Redskins review I

I thought this might be a tough game because of all the injuries, but this really was much worse than I anticipated. The Giants just looked like a team that was outmatched physically on both sides of the ball. The OL did have some moderate success running the ball, but it seemed like there were Redskins swarming all over Eli and he did not have a clean pocket to throw from on most passing plays. It made it look like the Redskins were far superior athletically.

Similar things on defense - Redskins WRs were running wide open all day long making it appear again that the Giants defense could not compete with them from a pure athletic perspective.

It was so bad that it's even hard to tell if it's the players or the coaches. The Giants coaches have been here for several years now and the league has certainly caught up to the offensive schemes. more than that, the league's defenses have changed and evolved, relying much more heavily on blitzing and speed packages, generating pass rush from all angles and the Giants offense has not adjusted to adapt to these changes. The Giants simply do not have enough speed or play makers on offense to burn opposing defenses when they gamble with a blitz. If I were an opposing DC, I would blitz all the time also, because even if the Giants pick it up, they can't hurt you down the field. That's one area where it's probably the weakness of the players rather than the coaches. If you don't have the speed, coaches can't manufacture it it on the sidelines. Giants WRs don't seem to get a lot of separation and that could be a blend of coaching and players. The pass routes are too predictable, but the players don't run well enough to get open.

Bring back Sinorice Moss. He is a perfect compliment to what the Giants need - pure speed. Victor Cruz looks like he's working out real well. Dropped a ball that a HS player should have caught. If you don't have breakaway speed, you should have sticky fingers and catch every darned catchable ball.

The bigger indictment of the coaches is in the running game, especially on short yardage. How can the Giants have the biggest RB in the league, a competent OL and the worst short yardage offense in the league. It's because the play calls are so obvious. On the third and short that Bradshaw got stopped on in the 3rd qtr, the entire defense was flowing to their left, as the ball was being snapped, because the Giants play calls are so predictable.

One more worry, as if we didn't have enough, maybe with this trend towards more and more blitzing by defenses, it becomes important to have a QB a little more athletic than Eli.


But here's the big picture and the biggest indictment of this team and its coaches. The game looked exactly like every other game last year. On defense, Giants were very good against the run, but against the pass, if the the pass rush didn't kill the QB, the DB-field was sitting in a zone and giving way too much room to WRs, allowing them lots of space to run free. Grossman made some nice throws, but roughly 50% of his throws were to WRs that were running completely free. In addition to that, when the Giants did finally come up with a stop in the second half when Grossman completed a 9 yard pass on 3rd and 11, the idiot Antrel Rolle spears the WR while he's lying on the ground and has already been touched by Corey Webster. I would cut Rolle for that play; he has beena  terrible signing for the Giants. He gets beat in pass coverage all the time, makes an occasional big hit so everyone can go ooooooh, talks way too much and gets stupid penalties way too often. That spearing penalty gave the Redskins a new setof downs deep in Giants territory, leading to the clinching TD.

On offense, there was also a reprise of 2010 performance: too many awful looking plays and not enough speed. That may be more of a blend of coaching and players, but it's almost hard to evaluate how good players are when they are put at such a disadvantaged position when opposing defenses know what the offense is going to do.

With Spags coming in this Monday night, who probably knows the Giants offense as well as Killdrive does, it could be another ugly night for the offense. If you watched any of the Rams-Eagles game, you will have seen that the Rams blitzed Vick a lot and it bothered him at times. He'll do the same with Eli and kill the Giants with it.

More later in the week.