Giants: Jaguars game review II

I was very concerned about the OL going into the game, as everyone was, particularly the left side of the OL. Boothe played much better than he did in his first game back starting last week against the Eagles. The pleasant surprise was how well Beatty played at LT. Jaguars do not have a dominating defense, so we have to put it in context, but they do have a decent DL and Beatty allowed no sacks or even pressures off his side and he was a big part of the success in the Giants running game. Boothe made some very good blocks when he pulled and was crisp in his other blocks. Overall, even though the OL has not been dominant in manufacturing a running game the last few weeks, the pass blocking has been solid. Look at it this way: Giants have lost their starting C and his backup, they have their LG playing C, a player who was not active the first 6 weeks of the season starting at LG, the starting LT and his substitute out replaced by a 2nd year player and they still have not allowed a sack in the last 4 games.

This was clearly Jacobs best game of the year. He was more balanced, was running down hill and even juked a few players in the DB field. My friend Ray has noticed that Jacobs has looked a little off this year and he ran well this week. He pressed the holes quickly, did not try to imitate Bradshaw's style of constantly looking for a cut back lane and instead stayed true to his own style. As well as Bradshaw has done running the ball this year (except for the fumbles) I think I like the offense better with Jacobs starting and Bradshaw coming off the bench as the change of pace runner.

I guess we can't complain about the offensive play calling and performance. Putting up 24 points with half of your offensive starters out is pretty good. But I still hated the call of the draw to Bradshaw on 3rd and 2 from the 3 yard line on the Giants first drive of the game. It was 2nd and 10 after the fumble reversal and Jacobs ran for 8 down to the 3 yard line. Third and 2. After the 8 yard run, you had to figure that the defense was looking to stop another bruising run by Jacobs. I would not have minded giving the ball to Jacobs again, since the OL was getting a good push and have him drive towards the goal line, or perhaps just get a first down. It also might have been the perfect time to run a play action fake to Jacobs and throw a middle pass to Boss or a corner fade to a WR. Instead, Gilbride waited several seconds then made a personnel change sending in Bradshaw as RB. When Eli lined up in shotgun with Bradshaw next to him, it was such a transparent attempt at deception that there was no deception at all. I turned to my son sitting next to me at the game and we both said to each other in unison: draw play to Bradshaw. If we read it, I assume the Jaguars could do so also. Jaguars stopped Bradshaw for a loss of 2, one of only two running plays for negative yardage that the Giants had all game long. Think about it - 3rd and 2 from the 3. That's not an obvious passing down, so if you were going to pass, you would probably have the QB get under center and use a play action fake to keep the defense guessing. Lining up in shotgun there shows pass, so the defense would sense that there is a draw coming. It was not a good call.

JPP had his best game of the year with two sacks and an active game on the DL. Giants need him to come on and play well down the stretch. He has enormous physical talents but little experience. My hope was that he would gain some coaching and game experience in the first half of the season and come on in the second half. It's time.

Eli had a good game but missed Mannignham deep on a post early in the game. Manningham was behind the defense by a few yards and Eli badly underthrew him. It was an easy throw, because Manningham was on a  post, running diagonally across the field and did not requrie the pinpoint depth that an over the shoulder throw requires. Eli could have put lots of air under it and let Manningham run under the ball.

This past Sunday's game against the Jaguars was a must win. Had they lost, I think their season would have been over. Next post will do some playoff arithmetic.

