New York Giants 19 – Arizona Cardinals 10
Game Overview: At first glance, the Giants look to be in pretty good shape with a 7-4 record, including 4-0 in the NFC East. However, the 19-10 win over the Cardinals exposed a lot of holes and weaknesses in a team that now faces its most difficult stretch of games of the entire season. First and foremost, the secondary, including Jason Sehorn (media love-fest aside), was terrible. We have overestimated the talent of our defensive backs. To allow a rookie quarterback with no running game and constant pass pressure to throw for almost 400 yards in those weather conditions is absolutely inexcusable. No one stood out — they were all bad. Secondly, in a few games this season, Head Coach Jim Fassel’s clock management at the end of halves and games has been pretty poor. However, Sunday he added to that list. His play-calling in short yardage was abysmal. Running wide on 4th-and-goal is a stupid, stupid play — plain and simple. To make matters worse, he did it again the next time the Giants were in short-yardage on the goalline. Jim, in those situations, hand off to FB Charles Way inside! Period. We didn’t even like the call to TE Howard Cross that resulted in a touchdown — too risky. OG Greg Bishop was terrible again (three holding penalties), PK Brad Daluiso missed a critical extra point, TE Aaron Pierce doesn’t know what it means to stay in-bounds, and WR Kevin Alexander pulled yet another disappearing act. If the Giants want to make the playoffs this year, they had better start playing much, much better. Dallas and Washington are breathing right down their necks.
Quarterback: Danny Kanell played well. His accuracy was much improved this week, aside from a few early passes, and he continues to show the ability to make big plays that win ball games. His audible and deep pass to WR Amani Toomer was a thing of beauty. He was also very sharp on four of his five passes to HB Tiki Barber — the fifth was off target, but resulted in a pass interference penalty. His best play of the game was the one he made under a heavy rush from the Cardinals where he stepped up into the pocket and threw a strike to WR David Patten for a 26 yard gain. The Giants had been backed up yet again by another Greg Bishop holding penalty and Kanell’s pass allowed the Giants to keep the drive alive and eventually score the go-ahead touchdown — a touchdown thrown by Danny to TE Howard Cross on 3rd-and-goal from the one yard line. Kanell finished the game 14-21 for 181 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions.
Wide Receivers: The receivers were not given much of an opportunity with the wind shutting the Giants’ passing game down for two quarters and the running game performing so well. Nevertheless, this game could represent WR Amani Toomer’s coming-out party as a legitimate wide receiver for the Giants. Although it looks he got away with a push-off, Amani’s leap and catch of Kanell’s deep pass right before halftime was a huge play for the Giants — the type of big play Fassel wants his players to make. We hope Amani continues to see added playing time down the stretch. Chris Calloway caught 2 passes for 22 yards (one catch picked up no yards) and was generally quiet. Kevin Alexander was damn near invisible, but David Patten had his best game since the last Cardinal game, catching two passes for 35 yards.
Tight Ends: For a few games now, it looks like Fassel is getting the tight ends more and more involved. On a critical third-and-goal, Fassel had Kanell look to Cross for the go-ahead touchdown and Cross delivered. Cross also caught a pass over the middle for decent yardage, but the play was called back due to a penalty. Aaron Pierce caught a four-yard pass, but also inexplicably ran out of the endzone on his scoring opportunity on the goalline.
Running Backs: FB Charles Way had a yet another big game, his best as a Giant. He picked up 114 yards on 14 carries (an 8.1 yard-per-carry average!). What continues to amaze us is Way’s ability to pick up good yardage running outside the tackles despite looking slow as molasses — a testament to his patience and power as a runner as well as the ability of the offensive line to sustain its run blocks. Way’s biggest run of the day was a 42-yard scamper where he broke the tackle of two players and, while the play didn’t result in any points, it got the Giants off of their own goalline while facing the wind in the 3rd quarter. HB Tyrone Wheatley ran well early, but cooled off later in the game. He picked up 48 yards on 17 carries (a 2.8 yard-per-carry average). HB Tiki Barber made a big splash, not only on the ground (7 carries for 42 yards), but in the receiving department (4 for 44 yards). He was sure-handed in catching the ball and made plays in critical situations, including a diving catch. Even HB Erric Pegram got into the act (2 catches for 12 yards).
