UltimateNYG- Winner Best Football Blog 2009
1) Thanks to everyone for their support, past and present. Everyone here on this blog is part of the winning community of Giants fans who are bringing in another Giants championship title. Your involvement, voice and respect for every commenter make this a forum that is worthy of the award. Thanks and a loud shout out go to Derek and Ben at Bloguin, who are working their tails off on this content platform. Bloguin is now the second largest sports blog out there.
2) It may be a quiet Saturday morning but the Giants have a game tomorrow…
On Thursday Jerry Reese spoke to Paul Schwartz. The answers were mostly the typical platitudes but Reese was kind of enough to throw us a few bones.
When Phillips got hurt, we asked why more options were not presented. Weeks after the disclosure (and yet more weeks after the Giants knew about the seriousness of the injury) his hand was forced when the doctors essentially ended Phillips’ season. Reese did not act until he absolutely had no choice. With only two Safeties now on the roster, he was ‘lucky’ to get Rouse off of waivers from the Packers. His answer to why he was not more proactive was understandable, if not predictable:
“Needless to say, when (Phillips) got hurt, we investigated some situations, and things didn’t materialize or it didn’t make sense for us.”
We finally get the admission that the price was too high. But when we see CC Brown in preseason, when we ONLY HAVE 3 SAFETIES ON THE ROSTER after preseason, it is harder to argue that everything is satisfactory. We’re not asking for a Jerry Jones trade deadline panic of a 1, 3, and 6 for Roy Williams. A serviceable body at 98.6° would suffice. And to make matters slightly less believable, Reese’s answer to the play he is getting from CC Brown is embarrassing…
“I don’t think the safeties have played awful,” Reese said. “It sounds like everybody’s giving C.C. Brown a hard time. He’s come in and really done an admirable job for us.”
Admirable? Admirable? Admirable is the way you might try to describe the job of someone like Rouse, who has to pick up the playbook and work with new players, coaches and schemes on the fly. It is not the way you describe the horrid play of someone who was picked up by the Giants in March, who had plenty of time to learn the defense through the myriad OTAs and preseason. With Phillips out a lot in preseason, Brown had plenty of time to get good quality practice with the defense. And as we saw vs the Saints, it is not as if he did not know the playbook… he is right where he needs to be vs Colston and Meachem, yet cannot make the play because he is simply not a good enough football player for this level of competition.
Jerry Reese- Giants fans here on this blog and all over respect you because you do a great job. YOU are admirable. CC Brown is not. Please don’t attach your locomotive to his caboose.
3) We’ve talked about head injuries/concussions here before. It is impossible for anyone except the doctors to have all the facts, but my instinct tells me to require any player having any concussion to sit for an extended period of time. Not a game. GameS. Westbrook has a concussion. News that he is possibly coming back to play in 6 days is insane. And what about Boss? The player who hit him (Rolle) got fined (where was the 15 YDer, everyone asked immediately thereafter). He is supposed to play, but it sounded like he had a concussion too. If it looks or smells like a concussion, it’s a concussion. These are people’s lives. How many times have we heard about players recounting years later how they were allowed to play but really should not have been playing.. that they really did have something before coming back the next week and getting into MUCH BIGGER TROUBLE? Too many times. The quality of the game will not suffer by simply benching these guys. BOSS SHOULD NOT PLAY. In fact, considering how Gilbride wastes the guy’s talents on a regular basis, you should hold him out until after the bye. Bulls and bear make money, pigs eat sh*t. This guy was knocked OUT. He should not play. The risk reward is terrible. On all levels.
4) The Line. Giants -1 on the road. They opened +3 so the spread moved 4 points, which is huge. A lot of this is Westbrook. Another part is a growing consensus that the Giants are not going to allow themselves to lose 3 in a row, something they have not done in 3 years. Speaking about consensus.. you start getting nervous when everyone is on the Giants. Everyone is on the Giants. I mean EVERYONE. 9 out of 9 NY Post geniuses have the Giants. And the only thing worse than this is that 4 of those also go out of their way and make them a Best Bet too. Yeeesh. I’d like the Giants to win this game too if not for the masses here jumping all over this. No selection here, but something does not make sense. Generally speaking this looks too easy, and if that is the case take the other side. We’ll just note this aberration, root for the gmen to pull it in, but if they do not we will have to remind ourselves that the masses were telling us to trust the Eagles because zero are on them.
5) There are 9 Post geniuses and then there is one Phil Simms: “Giants pass rush is going to be the difference because McNabb’s getting hit a lot. That’s why the Giants are going to win. They just took two losses..” Irresistible force meets immovable object.
6) Interesting/fun remarks from Nicks.
7) The Eagles can run a few (more) Vick plays vs the Giants. It would represent a good matchup for them for this set of slower LBers minus Boley.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
