Rewatching the Giants Game
 

The miracle of Tivo has allowed me to rewatch tonight's game, complete with slo-mo and frame by frame viewing.

So far I've watched the first few series by both teams and here are my thoughts:

Defense:
1. Eric Hicks is clueless. Not only does he not have the speed or strength, he doesn't have the brains. His reaction at the snap seems to have no bearing on the ball or the play that develops. He just starts running to a spot on the field regardless of whether it factors in the play. LDE play immediately improved when Wilkerson came in.

2. Our scheme is fucked. Amani Toomer and Plaxico Burress had numerous occasions when they were lined up against LBs. It was an easy read for the QB and a wide open reception for the WR. Kendrell Bell is especially bad in coverage. Teams will be able to exploit this scheme the same way all year unless changes are made. Our safeties are taken out of the equation because they play so deep.

3. Our DTs played OK. Not great, but not bad either. The apparent lack of pass rush had more to do with Manning have quick options to get rid of the ball (LB on WR).

Offense:
1. Turley was out of his league. Over the course of a full game, he would get abused by someone (Yumenyora?) with that much speed and strength. He's going to need to put on weight or he will be abused by powerful ends all year.

2. Chris Bober sucks. He was getting beat or missing his assignment on a regular basis. I expect a glaring improvement with the return of Waters.

3. Sampson is not Welbourne. Whether it's his feet or just a strength issue, he gets knocked off balance a lot. He'll be the weak point on our line most likely.

4. LJ's pass blocking is very solid. He picked up pretty much everything, the only miss being a result of Bober missing his man leaving LJ to face two guys.

5. The play-calling kind of sucked. For whatever reason, this offense doesn't seem to have pass packages that exploit the blitz. If we ran the same patterns New York ran, Green could have got rid of the ball a lot quicker, taking the pressure of his line in the face of the blitz. Gonzo needs to start shortening his routes, or a WR is going to have to cross more often.

When I watch more, I'll post more thoughts, but this includes pretty much all of the play from the starters.

Hicks has been a good soldier, but he's completely without value at this point. He probably shouldn't even make this team, much less be in the DE rotation. What speed and strength he may have had has been washed away with time, and his recognition (as stated above) doesn't make up for it. He's a non-factor, who never has to be chipped or accounted for by a back or TE.

Thanks jsp! When Toomer or Burress was lined up against a LB was it a 3 WR set or just 2? If it was 3 we should have been in a nickel I would have thought.

I agree. I'm on record here as saying he's not as bad as he's been made out to be. I thought he'd still be a solid part of the rotation.

But after last week and really concentrating on his play this week, i realize the guy doesn't have any positives. His experience apparently hasn't taught him the things that might diguise his lack of athleticism.

After seeing Wilkerson play so much better, unless Hali is a total bust, I see no reason to pay Hicks the 2+ million he's due this year.

That is exactly what I saw with Turley also, Umeyiora abused him. Now Osi is one of the best DE's in the game right now and very few teams have ends like the Giants do so that's good for us but....Anytime we face a team that has an elite pass rusher I'm expecting a long day.

Also the safeties are so deep because they both lack speed, it's the only way they can get into their deep zones. If we had the speed there we needed they could play closer and still get back.

It's because all his strength is in the upper body. Sampson is massive in the torso area, but his base is W E A K. I noticed this last year when he was forced into action. OT's need to have a wide enough base in order to not get thrown when they swing wide in pass blocking. If your DE is lined up on a top heavy OT, they'll get knocked around like rag dolls every time.

Willie Roaf looked like a guy with too much weight in the base, but actually, he's equally strong in both areas. It's nearly impossible to get that dude off-balance on the rush. You might beat him off the edge, but you won't spin him like a Sampson Top.

I couldn't agree with this more. I hope that we can take a look at the film and realize what we need to change. Manning had an easy time out there. However, I'm not going to worry too much because I trust that Herm will adress this and that our defense will look different during the regular season. During the last two seasons, we have added Pat Surtain, Derrick Johnson, Ty Law, Tamba Hali, two new DTs, Kendrell Bell (who will hopefully be better this year) and two new safeties. Moreover, Kawika is better than ever and Jared Allen should continue to improve. I have to think that all of these things will count for something. If we could make all of these changes to our defense and still be as bad as we were, then we would be something for the record books. Hopefully, we are capable of change.

