There's only two things I root for every football Sunday - for the Giants to win and the Cowboys to lose. When both happen on the same Sunday, it's a very good weekend. When it's the Giants who apply the loss to the Cowboys it's even better. And the only thing better than the Giants beating the Cowboys is the Giants beating the living spit out of the Cowboys. When the calendar has turned to November and there's a crisp hint of fall in the air and a football fan's dreams turns to playoffs, all these things come together and combine for a perfect storm. All in all yesterday was a pretty darned good day.
Of course, a thorough a$$-kicking of the Cowboys is only great for a regular season weekend. For the playoffs, last year's excruciatingly close victory, where the Cowboys thought they were the better team and the Giants held the great Romo, TO and his offense to 3 points in the 2nd half - I have to admit, that was pretty darned good also and might have been better. But enough gloating - let's talk about the game. Before I digress into a little review of the game, I have to denigrate Wade Phillips for one of the most classless acts I've seen in professional sports. You all know what Parcells used to say - you are what your record says you are. You win your last game: you're the champs. If you don't, the guys that beat you are better. End of story. Yet Wade Phillips, after the Giants beat the Cowboys in the playoffs last year on the way to winning Supe XLII in Arizona, held a press conference where he gave no credit to the Giants and said that the Cowboys were the better team. He said: "Cowboys controlled the first half, controlled the game, were the better team, and the better team lost." Not exactly the kind of sportsmanship and the kind of example we want to set for the youth of America. No class. On to yesterday's game.
Cowboys did in fact try to play fairly conservatively on offense, trying to force feed the ball to Marion Barber. Their pass patterns were mostly short drops to try to beat the Giants pass rush. They tried only 1 or 2 balls down field, one was a gorgeous catch by Roy Williams for about 30 yards. Giants defense was very stout against the run and completely shut down Barber. he broke away for one long run, but overall was stopped cold. Often when your defense isn't afraid of opposing offense's passing game, it can commit to the run by dropping an extra safety down to the line of scrimmage and having 8 guys in the box to take away the run. Giants stopped the run very effectively and they occasionally brought a safety up to the line of scrimmage, but mostly it was good solid DL play and aggressive charges by the LBs that shut down the running game. Giant DL was often just flat out winning their 1-on-1 match ups with the Cowboys OL. The Giant DTs don't get enough credit - Cofield and Robbins, the starters, are playing excellent football. Alford got a lot of playing time yesterday and played well also. DTs that are hard to move and are themselves quick and can penetrate into the backfield greatly disrupt the running game. When Giants move Tuck inside on obvious passing downs, and he gets pressure up the middle, it is very difficult for the opposing qb to avoid the pressure.
The Cowboys have some very good players on defense in their front 7. They are very quick and when Eli tried to hold the ball too long and make a play down the field, they got him in some trouble. Cowboys blitzed a lot and gambled a lot, as we thought they might in an effort to get some turnovers and set up their offense with a short field, because with all the injuries on that side of the ball, the offense needed all the help it could get. But the Cowboys came out with a fairly simplistic game plan on defense and the Giants handled it fairly well. On the first drive of the game, Cowboys sold out to stop the Giants power running game. On one play, I counted 10 players at the line of scrimmage with only a single high safety backed off the line of scrimmage. In that first drive, the first few times the Giants tried to run the ball, they were stopped cold because of this extra defenders up at the line. Eli and Gilbride saw that defensive formation and threw 5 times in a row, moving the ball fairly easily down the field. When the Giants had a 1st and 10 inside the Cowboys 30, after having been thrown on 5 times in a row, Cowboys moved back into their more traditional 3-4 defense. Then, Eli and Gilbride ran it 3 times in a row with Ward right behind the right side of their OL and Ward ended up with 1st and 10 at the 13. After that, there was one incomplete pass to Ward followed by the TD to Boss. I think the opening drive, 11 plays 75 yards, 6 points sent a message and set the tone for the game.
It's hard to estimate what the affect was on the Cowboys of missing their qb was; obviously Romo being in there would have made a huge difference. The threat of throwing down the field would have made the Giants less run conscious and would have opened up more running room for Barber. Furthermore, Romo himself would have been able to make better throws and would have been able to move away for more effectively from the Giants pass rush. But I will say this: the Cowboys OL is not nearly as good and effective as it was last year. I don't know exactly why they are a little worse, but it sure looks like Flozell Adams got old in a hurry or perhaps he's injured. Truthfully, Flozell was always a puzzling player. He was huge, and had enormous quickness, but the coaches always had trouble motivating him and he was often out of shape. Parcells did well with him and past OL coach Sparano may have done very well with him, but he looks unmotivated, lethargic and unfit. Sparano is showing himself to be a very good coach with the job he's doing with the Dolphins this year, so maybe he was able to get the most out of Flozell last year; this year the huge OT looks like he's mailing it in. He's very vulnerable to outside speed rushes, not a good vulnerability if your playing LT. At the other OL positions, Colombo is a solid if unspectacular player at RT but their interior OL looked very vulnerable yesterday. Giants got a lot of pressure up the middle, got very good penetration against the interior OL of the Cowboys. So, while it is true that it would have been a different game with Romo in there, the complete control of the line of scrimmage and great pressure that Giants had on the qb, makes it hard to imagine how Romo would have won the game for the Cowboys.
Cowboys have great skill position players, a very good qb, and a crumbling OL, in my opinion. Their OL, even when healthy and playing well is huge, of massive size, but not very mobile. They are built to bully and bulldoze the opposing DL, but they seem to have trouble against quick, nimble DLs. Of course, this is a match up that plays right into the strengths of the Giants DL, with their speed based attack. Tuck and Kiwanuka have great speed and when they move Tuck inside on passing downs and Tollefson or Wynn outside, they are even faster. I don't like Tuck inside at DT on every passing down, but it surely was effective yesterday.
Giants did not blitz much at all on passing downs, at most they would bring a LB; but they relied very much on the DL beating the Cowboys OL 1-on-1.
On offense, the Giants were very good and dominant in the running game; it's hard to get 200 yards rushing against any team, let alone one of the elite defenses in football. The only negative I would bring is that Eli wasn't as sharp in the passing game as he can be and he made two very bad decisions. He made the mistake on the read that Plax turned up field on and turned into 6 points for the Cowboys. I can handle that - it happens. And on the first fumble, it looked like it was knocked out of his hand when he drew it back to throw, but it actually slipped out of his hands as he was cocking his arm. I am not upset about that either - it happens - maybe it was a slick ball. But the second fumble was a bad decision by Eli. he had plenty of time in the pocket before the fumble and should have either thrown the ball away or tucked it in with both hands to avoid the strip by the Cowboys DE, DeMarcus Ware. Fortunately it didn't ruin the game, but in a close game against a better team, they would have really hurt.
One other observation about the offense is that they were 5-for-5 in the red zone, not being afraid to spread the field and pass the ball. They also spread it out and scored on the two running plays by Jacobs and Ward, so maybe this will be the new formula - spread them out and either pass or run out of those formations.
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