Wow... everybody is dumping on Tony Romo for having such a bad game against NYG. Leave poor little Tony alone. For one thing, they are attacking him for having a completion percentage of below 50%; he was 13-29. They're idiots and they have no idea what mathematics and statistics are about !! If you include the 3 passes he completed to Giants players, (2 to Phillips and 1 to Johnson) he actually completed 16 of his 29 passes, which is above 50%.
Even TO got into the act beating up on Tony Romo. He tweeted on his twitter account that "it seems like Dallas has a TR problem, not a TO problem". Way to go TO. What happened to: "Sniff, that's not fair. Sniff, sniff, he's my teammate. Snif, sniff, sniff, he's my quarterback".
Looks like Tuck will not play this weekend, which is certainly the prudent course of action. Nobody wants to turn a sprained shoulder, stretched labrum, 2 week injury into a completely torn labrum and a much worse injury. But with Canty already out, that means the Giants would be dressing only 6 DL-men for the game this Sunday, something they surely do not want to do. It would mean that Rocky Bernard is the only reserve DT and Dave Tollefson is the only reserve DE. That's just too thin, especially going into the heat and humidity of Tampa in September.
There are only two alternatives that I can think of. If Clint Sintim's groin is healed, they may give him some work at DE, since he did play with his hand on the ground in college at Virginia. He is a good pass rusher and is fairly strong against the run. Giants have been using him as LB, so this has some risks, but it could be a temporary stopgap. Kiwanuka can take some snaps at DT in passing situations to give the DTs a rest, but that doesn't relieve the overall shortage of DL-men.
The Giants don't really have another LB that is big enough to step in and play DL, so the only other alternative seems to be to sign another player as DT temporarily, eg. Leger Douzable who was cut just a week ago. The problem with signing a player, of course, is that it means that the Giants would have to cut another player from the roster. I am not sure who would go, but it would be a loss. LB Wilkinson played pretty well in his limited time against the Cowboys and it would be a pity to cut a serviceable NFL player and a real good athlete. Working against Wilkinson might be the fact that Boley looked really good at LB and the Giants may feel that they have the most depth at that position. Maybe they trade Wilkinson.
Another thought is to trade or cut Sinorice Moss if they sign a DT. Let's be honest about Moss. He came into camp as the 3rd WR behind Hixon and Smith. It's pretty clear that Manningham and rookie Nicks have surpassed him on the depth chart and are the 3rd and 4th WRs. Even Derek Hagan was in the game at crunch time last week, during the winning FG drive. So even though I hate to trade the fastest guy on the team, it certainly seems like he's expendable. Short term, getting rid of a WR now may not be such a good idea, because Hixon has a sprained knee and Nicks is still out, so they may be a little short at WR and want to keep Moss active for now. That may make Wilkinson more vulnerable.
The papers are already locking Giants in to be 5-0 after the next 3 winnable games. I hate when they do that. Got to play them one at a time and focus on the next opponent. At least Coughlin keeps saying to the press and to his team, that "we just have to win the next one". Former Giants coach Jim Fassel used to fall into this all the time. He used to look at the next several games coming up on the schedule and say stuff like.... if we want to get into the playoffs, we have to win 4 of the next 6, or whatever he thought was required. He would also say things like "this week's game is a classic trap game for us". All those things diverted attention from his team on looking at the upcoming opponent as dangerous or at the upcoming game as really important. The thought that was planted in the player's heads was that if they lose this week, they can come back and win next week, because they only have to win 4 out of 6. And if this is a trap game, it must mean that the Giants are much better than the opponent, so preparation might be a little softer. Giants are better than their upcoming opponents, but they could easily stub their toe in one of these games, especially against the Raiders, who look improved to me.
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