Their 3 WR set was up against our base 4-3 a lot. The only catch by either of those guys that was against the nickel was Toomer's TD, and Sapp got chipped on that play. Burress was lined up in the slot against Bell at one point, making for an easy 9 yard gain.

My only hope is that it was by design. That it really was about being vanilla and maybe getting our LBs some coverage experience. otherwise, we're going to get dinked and dunked to a 32 ranking in pass D.

Did Turley swing at that dude in the first qt? Not really a punch, but a good swing? Showed him one on one at one point and it totally looked like Turley took a swing/bash to the head.....

Just curious.....

It won't matter how slow our safeties are if we keep this up. The only time they'll factor in is in cleanup duty.

Thanks and great info. Damn I wish I had TIVO.

I think it was more of a rip type move to use the guy's momentum to throw him off line.

I agree with everything you posted, jsp.

Players who looked good:

Derrick Johnson
Wilkerson
Jeff Webb
Safeties
Scanlon

Players who sucked:

Chris Bober (It needs to be said again)
All the right tackles
Dalton

Boomer (I noticed several times when he just got overpowered on a block to the point of just getting pushed out of the play. Many times he didn't wrap up when he tackled, and it was lucky that we had other guys to help him with it. He needs more strength, and he's not going to get that from writing cheesy journal entries to fans)

Wesley and Knight do not fit this defense at all, they're far to slow to play the defense. They'll probably be non factors everytime we're in the cover 2 look. It'll be great when we're in the cover 2 and a RB get's through the front 7 because they'll be 20 yards before the safeties get to them.

Boomer reminds me where Kawicka was in his 1st year. Relying too much on speed and not enough on technique.

Oh, and Bober is just gawdawful bad.

Bober is bad, but fortunately, we have a guy named Brian Waters to play LG for a few years to come.

Who were the safeties at that point in time that you refer? I did not see the game.....

Bell looked pretty bad in coverage... It almost looked like they had the perfect game plan for us....

I was impressed with Reed again... got a sack I think? Manning had a very good outing... I agree.... and ohhh how I hate those Manning boys.... who else wanted to see a bomb go off in the middle of that commercial with Peyton, Eli, and Pops...?

Wesley and Knight........Wesleys to stupid and Knights to slow.

I think Boomer's problem is short arms. maybe I'm crazy, but I think his arms are short and it hurts his ability to wrap up and hold his tackles.

Another thing I noticed is that while Key Fox is around the ball to make plays, he's a weak tackler. Guys are slipping him off a lot. Hopefully it's rust from last year's injury, but at this point he reminds me of a guy like Fujita, who has to rely on slowing the guy down enough for others to finish the tackle.

Reed reminds me of what we were getting for a good chunk of last season with Dalton.

I agree with most of what you've said. Here are my differences:

Our defensive tackles still got no push up the middle (including later on when Sims and Dalton were in the game)-Dalton did penetrate twice.

Our scheme not only has the safeties playing deep but the linebackers are constantly 5 to 8 yards behind any receivers in front of them.

Turley will be fine. He did get pushed back often but I think he'll gain some weight and catch back up to the speed of the game.

I didn't think Sampson played that bad.

Vanilla or not, when we did blitz we didn't sniff the quarterback.

I watched the game a second time only and am not freaked out just yet. Next week we need to get that vanilla crap out of our heads and gain some confidence. (Hard to with Printers playing the majority of the game- he is not even close to being in the NFL, get rid of him now, Smoker looks like he has more promise after just one week of practice.

Yeah, Jordan black sucks at OT, but he's a better guard than Bober. Has Bober beat him out for the backup spot?

Absolutely no doubt remaining.... No point in trying to defend him this time... Hicks just can't cut it anymore....

Now you have to remember we are grading Turley on a serious curve here because Umenyiora is really good, hell the Giants backup DE's would complete for starting jobs on our team. They're loaded at that spot.

ROFL



Did the safety play improve when the rookies stepped in? Been hearing alot about the rookies, but have yet to see them play.....

I don't know.... I have a feeling this is going to be one of those years where we will need someone who knows how to handle being 1-3.

I haven't been all that impressed with them to be honest but they are rookies. Of course I guess we could read into the fact that they're playing in the 4th quarter against scrubs who will probably be cut and they aren't standing out.....that could be a bad sign.

I don't have TIVO, but the next time you have it going with a Chiefs game, tell me where Fox's arms are when he tackles. I've always thought he had his arms too low on impact.

That is a great question! I have read that Black would be better suited at Guard.