Giants: Jaguars game review I

There's quite a bit to take out of this game both from the positive as well as the negative side. It's easy simply to say that the Giants were flat defensively in the first half and allowed the Jaguars to push them around and run on them. If you just  look at the plays and their results in that first half, this appeared to be true. Especially if you consider what the papers have been writing about all week - Tuck's fiery half time speech that awoke the slumbering defense from its emotionless state. If they needed a half time speech to spark them, they must have been flat before then. However, there's more to it than that; there's also some game planning, technique and adjustments involved that made them ineffective in the first half and much better later on. This is the first game the entire year that I saw the Giants get pushed around on the ground and particularly the DTs, who have been so good this year, were moved and punished by the opposing OL. Most of the successful Jaguar runs started inside, between the G and C or between the G and T, which means they controlled the interior of the DL in that first half. The Giants, inexplicably, came out with a frequent 3-safety look, played a lot of zone in the first half and did not drop an extra safety in the box to handle the running game. Furthermore, for some reason, the DEs were rushing up field often in passing plays and even on running plays. It looked like they expected Jaguars to pass more than they actually did and that they expected them to run outside, so they wanted to control the perimeter with DEs coming up field. Jaguars instead often got effective double team blocks on the DTs, and ran underneath the rushing DEs. When the DEs stayed home, they did a good job securing the edge and not letting runs get outside of them, particularly Osi, who has had a good year rushing the passer and has been defending the run as well. In the 2nd half, the DEs stayed in their lane more, the Giants did more twists in the line, stayed with 3-safeties, but moved the S in the box to combat the interior running. By doing this they also managed to keep Garrard in the pocket and prevented him from running. You recall that the sacks in the last Jaguar series that ended in the forced fumble came from blitzes with the DB coming inside the DE, not a wide blitz on the outside. These worked very well. Overall there was a lot more pressure on the passer in the 2nd half and the defensive adjustments really worked. I don't know if we should applaud Fewell for making the adjustments that worked or castigate him for coming in with a flawed game plan. Maybe both?!? Jaguars have one excellent play maker in Jones-Drew and the Giants defense should have looked to stop him rather than expect a passing attack from the Jaguars. When they did pass in the first half, Jaguars used a lot of 3 step drops and max protect to blunt the Giants pass rush, a page out of the Cowboys playbook of a few weeks ago. In the second half, with more blitzes and more line twists and stunts, the Giants got to Garrard and put a lot of pressure on him. If you're looking for one statistic that defines the effectiveness of the passing game, it is yards-per-pass-attempt. It takes into account completion percentage and whether the QB is dumping off little short high percentages passes to the RBs or is throwing the ball down the field. A very good number is in the 8 yards per pass attempt range. Garrard ended the day at about 4.6 yards per pass attempt, which is a really feeble number. Actually, the 4.6 yards per pass attempt does not account for the sacks, which makes the numbers even more meager. It kind of makes you wonder why the Jaguars even attempted a pass Sunday, when they were averaging 6.1 yards per rush attempt, better than their passing numbers. More than that, they were successful with short, safe passes in the first half mixed in with the running game and then seemed to change their strategy in the 2nd half. They passed and got intercepted on their first play of the second half. Then, on their second possession, they got one first down, and then proceeded to hoist up two long balls which had absolutely no chance of being completed. That series seemed to change the momentum of the game. If was the first punt of the game by the Jaguars and gave the Giants defense some added juice. Poor tactics by Del Rio and Jags, if you ask me.

Giants offense was pretty good in the first half, moving the ball effectively on 2 of their 3 drives. The problem, however, was that they got stopped for FGs instead of going in for TDs. Giants have been effective in the red zone this year, so I put this failure on the absence of the top offensive players rather than any failure in execution or play calling. Notice that the two second half TDs came on big plays from outside of the red zone, which may be the case for the Giants offense (easier to score from outside the 20 than inside it) until Nicks and Smith get back. I think Boss is an outstanding pass receiving threat and the Giants should take advantage of him more, especially with Nicks/Smith out. His TD grab was a simple route and easy catch, but required an excellent read and a good move on the safety to give him the TD run. The play that showed his pass receiving skills off more was a gorgeous throw and catch right at the end of the 3rd quarter. Giants were pinned deep on their own 12 still behind 17-9. Boss ran an out pattern and was blanketed by a S with LB in front of him. Eli made a gorgeous throw right over the LB leading Boss perfectly. He caught the ball and secured it with the S wrapping him up and knocking him to the ground immediately. Beautiful throw and catch. Boss made another catch for 25 yards on that drive and the Giants scored quickly, going 88 yards on only 5 plays.Boss beat a safety on the first pass and a LB on the second. He really can create match up problems for a  defense and the Giants should exploit it more.

