Giants Need to Win to Shutup the Critics
The Giants are always getting pounded by critics on the internet, TV, and especially radio when people call in. People complain that Eli Manning “isn’t good enough” or “its about time he did something.”
Well, give me a break. The man has been a consistent leader on the Giants and he’s guided the team to the playoffs in consecutive seasons, something that hasn’t happened since 1989 and 1990.
Anyway, a big game here this week: The Giants head to Detroit to play the Lions. There’s no momentum coming into this game for either team, since they both lost, but you could easily give the Giants the edge because they put up a nice fight against Dallas, while Detroit unexpectedly lost to Arizona by 10 points.
If the Giants (6-3) were to knock off the Lions (6-3), they would take a 1-game lead in the wild Card Race, which would basically be a 2-game lead because of the head-to-head tiebreaker. A win like this would definitely boost the Giants’ playoff chances very high with 6 games remaining. A win next week against the Vikings would put the Giants at 8-3 and it would be only a matter of time before the playoffs roll around as that would nearly solidify their spot in the playoffs. What the Giants don’t need is a flop like last year, because anything less than a playoff berth would kick Tom Coughlin out the door in 2 seconds. Even if the Giants make the playoffs as a wild card and don’t win a game, he could easily be fired.
It will be an interesting second half for Big Blue
With Division Likely Gone, Giants Look to Wild Card
The Cowboys took control of the NFC East last night with a 31-20 victory on the road at Giants Stadium. The Giants fell to 6-3 and are 2 games behind Dallas in the NFC East, but with tiebreakers, it really makes it a 3 game deficit.
Both teams had penalty problems left and right. In the first Giants drive of the night, Dallas had 4 consecutive penalties to bring the Giants close and closer to the end zone. The Giants eventually scored on that drive with an Eli Manning pass to Jeremy Shockey.
The Giants, on the other hand, had holding penalties negate two touchdowns, one run by RB Brandon Jacobs from the 2 yard line, and one kickoff return for a touchdown. While it may have been an actual holding on the Jacobs TD run, there was no holding on the kickoff, even though it WAS called.
Another odd call that could have gone either way was a defensive pass interference call from the OTHER side of the field from where the ball was thrown. While both the Giants WR and Dallas DB were pushing and shoving the Dallas player purposely fell over, tricking the referees into calling a penalty.
Tony Romo had a great game. The Giants need to understand that he is one of the best QB’s in the league when it comes to throwing a completion while out of the pocket. He is a BETTER QB when out of the pocket and on the run than in. He did throw one big interception to Gibril Wilson, who picked him off in week 1 also.
The Terrell Owens TD was obviously a blown coverage, and if the Giants felt like actually putting a man on him, Romo most likely wouldn’t have even thrown the ball. The Giants did do a solid job of keeping the ball out of Jason Witten’s hands, which helped the Giants in several situations, especially in the 1st half.
Brandon Jacobs did a great job of falling forward and pushing his way for extra yardage to pick up first downs.
Eli Manning, even with a costly interception in the first half, several delay of games, and the inability to move out of the pocket, still had a nice game. He hooked up with TE Jeremy Shockey several times, including a nice TD in the first half. Plaxico Burress was stopped by the Dallas defense and was limited to only a few receptions.
The fans came to game READY, and Giants Stadium was rocking up and down throughout the game until about halfway through the fourth quarter, when the game was getting taken over by Dallas. The Giants handed out towels to all the fans as they arrived into the stadium, and the fans waved the towels and made noise like it was a playoff atmosphere, like it was the NFC Championship Game.
The Giants defense did a bad job on 2nd and 3rd downs throughout the game, and allowed several passes for large chunks of yardage. One turning point of the game came when Marion Barber III ran to the right on 3rd and 1, and a Giants player, I can’t think of the name, carelessly attempted to tackle Barber, who easily broke the tackle, and ran for a first down.
Romo ended out as the better quarterback in this game, and it showed with his ability to get out of the pocket and throw nice, sharp passes to his WR’s. The Cowboys are a much better team than we saw last year, and I’m expecting them to do some damage throughout the NFC in the second half of this year.
As for the Giants, the season is by no means over. The Giants are in great position for at least a wild card spot, and hey, if Dallas slips at all during the next few games, the Giants could even be thinking about the division, even though its a longshot. At 6-3, the Giants probably just need to go .500 for the rest of the season to get in as a wild card and go from there. The Giants can be a powerful team in the postseason this year, since the team is much more balanced this year than it was last year. The only way that the Giants can win the division is if Dallas loses 3 games for the rest of the year and the Giants win at least 3 games.
Next week the Giants face the surprising Lions (6-3) on the road, who also lost this week
BURRESS PRACTICES!!!!!
Plaxico Burress participated in practice today for the
first time since early September less than an hour after Head Coach Tom Coughlin said that Burress wouldn’t be practicing.
The players cheered as he ran some routes and connected with Eli Manning on passes.
He said that his ankle is not feeling much better, but that its been getting stronger.
Week 10: Cowboys @ Giants
Ah, the division lead for Dallas is at stake.
The Cowboys (7-1) will fly to Giants Stadium this weekend to play the Giants (6-2) in their second contest of the season.
The first one was a high-scoring game that the Cowboys won in the end, 45-35.
The Giants lost their first two games and regrouped as a team, winning 6 straight games and still rolling. The Cowboys, however, have lost to only the Patriots, but who have they beaten? Nobody special except for the Giants.
The Giants certainly have advantages over Dallas. The Giants have had only 1 starter missing in the last game, which was a defensive player. The Giants are very healthy, and should use their home-field advantage to control the crowd during the game this weekend.
A-Rod Opinion
To get this guy…not to get this guy…to get this guy–ok, enough of that.
The Mets need to decide very soon whet
her they will seriously pursue Free-Agent infielder Alex Rodriguez… here is why:
- Luis Castillo is a solid option at 2B, yet I don’t like his swing and his knees are not something we can trust.
- The only way I personally can see A-Rod coming to the Mets is if he plays 2B. There is no way that he should be moving over the team leader, David Wright. Rodriguez is a natural SS, so let him play 2B…its not THAT much different.
- Another option is putting Rodriguez at 2B for one year, and then putting him at 1B after that…Delgado’s contract will expire and he is older than a rock… Also, A-R
od has no range. - Another reason they need to decide soon whether to get this guy soon is obviously because the Mets need to make their plans.
BOTTOM LINE: Sure, I’ll Take A-Rod, as long as he plays second base. Again, he was a middle infielder before, he can do it again. There is no reason to move over the face of the franchise (David Wright) when second base is already open. Rodriguez can then move onto 1st base to take Delgado’s place in 2009.