Scouting the Giants

[Argus Plexus]

tl;dr summary near the bottom.

 

As a fan, it’s tough to look at this game and be objective and at the same time keep some glimmer of hope alive. But despite my disdain for our coaching staff’s recent blunders, I will keep the faith and continue trying to analyze the other team and make sense of our jumblefug of a team.

 

The 2013 New York Giants seem to be flaming out a bit. Now two years removed from their Superbowl Championship, they seem to be spiraling down. Nothing can stay afloat forever, or so they say. Their fans are questioning their longtime (And Superbowl Winning) coach and wondering if the dynasty they have been enjoying for so long is coming to an end. If you ask my opinion, they’re overreacting to the maximum degree, and they need to stop whining. But what do I know? I’m just the doofus fan of a team that hasn’t been above .500 in five years. The Giants will probably return to being excellent sometime in midseason, but in the meantime they just might be vulnerable.

 

The first thing I will address is, obviously, Eli Manning. The name itself strikes fear into Munnerlyn’s heart. The entirety of the football world seems to be of the mind that he’s playing like crap so far due to his whopping 7 INT’s. That’s one INT for every Newton sack. Think about that. See what I did there?

 

 Let it be known that Eli isn’t struggling at all. His 55 completions on 91 attempts for 812 yards garner a 60.4 completion rate and a healthy 8.9 yards per attempt. Yeah, go change your depends, I’ll wait until you get back to continue…

 

Wilson was good. Even Manuel was good. But all of that was but a taste of what Eli might do to this secondary. Some of you might say “But angusberger, Wilson has 8.9 yards per attempt too!” You might if you could spell that well anyways. And to you sir I say, good for you for doing your homework. But to rebut your factoid, bear in mind Eli has attempted nearly twice as many passes as Wilson and maintained that high yards/attempt. The Hawks baby Wilson, whereas Eli has basically become the Giants. He’s pretty much the only reason their offense produces at all right now. When looking over the tape of the Giants/Denver game, it’s pretty easy to see that towards the end the Giants were already beat. At that point, Eli started putting the ball downfield and allowing his receivers to hopefully make a play on the ball and make something happen. It really was their only hope of coming back. He was just heaving it up and hoping good things happened. Unfortunately, it didn’t go that way for him. Had it been a normal game situation, I severely doubt Eli would have thrown that many INTs.

 

Eli was under pressure in both of his games so far. He was only sacked once by Denver, but he was pushed around and awful lot. Eli is known for being icy, but our only hope of stopping him might be our D-Line. I’m not going to go out on a limb and suggest our secondary might actually play respectably against Eli, the guy is one of the greats and has been for a while. It’s really hard to say “Oh he likes to throw to this guy or that guy, or he likes this part of the field or that” because he really is a good enough passer that he can throw on you pretty much anywhere at any time. I’ll be honest guys, we might have to just, and bear with me on this one, outscore them if we hope to win. If our pass rush brings their A+ game on Sunday, we might have a chance to make him settle for field goals at least. With David Diehl still on the mend from his thumb surgery a few weeks ago, their line has been shuffled around, with rookie Justin Pugh now starting at RT. This gives me some hope we might be able to get to Eli, but whether our D-Line comes to play or not is yet to be determined. I have high hopes.

 

Their running game is nonexistent and I’m not worried about it at all. Like, at all. Star got this. My main concern is getting torched and beat over the top by their receivers. We all know the names Cruz and Nicks. These guys are going to be taking the top off our secondary all day long, opening up the middle of the field for Myers to come in and eat his share. I’m really not expecting any miracles from our secondary, the majority of the work MUST come from the front seven to stop these guys. I believe they have the ability to stop the Giants, but they have to live up to their potential. This game has to be 100% all four quarters, or we are toast.

 

When we look at their defense, that’s when things get a little blurry. They are a lot like us in the fact that their D-Line is severely underperforming. They are known for their perennial elite D-Line play, but they seem to be struggling. Granted, Denver and Dallas have good O-Lines, but an elite D-Line should be getting pressure anyways. This doesn’t seem to be the case thus far, but we all know how this story ends. I feel bad for Byron Bell, I truly truly do. I feel even worse for Cam and our running game. If our offense is going to get anything happening, it has to start in the trenches. This O-Line, for the third week in a row, is THE deciding factor in whether or not we are competitive at all this week. If the O-Line can be even average, then we can get the ball rolling. Their run defense has been middle of the pack so far. If we can establish a strong running game, we can control the clock and keep the ball out of Eli’s hands for as long as possible. Their pass defense has been even worse, and that I believe is where we can beat them. If we can establish our running game on them and draw them into the box, we can take advantage of their garbage pass defense and have Smitty/Olsen/Ginn TDs raining from the sky. I believe this is what it will come down to. Our defense HAS to stop them from scoring TDs, and our offense HAS to capitalize. This team has to play all four quarters on both sides of the ball if we are going to win.

 

TL;DR

 

The Giants have been struggling, but don’t let that get to your head. These guys are still good, and they’re hungry. To beat them we have to be in Eli’s face every single play and force some bad throws to compensate for our makeshift secondary. Our offensive line has to impose their will if we are going to have a hope of winning. The running game has to eat that clock up as much as possible and open the passing lanes if we are going to have a hope of outscoring them. My advice for fantasy owners? Start Eli Manning. Start him.

 

My advice to the team? Ronnie boy needs some balls, like, yesterday. If you’re in a 4^th and 1 situation on their 20 with 1:30 left and the lead, trust your players to make that yard happen. If they fail, you’re no worse for wear. If they succeed, you win. What did you really have to lose there, Ron? As for the players, you look slow and unmotivated. That’s all I can really say to them.

 

Cheers fugers,

 

Angusberger

 

P.S. Should I make hot wings or mini sliders? Homemade of course.

 

 

[d-dave]

Good analysis work! Hope our oline can hold up and allow us to be in the game.

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[Argus Plexus]

The lines really are our only hope.