Speaking of that drive, it is worthwhile to break down the TD pass to Manningham that ended the drive and understand how and why it worked. Giants had two TEs in the game, with Boss lined up tight on the right side and Derek Hagan lined up wide to his right. On the left, Manningham was lined up wide and Beckum was lined up in the slot. The Jaguars were playing a zone with 2 safeties deep and because the Giants had two TEs in the game, they were not in nickel, keeping 3 LBs in the game. On the right side of the offense, Hagan ran a straight go route occupying the DB and S on his half of the field. Boss stayed in to block and increase the pass protection, so in effect there were three Jaguar defenders: DB, LB and S on the right side of the offense, defending only one player, Hagan, running deep. On the play side of the field, Manningham ran a deep sideline route and Beckum, who was covered by a LB ran a deep post pattern. Eli took the snap and faked a hand-off to Jacobs. Beckum was covered by LB who he easily outran, especially with the play fake to Jacobs that froze the LB for an instant. The LB had deep safety help and this S had to decide whether to give deep help to Beckum or Manningham. After the fake hand-off, Jacobs continued out into the pass pattern on the left side of the offense. This drew the attention of the CB who had zone responsibility to stay with Manningham on the sideline. The CB slowed slightly when Eli faked the hand-off to Jacobs and bit hard when Jacobs flashed in front of him in the pass pattern. This left Beckum and Manningham streaming down the field; putting pressure on the S. Beckum was on a post towards the middle of the field and Manningham was deep down the sideline, both had easily beaten their underneath coverage and both were wide open with only the deep S to cover both of them. Eli chose to throw to Manningham who easily sidestepped the S and went in for TD. It was beautiful play design, and perfect execution.

Giants: Look ahead to Jaguars

Giants announced today that Jacobs will take over as starter for the fumble-prone Ahmad Bradshaw. This is the right decision and if you've been following this blog, you saw that I said they should make this move. (I guess Coughlin and Gilbride follow my blog also.) DJ Ware should get some carries in his place, though Bradshaw will not be permanently banished and will still play. Bradshaw, who is a good receiver out of the backfield and occasionally lines up as a WR could help the injury depleted passing game by lining up wide occasionally. He is not blinding fast, but he has the quickness to be a good slot receiver.

The truth is that Coughlin is so obsessed about ball security and turnovers that he would consider changing the QB also, if he had an alternative that was as good. Coughlin loves Eli and it would be a real shock to the team and to the locker room to change QBs, so he won't do that, but I am sure he is unhappy with all the INTs. This is a shot across the bow to the entire team about ball security.

Justin Tuck has a sore thigh and was added to the injury report, but interestingly, Shawn Andrews is not on the injury report. He played well against the Eagles, did not let Cole lay a hand on Eli, switched capably on some of the Eagles blitzes and did alright against the run. The problem with the OL and the running game Sunday night was more Boothe and the TEs than it was Andrews. It will be really interesting to see what the Giants do when Diehl and O'Hara come back. O'Hara should reclaim his C position; he is one of the best C's in football. Seubert had been playing very well at LG, so if he reclaims that slot, should Diehl displace Andrews at LT? Unless you want to play Diehl at LG in place of Seubert, the best OL alignment might have Andrews at LT and Diehl on the bench.

I can not understand why the Giants are 7 1/2 point favorites over the Jaguars. The offense is beat up and is turning the ball over at a rate of 3 per game. They scored only 17 points against a so-so Eagles defense and got further hurt when they lost the best WR on the team. The line opened up at 9 and has slipped down to 7 1/2, so I guess the wagering public is putting their money on Jacksonville. 

Michael Clayton is signed to play WR, but after Nicks and Smith come back, I would like to see the Giants keep him and experiment with him at TE. He probably would not be a great blocker in the running game, but he would create mismatch problems for the opposing defense. It takes a while for the slot receiver to fit into the offense and figure out where to go. This adds to my idea above of using Bradshaw occasionally in the slot and feeding Clayton a diet of routes he is used to, from the outside WR position.This gives him the best chance at being productive right away.

With Jacobs starting at RB, look for the Giants to try to go to a power running game to protect their weak WR group. (This was suggested by my friend Ray in an email and I think he may be right.) Because the TEs were weak in blocking last week, I look for them to use a heavy dose of Beatty as an eligible receiver. Let's hope he remembers to report as eligible this week. He went to UCONN, for goodness sake, he should be able to remember that!

Even with Nicks and Smith out, Giants can not abandon the passing game. In fact, they should probably be more aggressive in the early downs to throw when the Jaguars defense is expecting a run.