Washington Redskins 50 – New York Giants 21
Overview: What the hell was that??? One expects the Giants’ offense to stink, but not the defense to come out and play that way. Disgusting. To let a division rival come into your stadium for the home opener and embarrass you like that is simply not acceptable. The fans spoke with their feet. By the third quarter, the stadium was clearing out. Is this the type of football the owners and management want?
Coaching: This team was not ready to play. And for the third year in a row, Head Coach Jim Fassel has not got his troops ready to play the second game of the season. Too many penalties, too many blown assignments, and too much failed execution. Yes the players bear much of the blame, but this is Fassel’s third year. This is supposed to be an up-and-coming team. This is not supposed to be a rebuilding project. I like Jim Fassel. He has a lot of qualities that I think are necessary to make a good head coach. But this is his team and the Giants are simply not getting it done. The next few games will be very important for him and the team. He has to put his foot down…harshly. No excuses. If not, then it is time to get somebody else in here.
And don’t let golden-boy Defensive Coordinator John Fox off the hook. He was clearly out-couched and out-smarted by Redskins’ Head Coach Norv Turner. The Giants looked like a confused group on defense. They were not adequately prepared.
Quarterback: Aside from a couple of very poor passes, QB Kent Graham didn’t play poorly. He finished the day 20-for-31 for 268 yards – good numbers. However, his very poor decision to force a screen pass that was picked off and returned 70 yards for a touchdown really took any chance of a comeback away. Graham also missed a wide open receiver early on in the first quarter on a bootleg. Kent made some very sharp throws such as the dart to Amani Toomer in the third quarter and the nice touch showed on the flea flicker pass to Ike Hilliard. He led the Giants are two very impressive drives in the second quarter for touchdowns. There was improvement over last week. But it was not enough and there were too many 3-and-outs again, especially in the first quarter.
Kerry Collins (3-for-7 for 44 yards) looked sharp on his three completions, but made a poor decision on his 4th down pass and that was picked off.
Offensive Line: Penalties and breakdowns here are killing the Giants. I hate to pick on the rookie, but let’s use LG Luke Petitgout as an example. In the first quarter, Kent Graham completes a pass to Hilliard over the middle for a first down, but the play is called back because of a holding penalty commited by Luke. In the second quarter, the Giants have cut the score to 21-7 and are driving for what may be a touchdown. They have 2nd-and-1, but Luke jumps and the Giants are now in 2nd-and-6. This changes the situation and the play-calling completely. The next play Graham is picked off on the screen pass (returned for a TD). This play never would have been called if it were 2nd-and-1 still. Thus, the score goes from possibly 21-14 or 21-10 to 27-7. Let’s be fair however. The inside guys did a pretty decent job against Dana Stubblefield and Dan Wilkinson. Where the Giants had some problems was with blitzing. Still the pass blocking was decent. The run blocking showed some improvement, but with the score out of hand, the Giants were taken out of this part of their game rapidly. RT Scott Gragg continues to be too darn inconsistent. He got cleanly beat to the inside on a left-side run. This allowed Kenard Lang to nail the Giants’ ballcarrier from the backside (a big “no-no”). Gragg spent too much of the day on the ground. LT Roman Oben did not have a great day as DE Marco Coleman was pretty active against the run.
Halfbacks/Fullbacks: The Giants really miss Gary Brown here. Sean Bennett was better this week and finally showed me some feel on one inside run for big yardage in the third quarter. He finished the day with only four carries, but 45 yards. He was stuffed however on an important third-and-short in the second half. LeShon Johnson (8-for-18), didn’t show much in the way of instincts except for one good looking right side burst where he scored. His third quarter fumble was a killer – he was holding the ball far too loosely for someone knowing that contact was about to be made. Tiki Barber continues to invisible. He also dropped a pass. My patience is wearing thin with him. FB Charles Way made a couple of nice runs, but I’ve been very disappointed with his run blocking this year. I keep spotting him missing his man.
Tight Ends: Howard Cross got his chance to catch a pass and dropped it. What else is new? Dan Campbell dropped a perfectly thrown seam pass from Graham. Pete Mitchell made a Bavaro-like catch-and-run on 4th-and-3 to keep a scoring drive alive. The Giants need to throw to him more.