I agree with that sentiment. Umenyiora is good. He's very fast, and he's strong too. And Turley did ok in regards to keeping him off Green, but Green had to know those guys were in his lap a lot.

Even so, I think Turley is going to struggle against power guys this year. You take his play tonight and spread it over 4 qtrs, and Green is going to take soem hits.

My guess watching the game was that we were working on specific things, both offensively and defensively, and not working from a game-plan specifically designed to beat New York. That's not giving any kind of excuse for our piss-poor performance, just pointing out that it gave them things they could exploit.

It's not anything we haven't seen before. I remember several games under Vermeil where the offense struggled in the preseason because they were working on specific blocking schemes or short passing paterns. Just something we do, although I didn't know whether to expect it from Herm.

Well, poop. From what I read it sounded like they were really gonna make a difference this year. Now, I am not so sure...

thanks for the info!

But if we want to seriously compete, he's gotta stop the best. Every QB was pressured at some point from Turley just barely not holding his man off... What bothered me was there were several times that he had great form, and his footwork was good, but he just didn't have the mass to hold his ground.

I'd take that over a fat guy who didn't have the proper form or footwork.

Basically I look at it this way, we'll be ok against teams with average-poor pass rushes and ok ends. But if we face any elite pass rushes with elite ends, like the Giants have we're gonna struggle like hell. We could probably run through the schedule and pick out what games we'll struggle in just based on that, hopefully we don't face to many elite pass rushers this year.

I haven't rewatched that part of the game yet, but from what I remember, they didn't get tested much. It was a lot of short passes and runs.

Pollard had one nice play where he took on the blocker on a running play (he was blitzing) and then got back in the play to strip the ball from the RB (RB was determined to have a knee down after review).

My overall impression of Page and Pollard so far is they haven't been tested much, but have peformed well in regards to cleaning up plays. They both seem to always be there when the whistle blows.

Do you think if he adds weight/muscle things will improve? Or is this a serious concern heading into the season? Again, people. I did not see the game and am asking for input from those who saw it....

If we made the playoffs and played the Colts with this line.....Freeney would abuse Trent for an entire game, atleast 4 sacks.

Tivo rulez...
 

Just watching the 1st qtr so far...

Giants were blitzing the LBs all the time, delayed. Sampson had his hands full, as did Bober. Turley got beat some too.

Question, other the blitzing LBs, how did the line do against a standard front 4? (Trick question b/c don't think it happened in the 1 qtr) Turley solid beat once. Bober too much. Sampson, also too much. Even saw Shields lose one as well.

If they bring the heat, Green has to have the short slants ready.

What is the solution?

~OK, I'm done, back under the rock~

Well, that might be a positive to build upon at this point.

Of course if he added weight he would improve..... but he took off all that weight cause his back couldn't handle it. If he puts the weight back on we risk losing him to back injury.......

Damned if ya do.....

Short answer, he needs to add weight.

Long answer, he can't just fatten up and gain anything from it. He needs to add good weight, which is not something that happens over the course of a month or two.

For this year at least, I think we're stuck with a light, underpowered LT who's going to have to rely heavily on technique and footwork.

Yep. I noticed that from Key as well. Needs some more fundamentals work or something. Hopefully it IS just rust from the injury

So in short.....Trent Green better quicken up his reads and release because if he takes as long as he did last year he'll get lit up.

Personally, I've seen enough to be optimistic. They look like they belong on an NFL field. I'd like to see them facing 1st stringers just to see how they hold up. As it is, they aren't being tested much.

The Chiefs telegraph the blitz, so the opposing QB can make adjustments, thats why it is so ineffective.

Yes, Hicks sucks. On one of the plays when Printers went flying out of bounds, Hicks grabbed him to slow him down. My comment was that Hicks finally caught a quarterback. So sad.

I keep thinking of last year's game against Buffalo, where we didn't seem to have offensive pass plays that exploited the blitz.

Yea, I think we need shortened routes, and Green needs to be conscious of getting the ball out quickly.

watch the play last week where he took on 2 blockers. Hit his primary then took on the blitz. He is athletic, not a lard ass. If he puts on too much weight, he'd lose some of the that.

Color me impressed from last week. Thus far, 1 qtr, against an elite DE, this week...OK. I'll take OK against an elite.

