Absolutely everyone in the media is telling their listeners or writing to their readers to pick the 10 1/2 point favorite Giants in their suicide pools this weekend. That makes me nervous. As much as you don't expect a still unproven team like the Giants to look past an opponent in week 5, the players still can't fail to hear the background noise and perhaps it will affect their resolve. Add to that the fact that the Giants have a number of key players injured and it makes for an even more tentative proposition. Tuck, Baas and Jacobs are all most likely out for the game. They do have decent replacements, but still - the injuries have to hurt. Having said all of that, I took the Giants in my suicide pool.
I think we will see a healthy dose of DJ Ware and I am hopeful we will see Da'rel Scott get some action at RB. Seahawks are not very good defensively or offensively - but I do remember the last time Tavaris Jackson came to town as a starting QB for an opposing team. He was the starter for the Vikings on the worst day of Eli's career - I think he threw 100 INTs and 12 of them were returned for TDs. Or something like that - my memory is foggy. On the first series of the game (maybe the first play?) , Jackson hauled back and threw a long TD pass down the sideline and the Giants never really got back in the game.
I would like to see Mario Manningham have a big day tomorrow and I think the Giants will pay attention to his psyche and his ego and try to feed him the ball a bit. Last game, Cruz took a lot of his snaps and he caught only one ball. But Eli purposely and directly tried to console him, to make him feel like part of the team, on the sideline towards the end of the game. The camera showed Eli with hand on Manningham's shoulder, leaning down and talking to him. In the papers this week, Gilbride also went out of his way to say Manningham had a great game - that he was open often and ran great routes, but the ball just didn't come his way. Seahawks CBs are not great cover corners, maybe Giants try to hit Manningham deep down the sidelines.
2 comments:
Funny to have come across your post after Week 5. Going into this past weekend, I forgot to send in my pick to a company-wide suicide pool, and I guess the person that runs it just fills in blanks with the "consensus" pick for that given week... well, that happened to be the Giants (btw, was super surprised to see how many points Vegas was favoring them at the beginning of the week). I woke up Sunday morning realizing what had happened, and immediately emailed the person running the league to switch my pick to the Chargers. Like yourself, I just looked back in history, and couldn't help but see this game as one of those that the Giants should win, no question, but somehow find a way to lose. Anyway, to cut a long story short, by 4pm, I had just watched the most entertaining (Cruz, one-handed catch), agonizing (Cruz, tip off hands interception) game of the season thus far.
Also - is it me, or do the Giants' most valuable defensive asset (pass rush) considerably slow down in the second half of games? That, and the most obvious comment of the year: they need to figure something out re: their secondary... it's crushing them. Webster's pretty good, but everyone else (e.g. Aaron Ross)... yikes. You used to be able to hide DB weakness with certain defensive formations, but that just doesn't fly these days... teams are too good at finding those guys, isolating them, creating bad match ups, etc... Doug Baldwin should not be able to burn the Giants for 130+ yards.
In other news, I'm just waiting for the collapse of the Redskins. I wonder if Vegas has an over/under for that?
Giants pass rush has been soft in the second half because they are short a couple of players. Tcuk out, Osi unable to take full load and Kiwanuka playing LB. Giants like to rotate their DL and give everyone no more than 40-50 snaps per game. JPP has been taking 60 - 65. When Tuck gets back after the bye (he started practicing) things should get better.
Amukamara coming back also will help, giving some depth to secondary. Ross has been ery up and down this year - you're right. He was awful against Rams earlier this year, but has been better since then.
I am surprised to see your Redskins declining so soon. I thought their defense was really good and they would have a decent season in them. We'll see if they can solve their QB situation. If Santana Moss is out (hand injury?) Redskins will have very little in the way of WR threats.
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