Giants vs. Cowboys (Loss 24-17)

Not the way to start a season.  The Giants lost 24-17 to the Cowboys on NFL kick off night.  They didn’t play particularly well and had no excuses.  The Cowboys, a good team, but a team that the Giants must beat in a home game.  With the schedule the Giants have, they can’t afford to give away any games like this, but this is one of 16 games and way too early to panic. 

The Cowboys had a couple of big plays and most of the Giants problems are fixable and not indicative of a real problem.  Corey Webster was beaten badly a couple of times and Victor Cruz dropped 3 easy balls.   Both are high quality players so I would not expect that to happen again.  On the other hand, the secondary seemed porous.  Michael Coe is not ready for a starting role (and is now injured), and Tyron as a replacement was overmatched.  The Giants will really need Prince Amukamara to play like a first rounder.  He has not really shown that yet, but should be an upgrade from the crew they currently have manning the position. 

As discussed in the the season preview, the Giants can’t run block.  That was extremely evident last night.  A late 33 yard run by Bradshaw distorted the numbers.  The reality was that on almost every run he was held to 2 yards or less.  This was particularly damaging when Boley returned the ball to the 1 yard line on an interception.  You knew that would come back to haunt them.  Rookie David Wilson fumbled early and was sent to the bench never to return finishing with only 2 carries for 4 yards.  This was one thing I disagreed with Coughlin on.  You need to keep his confidence up and get him back out there.  Turnovers are unacceptable, but you don’t want to risk destroying a young guy’s confidence.

Manning threw the ball very well.  His pass to Hixon was a thing of beauty and he was generally on target all night, despite shaky protection.  He connected on 2/3rds of his throws and there were 4 drops and at least one throw away to avoid a sack.  He had very few bad throws. 

Defensively, the Giants had some but not enough pressure on an elusive Romo.  It seemed there were 4 or 5 false start penalties –all coming against whoever was assigned to block JPP at the time.  He added value not seen in his stats.  He was also largely responsible for the Linval Joseph sack.  Rivers filled in for a slightly injured Boley and seemed to be all over the field until getting injured on a tackle. Prior to the injury, he was the Giants best player on the field.  He will have to see significant playing time this year.  Given the continued mediocrity at middle linebacker, is it too late to see if he can play there?

A few other small changes I’d like to see next game: 
1 –Barden saw almost no playing time as a receiver.  I’d like to see what he can do. 
2 – Da’rell Scott should play over Brown.  If they are primarily being used for special teams, Scott speed makes him a better bet on kickoff returns and he did block a punt in the preseason.  
3 – This vaunted NASCAR Alignment is flawed.  It’s great in concept.  The problem is that it usually means moving JPP inside to tackle, largely neutralizing his quickness.  He rushes best from right end, and while that make Osi superfluous, JPP needs to spend more time there on passing downs.   I’d rather see an Austin or Joseph (or eventually Canty) in at DT on these downs.  With a long break until game 2, we will probably be next week with a preview.  Please feel free to offer up comments or opinions on the site or directly to me.  If you like our blog, please pass it along.