~getting tired and want to watch the rest of the 1/2, back under rock~

Thank all of you for the insight into the game. It appears from your responses that Turley will need some help in blocking, which of course changes things from what we are used to with Roaf holding down the spot. It's preseason and I am not ready to give up hope but, it is apparent things may be a little different than we are used to on offense.

Understand something though that's the Texans and this was the Giants. The Texans were the worst team in the NFL last year the Giants were a playoff team, if we wanna be a good team we have to be able to do things against teams like the Giants not just the Texans.

Thanks for posting this up JSP. I admire your dedication to watch this again right away it wasnt very pretty. I look forward to downloading and watching this again.

Offense

Kyle Turley - He definitely got exposed tonight. I mean its not big secret that he is undersized right now, and that teams/DE's would try to bull rush him. The question was how would he handle it, IMO not good at all.

Chris Bober - all I can say is thank God we have Brian Waters, and I hope that foot injury does not linger.

Weigman - will be a lot better having both his Pro Bowl guards on both sides of him.

Shields - is Shields. He is going to have to help out the whatever RT we line up as much as possible. That means Weigman might be left to play a guy who outweighs him by a good bit straight up.

Sampson - exactly what you said, he seems to get knocked off balance a lot, and that is because of a bad Base. Im not sure how that can be fixed. How did Svitek look tonight?

Poor Trent took some shots early, If our O-line doesnt play better Huard is going to gets some snaps this season, without a doubt.

That really is the two biggest disappointments for me is the play of both of our Lines. Im not overly freaked out about our showing in Preseason so far, but the play of the lines worries me.

I think Kennison, Parker, and Gonzo will do us proud this year. Parker does seem to be ready to step it up. Note* Jeff Webb to me looks like an NFL wide receiver. Maybe he is PS material for now, but I have a feeling he might turn out to be pretty good.

Its really hard to make a judgement about Ronnie Cruz right now, and of course LJ is LJ.

Defense

Jared Allen - he looks good. I expect big things out of him this year.

James Reed - I think if whatever other tackle is in there, if they can demand a double team, and obviously opposing teams need to pay attention to Allen. Reed can beat some one on one blocking and get us some good plays penetrating the backfield and helping to stuff ball carriers. He looks to be by far our quickest DT, I look for him to be able to shoot the gaps as well and cause some distruption.

Ron Edwards - I havent seen a whole lot, but I have noticed him getting double teamed. He looks to be an improvement over Sims/Dalton

Eric Hicks - I am done with this guy. I was hoping he would serve as a good backup/be decent against the run. But at this point, even Wilkerson shifted back over to spell Hali. At least he has some athleticism.

I like DJ and Kawika (not hard to) I think we will be fine with the combo of Bell/Fox. If Bell doesnt step up Key Fox will be ready to step right in. I think we are set at LB - definitely the strength of our Defense.

Obviously we have solid corners right now. and I think we are set at the safety postion for years to come. I think Knight/Wesley will play good enough until our two rookies are ready to step in. I just hope they dont get exposed too much in coverage (Okay, I am very worried about that) I hope Pollard and Page are ready soon.


Shit, didnt meant to novel this up. Just kinda ran with it.

Agreed..
 

Mecca and thanks for your novel Chiefsfan 31. I think you're in line with jspchief.

~I'm posted out, after 6. back under rock~

I think we suck ass for being vanilla.
I think that our Oline sucks, our tackling sucks, and our wide receivers suck, oh and our back up running backs suck. Everything sucks!!!
I understand they didn't show anything but they also couldn't DO anything. I am terribly disappointed. Glad to see that they game planned all week to gain a yard in the first series.

The vanilla excuse only goes so far with me. It's not like our problems are restricted to the plays being called. There are problems with individual players executing too.

The bright side is the return of Brian Waters will immediately upgrade the O-line, and hopefully Hali will have an impact replacing Hicks.

That pretty much sums up my impression, as well.

I also remember Pollard laying the wood to a back on cleanup duty in the 3rd quarter. I didn't get to see the rest of the game because our local affiliate's signal was screwed up.

Sure, the shorter routes help. So do screens and draws. And don't forget, this team is a great running team. They then use that to play action pass. All of those things help slow the pass rush. It's just a matter of the right play calling. Al Saunders failed miserably in this area at times last year (see Buffalo). Hopefully, Solari doesn't make that same mistake.

Greg Wesley
 

Despite all the criticism of Wesley, I noticed he was in on several plays last night. He was one of the few bright spots last night, IMO.

Just my .02.

its easy to make a play when you have ten yards to take an angle.

