The main problem this evening was that the anchor of the defense (its pass rush) was not present. We had seen this to a degree in the Bengals game, when the blitz was not effective in H2 of Cincy. But here, Anderson had all day all game. The Browns mixed in some misdirection just to keep the Giants off-balance, and the result is that even those 8 zillion penalties were never a problem, as we could not stop them worth a lick. The Manning INTs were certainly a problem, costing the gmen plenty. But that won’t be the long term issue- the longer term issue is whether the defensive line is just having a bad evening or there is something more. When the DL is ordinary, our weakest unit on the team (LB, and certainly exacerbated by Pierce’s injury) cannot support them enough. The Browns came to play, the Giants made enough mistakes to lose, NEXT. Spags has a lot of work to do in figuring out what has happened in the Bengals (second half) and Browns game to stop our pass rush.
Misc- Webster is playing very well. Why did Jacobs hold the face mask on the blitz pickup? The Giants did not need a hurry up but they could have moved to the huddle and line of scrimmage to pick up the pace a little bit more. I like to see Manning run once per game, it was a nice one to move sticks in Q3.
Summary: DL pressure, Eli’s eyes. Every week is Super Bowl week for our opponent, welcome to the world of defending a title.
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