Offensive Line: Like last week, the line was decent in the running game, but pretty poor in the passing game. The Giants picked up over 200 yards of offense on the ground behind some excellent run blocking all along the front line. The downside was four costly holding penalties (three by Greg Bishop and one by Lance Scott). LT Roman Oben had a lot more difficulty with DE Simeon Rice this time around, but generally did a nice job on him. RT Scott Gragg was beaten badly to the outside and gave up a sack to DE Michael Bankston. On occasion, the interior trio was pushed back into Kanell’s face. For only passing 21 times, Kanell was under a lot of pressure as the Cardinals came with the blitz on many downs. Aside from his three holding calls, Bishop was late getting over to help out on Rice on one play and Kanell was hit just as he released the ball.
Defensive Line: The Giants shut down the Cardinal running game and applied decent pressure on rookie QB Jake Plummer for much of the game, despite being without DE Chad Bratzke and DT Keith Hamilton (who was thrown out of the game early in the contest). The Cardinals continually ran at DE Cedric Jones and he survived the test and made a number of excellent plays — either by making the tackle or forcing the play wide for a teammate to make the tackle. He finished the game with five tackles (one more than his season total coming into the game). DE Michael Strahan picked up 3 sacks and DT Robert Harris picked up another. DT Ray Agnew subbed for Hamilton and played well against the run. Even DE Bernard Holsey looked good on one play rushing the passer.
Linebackers: OLB Jessie Armstead had a big game picking up 11 tackles and 2 sacks. MLB Corey Widmer sacked Plummer on a blitz and nickel-backer Scott Galyon picked up half a sack. Marcus Buckley was very quiet. As mentioned, the Giants stuffed the Cards’ ground game pretty good and the linebackers must accept much of the credit for this. Moreover, FB Larry Centers and TE Chris Gedney were kept quiet much of the contest. We assume the linebacker drops were so short on many occasions in order to keep an eye on these two, as the linebackers were rarely seen on many of the Cardinal short passes to the wide receivers that picked up first downs — at least we hope that is the case.
Defensive Backs: Terrible. Awful. Pathetic. Yes, Jason Sehorn had a big stat day with 10 tackles, a forced fumble (which he also recovered), four pass break-ups, a half-sack, and a key interception, but many of his tackles came as the result of his man catching the pass. Sehorn was very strong in run defense and made some excellent coverage plays, but that doesn’t offset the fact that Jake Plummer passed for almost 400 yards. His interception was a bad pass from Plummer, not a good play on his part. WR Frank Sanders caught 9 passes for 188 yards and WR Rob Moore caught 8 passes for 139 yards and many of these were to Sehorn’s side. CB Phillippi Sparks also stunk and didn’t make any plays. FS Tito Wooten was out-hustled on a jump ball by Sanders and SS Sam Garnes was invisible. FS Percy Ellsworth dropped an easy interception — on a play where he might have scored. The Giants screwed up royally on Sanders’ 70 yard TD catch on 3rd-and-14. There was a breakdown in coverage and it looks as if CB Conrad Hamilton was at fault (though that cannot be determined for sure). At least Wooten put the Cards away for good with his late interception. Regardless, this unit almost cost the Giants the game. They had better stop reading their press clippings, because the rest of the NFC East is licking its chops in anticipation of throwing at these guys. I don’t see any Pro Bowlers here.
Special Teams: PK Brad Daluiso is very fortunate his missed extra point didn’t affect the outcome of this game — inexcusable. He’s also tempting fate with some of his field goals that are coming darn close to the uprights. P Brad Maynard did an OK job facing the infamous Meadowlands’ wind for the first time. Punt returner Amani Toomer continues to run to the sidelines at first chance. The Giants didn’t return a kick-off all day and that is fine with us. Coverage teams did a good job, with Brandon Sanders sticking out again.