NEW YORK – What a crazy night it was in New Meadowlands stadium. Nobody could have predicted some of the craziness that occurred in this game. The Giants were expected to man handle the Cowboys tonight but that did not happen. Instead, we saw a Dallas Cowboys team fighting for their lives and taking chances on big plays because they had nothing to lose. The Giants lost this game 33-20 to the Cowboys.
The Giants defensive backfield gave up a couple of big plays to the Cowboys early in the first half and Dallas got some points from them. It was 19-6 at halftime but could have easily been worse then that, if the Giants defense hadn’t held them to FG’s a couple of times. I was surprised by how little the Giants defense seemed to get to backup QB Jon Kitna in the game. I expected Kitna to be on his back for most of the game but it never happened.
Most Giants fans will tell you that the team did not look like themselves tonight. It was a very strange game to watch and the Cowboys looked like they were the team that was 6-2 and not 1-7. The Giants had a lot of players injured for this game and even some of the second stringers got hurt during the game. It’s not an excuse but it certainly adds to the issues the team had. This was a game that the Giants should have won and the fact that they lost to an atrocious Dallas team, leaves a big question mark on how they will fair against solid teams for the rest of the season. They will need to regroup quickly because they face the Eagles next Sunday night in Philadelphia and have four more divisional games left in the season.
Let’s take a look at some of my notes from the game tonight.
– QB Eli Manning had a decent game but it wasn’t entirely fun to watch. He finished with 373 yards, 2 TD’s and 2 INT’s.
– Offensive Coordinator Kevin Gilbride’s play calling was awful in the first half. It was even worse in the second half.
– There was a power outage at New Meadowlands stadium that delayed the game for a short period of time.
– The Giants offensive line held together nicely despite the injuries by not giving up a single sack in the game.
– WR Hakeem Nicks had another great game and has become an elite NFL WR. He finished with 82 yards.
– The Giants had a lot of penalties against them and some of them were bogus. They finished with 8 penalties for 69 yards.
– RB Ahmad Bradshaw ran hard all night and finished the game with 73 yards rushing and 62 yards receiving.
– The Giants special teams had another poor game in my opinion, Will Blackmon’s performance not included.
– WR Mario Manningham has a nice game filling in for WR Steve Smith. He finished with 91 yards and a TD.
– TE Kevin Boss had a very good game, finishing with 81 yards and a TD.
– Defensive coordinator Perry Fewell could not do anything against the big plays Dallas was getting all night.
– K Lawrence Tynes made all of his FG and extra point attempts tonight and continues to have a great year.
– WR Ramses Barden left the game with an injury in the second half and did not return. He finished with 34 yards.
– Safety Kenny Phillips led all tacklers for the defense and safety Deon Grant had the lone INT.
– The Giants defense had a poor game by their standards. They finished with 1 sack and 1 INT.
– The Giants won the time of possession battle by having the ball for 37:51 minutes of the game.
RD – nygreporter.com
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Hey man.
Good assessment. I thought Gilbride did what he had to do. We couldnt get our run game going one bit and he had to call a ton of passes.
Whats your assessment of where this team is going?
Honestly, I though that having Deihl, Smith, and O Hara out was too much to overcome.
Smith has had 25 catches for 325 yards in the last 3 games vs Dallas. DD has started 120 straight games. O Hara is still a great player.
Im not concerned about the overall direction of this team.
This felt like a trap game and the Giants played like it, coming out pretty flat. Still we had a million opportunities and blew most of them. At the very least this will stop all the bs talk about us being the best team in the NFC and other headlines that are nothing more than distractions. This team is best when people are doubting them. And hopefully this will be a wake up call to correct a lot of the careless mistakes we’ve seen this season.
We need to get healthy and we’ll be fine.
Hey Kyle,
Thanks for the comments. I’m not worried about the Giants making the playoffs or even winning the NFC East. I believe that both of those things will still happen. I am concerned with all of the injuries, just like we talked about so many times last year. We have 10 guys on the IR already and like you mentioned, way too many on the offensive line. I also thought the refs blew 2 crucial calls against us which cost us points.
I was not happy with the offensive play calling at all. Gilbride seemed to be way too timid in a game where the G-Men should have blown out the Cowboys. He was on a roll for the past month or so but then regressed last night in my opinion. On the defensive side of the ball, I’m not sure there was much Perry Fewell could have done besides blitz a little more. The Cowboys were playing like a doomed team and shooting for the big play all night. I was mostly surprised they put up 33 on us.
The Giants entered the game with the No.1 defense in the NFL and the No.2 offense. There is no way the outcome should have been this against an atrocious 1-7 Dallas team without Tony Romo.
God Bless
I suppose your right.
In fact, I started to worry about how things were going to go on the 2nd drive of the night. After Nicks gets them down the field by himself, they don’t even attempt to go his way for a while after that. They try to “establish the run”, in typical Killdrive fashion, and obviously they sputtered.
When Newman and Jenkins go out, I’m sitting there waiting for them to start attacking. But no, they played not to lose, while their opponent played to win on offense. The Cowboys put pressure on, the Giants wanted to plod.
What’s the strongest part of the Dallas defense, front 7 or back 7? Most would answer back 7. Especially so with the injuries. And with Andrews proving he can hold down Ware, it was clear how they should have attacked.
Answer me this: WWBD? Belichick would have realized what the weakness of the Cowboys was and threw the hell out of the ball. Kinda like how he had Tom Brady attempt 50+ passes last night against the best run stopping team ever.
I totally agree with you about Jenkins and Neuman going out of the game and Gilbride not attacking. I was on the edge of my seat anticipating some big passes but they never happened.
I noticed that you’re no longer with g101. What have you been up to and how is school going buddy?
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/playoffscenario?algorithm=custom&9=4054040&10=15105410&11=11404505&12=14500014&13=55500155&14=54441014&15=10041550&16=05401054
Heres something pretty cool I found On Yahoo for obsessive fans lol. Thats my projection.
You could only manipulate the last 4 weeks so I gave us, The bucs, and Bears 3 more losses and all of ours in conference.
Wed be 10-6 ad get the #6 seed
I’m not sure who made these picks but I don’t like them. The Giants as the 6th seed and the Jets as the 5th seed in the AFC? They are arguably the two best teams in the NFL.