of Arizona State has mostly mental mistakes to blame. He was in poor position when a punt in the 4th quarter bounced into his knee. The on field ruling was that the ball never touched Williams but this was correctly overturned on instant replay. Huge huge credit to the Giants Devin Thomas for recovering both fumbles. Clearly the Giants best coverage guy on special teams. He deserves a bonus for his game today.

The New York football Giants did not play inspiring football much of this season. It was only the last couple of weeks that things started to get exciting again.

Of course you can’t blame the giants only. The officiating in the NFL is so ridiculously bad right now that you wonder. How could it be so bad? How could the NFL not fix this terrible problem that makes fans throw up in their mouths? I mean the Giants should have been winning 30-3 at halftime. The refs made it 20-10. That’s a lot of ref interference.

But the Giants, man. They laid some eggs this season. Now, they can beat the packers and the Zebras in Wisconsin. They started winning in the trenches, playing good defense, clicking on offense, and just became fun to watch again.

Well, fun except for the officials who miss holds on JPP, late hits on Eli, make ludicrously bad spots, mess up calls on the field, mess up replays, and look entirely corrupt because who could be that incompetent? 30-20 now. The NFL officials are a pretty tough opponent for Big Blue.

In a game that was extremely painful to watch in the first half because the Giants looked hopeless on defense as the Jags ran right through the Giants D, Big Blue managed to toughen up in the second half. In the second half the Giants weren’t abused so much by the Jags running game and they forced a couple of turnovers.

Meanwhile the Giants offense finally managed to go a game without turning the ball over. You win the turnover battle and it doesn’t matter if you got abused in the first half…

Who impressed today?

William Beatty had a strong game. Sure the Jags are a no-name defense but really the whole offensive line played better than I hoped considering the injuries & shuffled positions. And it’s nice that the Giants have 3 left tackles who can play well in Diehl, Andrews, and Beatty.

Jason Pierre-Paul and Joseph Linval. I don’t like giving the defensive line credit when they were abused in the running game for 30 minutes but both these guys were pushing people around. For JPP it was his first career sack, first career multiple-sack game, and 2 forced fumbles.

The Giants are now tied for first in the NFC East.

Teams without their starting QBs are supposed to be nearly helpless on offense, but the Seahawks were helpless on both sides of the ball as the Giants poured it on in the first half (35-0).

The only potential negative would be the injuries. Nicks’ ankle seems to be OK but Diehl is getting an MRI on a sprained hip tomorrow.

Interesting video commentary here about the new NFL and the league’s desire to remove “devastating hits” from the game. Was this devastating?

Or just good football?

Anyway, here Matt Millen says there are so many receivers in bad spots because receivers and QBs can’t read defenses. It’s also suggested that this is not the players’ fault – defenses are too complicated these days.

Giants improved to 4-2 after beating Detroit. The main reason the Giants beat the Lions would be winning the turnover battle as the two teams seemed pretty even otherwise (which could be slightly unnerving considering Detroit was down to their 3rd string QB after the

What I found interesting:

Osi is on fire with the sacks and forced fumbles and it is awesome.

Bear Poscoe should be the new Giants fullback and I don’t see where Madison Hedgecock belongs on Big Blue.

Ahmad Bradshaw is a very good NFL RB – today he had more help than usual in terms of good play from the FB (see above) and holes from the offensive line. 19 carries, 133 yards, 7 yards per rush average. Nice.

Still have to wonder about Matt Dodge – some good kicks but the fumble was rough…

See the recap and other stuff in the videos section on NFL.com.

This blog has a great analysis of what went wrong for the Houston Texans last Sunday. He focuses mostly on Schaub’s poor play and Fewell out-coaching their guy. It’s a good analysis with gifs to show you a few plays that demonstrate what he’s saying.

Sure the offense gets some credit for scoring early and forcing the Texans to pass more than they probably wanted to, but the defense is the story of this win of the Texans. Even when running was a real option, Houston running back Arian Foster (NFL’s leading rusher, averaging 6.1 yards per carry) was held to 25 yards on 11 carries for a 2.3 average.

The Giants secondary contained Andre Johnson as well as can be expected. Some speculated that the ankle slowed him but this indicates the ankle was not an issue and the Giants defense just did the job: “he felt no soreness in his ankle in the locker room after Sunday’s loss to the Giants. Johnson racked up 95 yards on five receptions and a team-high 13 targets against New York.”

The defense forced some turnovers, neutralized the Texans’ big threats, won in the trenches all day. Victory!

In a game defined by big plays, most went against the Giants who lost 29-10 to the Titans.

The Giants moved the ball well. Dodge didn’t even have to punt as they had 471 yards and 26 first downs. But the Titans defense came away with some big plays, forcing 3 turnovers. 2 interceptions (one bounced off Nicks hands and another was all Eli who made the highlight reels throwing with his off hand). There was also a Bradshaw fumble.

The defense actually played OK even though the Titans scored a bunch of points. I blame turnovers on the Giants offense and poor kick coverage (the Titans often had a short field to work with). Where the defense needed to improve was turnover production. You can’t expect an offense to never turn the ball over so your defense has to help you win that turnover battle.

In the end, the Giants lost the turnover batle 3-0, gave up big returns on special teams, missed 2 field goals (a 53 and a 44), took a bunch of penalties, and just didn’t make the big plays they were giving up.

One penalty was on Bradshaw who blocked low instead of hitting his guy in the chest (the guy was already being blocked). That penalty alone was worth two points and a turnover since it was in the end zone (went for a safety).

Just too many big plays for the Titans some they earned and some the Giants gave away.