As many know, former Giants great and current radio broadcaster Carl Banks appears in his weekly spot on WFAN's Joe and Evan mid day show on Mondays at 11:00 am. Banks' interviews are a great resource for Giants fans who want to get a sense for the pulse of the team. He's not afraidd to tell it like it is and does a great job of explaining things in a way that is easy to understand without presenting "fluff" to the listeners.
Banks appeared on the show Monday 9/9/13 for the first time this season and as usual offered a spot on analysis on the state of Big Blue.
On the biggest issue facing the Giants after the Sunday night loss to the Cowboys: You look at this team and you say, yes they can be explosive. But it’s not the big plays that you worry about, it’s the little plays. It’s the 1st and goal. It’s the inability to run a screen pass. They haven’t run an effective screen pass in years around here. There are some things that really have to get fixed and I don’t know if they are afforded the luxury with the schedule the way it is, to kind of, grow into it.
The area that you think that you’d be least concerned with is the offensive side of the ball because of their skill set but the thing that will bedevil this offense will be the little plays. The little things. Penalties. You come out of an injury timeout and you have to take a timeout and then you get a penalty (the play) after that. You know things like that that should be corrected in training camp. And look, the league (as a whole) was a little sloppy yesterday but the teams that had it together most were able to put some points on the board and score, but, you know, this team has to get better. It’s very un-Coughlin like.
Getting plays (made) on the offense is not an issue. If they have to pass it 40 times they are going to make their fair share of plays. But it’s the little things; it’s the guy that can protect the QB, the guy who can get a tough yard. It’s where…it will make this team a viable offensive team.
They cannot afford to try to work their way into it, round their way into this thing because they have some tough competition early on. The RB position has to be fixed right away…the offensive line you’ve got a lot of issues there. The Dallas Cowboys backups (on the DL) wree a lot better than the Giants offensive line back ups, on a lot of plays. There’s not a lot of time, put it that way. They’ve gotta get it figured out.
They need to get it fixed BEFORE Denver. They need to get it fixed today, tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Look there’s a lot glaring. If you want to gloss over it and say, ‘well they can score points they’ll always be in the game,’ but they’ll never always win the game if you can’t do little things. And some of it is correctable.
On David Wilson's struggles and the issues at the RB position: ….Almost worse than that you can’t miss blocks on the one yard line and get your quarterback sacked…He knew who to block. But the willingness to block that’s the biggest key with the running backs. Early in their careers you’re worried about what their assignments are, then after that it really comes down to their willingness to block. You know, he had a block on the one yard line and missed that one. They gotta get it fixed.
…but you know there is a trust issue at the RB position right now. Two screen passes, both intercepted….This team is the WORST at running screen passes; I don’t know what it is. You know they probably get one or two effective ones per year. As a whole, with the types of backs that they have that can run in the open field they just gotta get that figured out.
On the defenses' strong performance (Romo was held to 5.4 YPA and Dez Bryant to 4 catches for a paltry 22 yards): I’ll tell you, one of the bright spots, and I was very impressed—I’d give a game ball to Perry Fewell. He did a monstrous job in getting his guys prepared for Dez Bryant. They played almost 80 plays—Guys like Antrel Rolle and Corey Webster. Spencer Paysinger had some really good plays out there, Jacquin Williams had good plays. The defensive tackles—they were good, they really helped this defense. …You give them credit where it is due and that’s a good sign. For the most part, they showed up to play.
When you take a look at the film the—the Cowboys interior three versus the Giants interior two (DTs) you’ll see guys going backward the other way. As evidence of that you will see how the linebackers were so free to run in to make plays—safeties running in to make plays.
On Hakeem Nicks' making Victor Cruz that much more effective in the passing game and vice versa: Here’s the thing—you mentioned Victor Cruz but I think the straw that stirred that drink was number 88 for the Giants, Hakeem Nicks. He showed up to play against everything they threw at him he held onto and made more yardage out of it. In essence it helped, you can’t diminish anything any of these guys do, but I think he and Victor Cruz play off each other.
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