We all love the Giants. The Giants do not love us back, especially in preseason. The Giants were varying degrees of sloppy in the first 2 preseason games. They were sloppy again in the 3rd game of preseason. It was not as painful to watch as the Bengals game. For those of us watching on TV, we had the highlight of the game when Bob Papa fumbled Carl Banks’ birthday cake on air. The rest of this contest was less memorable.
Justin Pugh had 2 penalties and a sack allowed (with an assist from Vereen acting as swiss cheese on that undressed salad combo). When your 3rd year former Round 1 draft pick (who was moved from Tackle to Guard) whiffs on an interior block, it is not exactly encouraging. Sure, he is not going to be perfect, but maybe this is the metaphor for the Giants preseason: a bunch of players who are making mistakes, doing nothing particularly inspiring, and leaving us all wondering aloud when the switch is going to be turned on.
Yes, after week 1 of preseason we don’t get too down on anything. But Week 3 of preseason is the full dress rehearsal. (Week 4 is typically when starters play only a series or two before getting out of harm’s way and allowing the rest of the players to fight it out for roster spots.) And it was lackluster at best. Coughlin was excited about the first drive, and yes, there was some ability to move the ball. But that only TD drive of the starters was aided by 3 Jets penalties and 1 incomplete pass ruled a completion. (I’d have to review tape to see how many of 3 penalties were Jet mistakes and how many were caused by Giants good play. One was an Eli hard count which drew an offsides.)
There was no pass rush from the Defensive Line. I think I saw one Odighizuwa rush.
David Diehl remarked that the “DE’s need to do a much better job of containing the lane vs outside runs as well as bootleg/naked’s by QB.” Moore (subbing for yet another injured player, Robert Ayers) and Hosley had problems on the left side at the beginning of the game.
Eli missed a wide open Beckham for 6. Eli’s pick 6 before the end of the half was preseason-sloppy.
The Offensive Line was not inspiring. I watched Flowers carefully and he looked ok. He will be fine vs run and will give up some sacks on the edge. One of my buddies was at the game and said the OLine was manhandled. It did not look that bad on TV, but I certainly saw little to be excited about. Yes, the Jets D Line is excellent. But if that is the standard, then we have troubles ahead.
Banks and my friend both remarked about the Giants missed tackles. This is the sloppy.
Malone lost his chance at a job with that punt which was returned for a TD. This is more of the sloppy. Don’t be penny-wise pound-foolish with opting away from Weatherford. (Coughlin has said Malone’s chances are “high” for getting the job, but I’ll believe it when I see it.)
Nassib is crisp and very good with the short passing game. His feet are excellent. Yet he is mostly inaccurate when called upon for longer passes downfield. Given McAdoo’s offense has plenty of small ball, he can be effective, but he needs to improve his accuracy downfield. Right now I am grateful at how good he looks on the underneath stuff. That was about the best I saw from anyone tonight.
Cunningham is working hard to earn a roster spot.
Banks summed up a lot when he said that usually each preseason/camp, there is one young player who flashes, yet we have not seen any flashes this summer. That is not good. Where are those new playmakers going to be? Flowers is on schedule to develop. Odighizuwa looks the part, holding the edge and showing some promise in pass rush. But we have not gotten much else. Maybe it is because they are all injured.
Tom Coughlin after the game: “Not happy with the way the team played.” Neither were we.
The Giants will turn it on this season. Spags will have whatever players he has come together by midseason. I’m just not sure it will be in enough time to win the number of games they need to win this season. Too many question marks abound. Safety. Beason. Offensive Line. Pass Rush. Defense. Injuries. Everything needs to be answered pretty quickly for this season to come together. We all secretly hope that guys like Cruz and Beatty will show up and inject life into this team. Of course it is only preseason, but we’ve been saying for that 3 weeks now and Dallas is in 2 weeks. Last preseason was worse than this, but Detroit was ugly in Week 1. We need to see players making tackles on Defense. We need to see players on offense making their blocks. We need to see Eli crisp. We need to see a pass rush. Lots of needs.
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