New York Giants 20 – Dallas Cowboys 17
Overview: With the Giants, it’s never easy. Up 20-6 with six minutes left in the game, the Giants almost gave another game away. But give this team some credit. Dallas had all their weapons intact and playing, while the Giants were minus Brian Williams, Ike Hilliard, Tiki Barber, Rodney Hampton, Dave Brown, and Thomas Lewis. That’s five first round draft picks and a second rounder! This was an important win for the Giants because it brings their record to 3-3, and 2-0 in the division. But just as importantly, it is another confidence booster for this young and maturing team. The Giants are starting to believe in themselves. However, the players should not rest on their laurels after this emotionally-draining win. Arizona may be 1-4, but they arguably could be 5-0. Enjoy this win for a day, but get back to work quickly guys!
Quarterbacks: Be it his injury or the fact that he was reverting back to form, Dave Brown was not sharp. Brown still just does not look comfortable on the field. Everything seems to be a struggle for him. If he completes a pass and picks up a first down, Giant fans jump for joy. Such small accomplishments should not be so difficult. Brown took a number of hard shots in the game which seemed to affect his injured chest muscle. His harness also seemed to restrict his movement. It was the better part of valor to sit down and let Danny Kanell take over — which he did in the second quarter.
Danny Kanell has a field presence and feel for the game that Brown lacks. The big question regarding Kanell is whether his arm is strong enough — especially on the deep out. If a quarterback can’t throw this type of pass, he will be severely limited in this league and consequently, so will his offense. Smartly, the coaching staff and Kanell decided not to test his arm strength with out patterns against Deion Sanders and Kevin Smith. Most of the passes were of the short-to-intermediate-type over the middle. As soon as Danny came into the game, the whole offense seemed to pick up. Danny dropped back quickly, read the defense, and delivered the ball. His passes were crisp and accurate. On the few screen passes the Giants ran, Kanell did a much better job of “selling” the screen than Brown does. Danny led the Giants on a long, impressive drive right before halftime to cut the lead to 6-3. He could have finished the drive with a TD pass to Chris Calloway, who was wide-open in the endzone, but badly overthrew him (Danny might have been throwing the ball away in that situation). Most importantly, Danny did not make any critical mistakes or turnovers in the game. Kanell’s success continued to start the second half, as he led the Giants on another long-scoring drive, this one ending another 3-points to tie the game. After that, Danny cooled off and the Giants’ offense was lucky that the Giants’ defense was able to barely hang on to the lead and the win. Interestingly, Danny shows more confidence in his receivers’ ability to make a play even when well-defended than Brown does. This confidence resulted in two huge pass interference calls against Dallas and ten points.
Look out, because now it seem like we have another quarterback controversy and quarterback controversies are never good for a team. Danny Kanell has the feel for the game, but does he have the arm? Dave Brown has the arm, but does he have the feel? Should Fassel encourage Brown to sit down one more week so we can get a better feel for Danny? If Danny doesn’t have the tools, does sitting Brown down shatter what little confidence he has left? On the other hand, how many chances do you give to Dave Brown? Look out, because Jim Fassel is about to make the biggest decision of his young head coaching career.
Wide Receivers: Going into the game, most fans didn’t expect Chris Calloway and Kevin Alexander to do much against the superb Dallas secondary — and they didn’t. Both had problems getting open all day. Both receivers made some nice gains after the catch, however. Amani Toomer looked good on one slant pattern, but didn’t pick up enough yards for the first down. Calloway and Alexander are decent receivers, but this offense really misses the kind of talent that Ike Hilliard brought to the table.
Tight Ends: Once again, non-existent. For some reason, the Giants insist on having the tight ends run only short routes, which inevitably pick up only 3-4 yards. Why bother? If Cross doesn’t have the mobility or agility to get down the field, why not play Pierce more? The lack of production at tight end is killing the Giants.
Running Backs: Tyrone Wheatley had an excellent game and looked like one expects a first round draft pick to look like. He ran hard inside the tackles, kept his pads down, and held onto the ball. He was quick to find holes in the defense and exploded through these openings for good gains all day. On two runs in particular, he started inside and then broke to the outside for big gains, coming darn close to breaking them all the way. He also did a nice job in reading his blocks on a screen pass. Indeed, we wondered why Fassel got away from calling Wheatley’s number as the game progressed. If Tyrone continues to play like this, he would provide a nice one-two punch with Tiki Barber.
As for Charles Way, what can one say? The man is a football player. He blocks, he runs, he catches. His 3-yard touchdown run was a wonderfully-designed fake to the halfback and quick hitter to the inside. Erric Pegram saw a limited amount of action; he had one catch.
