In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. The NY Giants hung on to beat the hapless Redskins, but lost a playoff bid when GB took care of business vs the Bears.
The Redskins are a sad sack. And speaking of sack, Osi had two strip sack fumbles for the Giants. The Giants caused 4 turnovers in total, a credit to Osi, Bulluck and Goff for collecting on the Skins’ sloppiness.
Sloppiness. Appropos for this game and the 2010 season. At least the Giants caused it this time around. Maybe they can remember the lessons about sloppiness in Week 17 and protect the ball better next season.
The Good
1) The defense caused 4 turnovers and short-circuited the Redskins offense from putting up points.
2) Hagan was busy with a number of good receptions early, enabling
3) Mario Manningham to exploit DeAngelo Hall in single coverage.
4) DL had good pressure on Grossman often.
5) We mentioned Osi above, but have to give him more points here. He singlehandedly stopped a number of drives.
6) Batted balls by Tuck (2) and Cofield.
7) Aaron Ross was hungry in his start over injured Webster, and played well.
The Bad
1) Eli Manning. Yes Eli Manning. Do not let this win confuse the facts. He still throws the ball too high (INT off Manningham, great catch by Clayton, high fastball to checkdown for Bradshaw). He still lacks accuracy (blowing wide open deep TD to Super Mario, underthrowing and letting the overrated Hall catch up and bust up the pass). He does not throw to the developing route, and needs to trust his WR to get the separation before the separation has been created. (Instead, he serves up Boss once again on a late throw, amongst a few violations.) He needs to learn how to slide if/when he runs.
2) Someone please explain why you punt on 4th and 2 from the 37? Maybe if you have Feagles and have a tremendous amount of confidence in the coffin corner. This time, Dodge isn’t even close, and the net is 17 yards on a touchback.
3) The pass coverage over the middle/TE was atrocious. Grossman threw for 336 yards. Do we see a pattern here?!
4) The vanishing running game. 28 carries for 71 yards. There was not even a hint of daylight.
The Ugly
1) The Seubert dislocated kneecap injury. Have no idea what the recovery for that kind of injury is, but we hope he comes back. Rich Seubert got off to a slow start this year but he replaced O’Hara at Center and did a great job this season.
2) The Gilpuke Prevent Offense was on full display yet again. The offense went through the motions, running on first down EVERY TIME in Q4, six consecutive times. And in those six handoffs, the team got +3, +1, -2, 0, -2, and +2 yards. In other words, Washington whipped out their sliderule and said, “Eureka! They’re gonna run!” And they put us in 2nd and long positions every time. If it were not for an auto first down penalty of Fletcher, it may have been 4 consecutive 3 and outs. THEY NEVER LEARN!!! TWO WEEKS AFTER THE GREATEST COLLAPSE IN HISTORY and THIS COACHING STAFF IS TRYING TO BLOW ANOTHER Q4 LEAD!
Summary
Okay, so the Giants collected 10 wins. But why aren’t we happy? Does it have to do with getting shut out of the playoffs? No. The Giants had opportunities to get that done the past two weeks and we know what happened. That ship sailed. The GB win today merely confirmed that. The reason why we aren’t happy is that Mara will keep Coughlin on another year. Coughlin will make some change (i.e. firing special teams coordinator Tom Quinn and the QBs coach who doesn’t know QB’ing) and we’ll be stuck with Gilgarbage and Fewell another season. Dead Year Walking.
Another year of mediocrity. Make no mistake, 10-6 is mediocrity when you are 1-4 vs good teams and your opponents this season had a collective record of 113-140. So Coughlin will have the NFC West to beat up on next year. More cologne to cover up the stench. If you want some stench, Perry Fewell’s passive stuff better start making some PROFOUND ADJUSTMENTS this offseason, because he is going to see Vick twice, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers in 2011. And at the rate of the rookie’s progression, Sam Bradford too.
The mediocrity you know. In a football league near you.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