Yea, unfortunately our safeties were basically clean-up unit for the Giants' short attack. It's not that they played good or bad, just that they were rendered useless.

But what ticked me off about Wesley is, he doesn't wrap up on a tackle. He just seems to hit them to tackle them. That is gonna burn us big time.

I am already very concerned about this team.

They seem to be absolutely clueless and lethargic all at once.

I will posit that maybe team discipline has crumbled in the transition from Vermeil to Herm.

If we play anything like this in the regular season we're looking 5-11 or worse square in the face.

This is probably some of the worst preseason football I've ever witnessed in 35 years of watching it.

The only bright spot with the starters on D was that there were no yards after the catch. But, this was because it was dink and dunk. At least they were sticking them at the point of attack, but the point of attack was waaaay to deep. I predict with this scheme that opposing offenses will not have a ton of big plays against us, but they will nickel and dime their way into the endzone.

We need a damn pass rush. Tackling against the run was pretty solid, but the short passes for 7-12 yards are going to be our Achilles heel...The D will be on the field for too long. Even when we had them at 3rd and long, they could easily throw for a first down. Eli was having a picnic back there.

You can't predict anything about this scheme, because they weren't even playing it last night. The corners in a cover two are supposed to jam wide receivers inside at the line of scrimmage. They weren't doing much of that if any at all.

I'm holding otu hope that you're right. But even if that's the case, why the hell aren't we playing it that way? What's so secretive about the cover 2 that we can't let our players get accustomed to doing it right in the pre-season?

What are we saving it for? After the first game of the regular season, it's not like everyone won't have film anyway.

the more I think about the "keep it vanilla" strategy, the more I think it makes no sense with our starters.

that's the cover 2 scheme ... it depends heavily on the linebackers in coverage and the safeties being very quick.

imo knight/wesley don't have the range to play in the cover 2. We need to just cut bait and play the rookies. Let our veterans at cornerback help the rookie learn.



sampson is young ...... he needs to work on his leg strength imo

IMO....The current backup Safeties. 'the two P's ' played well.

Pollard,Page both had nice hits, coverage, a blitz If I recall....

Though it was against 2nd team.

Wesley and Knight didn't seem like they were with it at or...they may be
near done for NFL.

Ok, I went home after watching the game on a 5" B&W here at work and rewatched the first quarter a play at a time. Keep in mind, I never played football and am nowhere near as knowledgable as a lot of others on this board.

On offense, Bober was terrible! I also think we were specifically working on pass blocking. I mean LJ got the ball what, 3 times?

Trent looked like his usual early season/early game self. I have noticed this the last couple of years, Trent seems to start each game slowly. The same seems to be true for the season as a whole as well. The deep ball to Parker was way underthrown and he missed his receivers on a couple of other throws.

I thought Turley looked ok. Not great but ok. In all honesty though, I am not sure I would like to see him back at 300 pounds, his body obviously can not handle that weight. A little more than he has now would be helpful for sure but I don't want to see him screw himself up for the rest of his life to keep us happy.

On defense, I am losing faith in someone I have tried very hard to believe in, Gunther. Our blitzes are still being telegraphed seconds before the snap, allowing the opposing team time to make adjustments. We need to try delaying some of those blitzes, maybe we would have a shot at touching the QB.

Also, the CBs were constantly 8-10 yards off the line of scrimmage. Heck, even Aikmam commented on it, it was that glaring. This is a lot of what was allowing the dink and dunk attack to work so well.

Once again this week, I really actually felt better after watching each play individually as opposed to just watching the game as it unfolded. I went home last night pretty depressed. Our backups across the board are pretty scary but our starters will do us well when the bullets are real, IMHO.

Hmm... I can't imagine why our D-line can't get a consistent pass rush.

On that note, is Buckner still available?

I would like to know the percentage of times that Sapp actually gets the QB on his blitz versus the number of times he completely whiffs or just bounces off the QB.

I expect him to blitz every time I see him in there, and I always expet the guy he left to be covered by a slower LB and probably be open for the first down. I'm sure it looks really in cool in practice when he can't actually touch the QB, but it is so inefective during the game that it is really starting to grate on me.

I'd like to know :hmmm: awe nothing....:D

Yes, it will hurt...

I caught a little of the game in Vegas. What I saw coupled w/ your observations does not give me a good feeling. My only hope is it's pre-season and you can't really see what type of product we'll bring come Sept.

I'm already missing DV and AS.