Offensive Line: This unit has taken a beating from the coaches, fans, and press, but give them some credit this week. All five starters played well and the Giants largely controlled the line of scrimmage against Dallas. In particular, some of the whipping boys had good games. Scott Gragg handled Tony Tolbert. Greg Bishop came to life and mauled his opponent on several plays. Lance Scott was not a liability. Oben kept his man quiet and Ron Stone made some excellent run blocks. Indeed, the run blocking was probably the best we’ve seen all season as Wheatley had some decent-size holes to run through.
Editor’s Comment on the Offense: Most of us understood and realized that it would take time for the Giants to learn the drastically different offense. Injuries to important players haven’t helped matters. Regardless, the offense MUST start putting more points on the board to help the defense out. The return of Brian Williams and Ike Hilliard will help matters next year, but the team needs a tight end, another receiver if Toomer doesn’t step it up, and more help on the offensive line. The good news is that the line did some good things against the Boys as did Tyrone Wheatley. Kevin Alexander is a play-maker and Chris Calloway is a very good complimentary receiver. But what do the Giants do at quarterback? This question MUST be answered by the time this year ends.
Defensive Line: Decent, but not great. Keith Hamilton continues to terrorize offensive linemen, as this week he did more damage against the running game. His pursuit on an outside running play was most impressive. Robert Harris showed persistence and hustle in making a huge play by sacking Troy Aikman in the fourth quarter. The ends were pretty quiet, however. Erik Williams did a nice job on Michael Strahan for most of the game, though Strahan had a few moments. Chad Bratzke was solid in run defense, but didn’t get much pressure. We had heard in the preseason that the Giants would flip-flop Strahan and Bratzke some and they did it A LOT in this game with limited success. Strangely, the Giants also had Bratzke rushing from a two-point stance for much of the game. Because the defense spent so much time on the field, Cedric Jones, Ray Agnew, and Bernard Holsey saw a lot of playing time. While they did not “flash” during the game, all three did a very credible job while they were in there. Jones looks quicker each game out and Agnew is playing far, far better than he did last year.
Linebackers: Jessie Armstead was not as spectacular as he usually is, but was generally around the ball. Corey Widmer had an up-and-down game. At times he over-pursued on running plays while at other times he filled the hole nicely. Corey Miller had a terrible game. He’s not getting the job done and is largely invisible on the playing field. He got caught too far inside on one running play to Emmitt Smith outside. He over-pursued most of the game. And he almost cost the Giants dearly by dropping a gift interception that would have ended the game at 20-9. What really stood out about Miller in this game is that he seemed to have problems finding the ball. We would definitely start phasing Ryan Phillips into the game more and more. Scott Galyon is an instinctive play-maker. He had beat out Marcus Buckley before Marcus got hurt and we’re very glad to see him on the field as much as he is. He plays tight coverage, is a good blitzer, and is a strong tackler.
Secondary: While the stats for Aikman will look good, they were largely bloated by the prevent defense at the end of the game. Make no mistake about it, the secondary played a whale of a game. Tito Wooten — one of our favorites (i.e., Eric’s) — had one of those games again that showed he can be one of the best in the business if he can just keep his focus. Wooten picked off two Aikman passes, the first a beautiful read, catch, and TD run that basically won the game for the Giants. Phillippi Sparks and Jason Sehorn did a great job on Michael Irvin and Anthony Miller until the end of the game. Sehorn made a great play in defending a deep pass in the end zone to Irvin as did Sparks in defending Irvin on a couple of deep fly patterns. Sehorn even had a strong game tackling the runner, including a nice one-on-one tackle to bring down Herschel Walker in the open field. The guy who was victimized the most was another one of our favorites, Conrad Hamilton. Conrad made some nice plays, but for the most part, was the weak link in the secondary on this day. He’s capable of playing much better. Sam Garnes is a hitting machine near the line of scrimmage.
Giants on Special Teams: Brad Dalusio hit both of his field goals, but they were basically long extra points. Brad Maynard was supposedly called upon to punt for hang-time over distance…he had a so-so day. He did have a nice pooch-punt that went out at the ten and positioned his coverage team on two more punts to down the ball inside the five (which they failed to do). Coverage on punts was outstanding, though one must thank Barry Switzer for calling a bone-headed reverse at the end of the game. Instead of keeping the ball in Deion’s hands, Sanders handed it off to a guy who tripped over a laid-out David Patten. Thank you Barry! Doug Colman made a bone-headed block-in-the-back penalty but redeemed himself with two strong special team tackles. Brandon Sanders and Scott Galyon also did a nice job in bringing down Deion Sanders. Daluiso nailed all of his kicks into the endzone, but Herschel Walker brought one out and picked up huge yardage on one kick return. Amani still dances around too much, but for the second week in a row, had a nice punt return for big yardage. David Patten did a nice job on one kick return, but almost cost the Giants the game and us a heart attack by fumbling Dallas’ last kick-off. Tyrone Wheatley saved the day by falling on the ball after a couple of Cowboys had a shot at it (and the game). Maybe Tyrone’s luck is finally changing!(grin)