Wide Receivers: Both Ike Hilliard (8 catches for 114 yards) and Amani Toomer (5 catches for 105 yards) put up good numbers and had some surprising success against Champ Bailey. Hilliard did get called for a damaging pass interference penalty in the first quarter, but at least he showed some life out there. Ike had a nice block on LeShon’s touchdown run. Toomer made a spectacular sideline catch where he showed dazzling footwork to keep his feet in bounds. Joe Jurevicius (3 catches for 36 yards) got involved, but also dropped a pass.
Defensive Line: Disgusting. The Redskins’ offensive line dominated this unit and shouldn’t have. RT Jon Jansen controlled Michael Strahan. Strahan has done nothing in two weeks. I guess he is pretty comfortable with his $32 million and doesn’t feel like he needs to play anymore. Cedric Jones should have outplayed LT Andy Heck and didn’t. The Skins picked up far too many yards on left side runs (not all his fault…more on that in a minute). To make matters worse, he left the game dinged again. Cedric just isn’t getting the job done. Inside, Robert Harris, Keith Hamilton, and Christian Peter were kept quiet too. DT George Williams blew threw the line on one play, but inexplicably missed the sack. No pass rush, inconsistent run defense. The Giants did not come prepared to play.
Linebackers: The entire Giants’ defense played a dumb game. They were out-smarted and out-hustled all day. Norv Turner had the Giants scratching their heads and wondering what was coming next. The Redskins imposed their will on the Giants and not the other way around. The linebackers were as much to blame as anyone. WLB Jessie Armstead talked a big game, but didn’t back it up. Talk is cheap. The Redskins abused him on leftside runs. Astonishingly, I also spotted him running to defend the inside on outside running plays. He was burned in coverage too. Jessie and Michael, the two Giants’ defensive stalwarts and leaders, really let their teammates down on Sunday. So did Corey Widmer. He played the 3rd-and-short play very well and nailed HB Stephen Davis in the backfield, but he forgot one important thing – to make the damn tackle!!! Meanwhile, none of his teammates came over to help finish the play off. At one point, Fox Sports counted almost 20 Giants’ missed tackles. That is a clear indication of a lack of desire and intelligence. SLB Ryan Phillips got burned in coverage by Larry Centers, as expected. Really, the Skins could have taken advantage of this more if they wanted to. MLB Pete Monty saw some action in the 4th quarter and was also exposed in coverage.
Defensive Backs: So much for the vaunted secondary. Poor coverage, poor tackling. CB Jeremy Lincoln was an embarrassment. A veteran corner with decent speed should not be schooled like that. Lincoln got flagged with two big pass interference penalties on plays where he never turned around for the ball. Where the hell is his technique? The Redskins and Brad Johnson repeatedly passed at him for big plays. To make matters worse, Lincoln kept missing tackles on leftside runs and short passes. It was joke and it got so bad that rookie 6th rounder Andre Weathers was brought in and Lincoln was benched. He settled things down a tad. His tackling was inconsistent. Andre made a couple of nice tackles, but also whiffed too. If he hadn’t been so bad, the Skins probably would have passed more at Phillippi Sparks, who continues to have problems covering Michael Westbrook. The safeties for the most part were nowhere to be seen and the Redskins kept hitting TE Stephen Alexander on big plays down the seam. Shaun Williams got burned on one play where his man cut outside, but he kept running inside. Percy Ellsworth missed another tackle near the goalline.
Special Teams: A lone bright spot. Kickoff returns were pretty darn good. The blocking was much improved and Tiki Barber (1) and David Patten (2) made some impressive returns. Punt returns were something else. Tiki Barber has to make the first guy miss and show more decisiveness. Punt and kick coverage were respectable (there was one punt where both gunners missed the tackle). Brad Maynard had one bad punt, but for the most part did well.
GIANTS/REDSKINS
by David Oliver
It’s 11 o’clock and I have just returned home from the game. For the past 4+ hours, on a very long ride, I have been trying to think of how to phrase this report. The game was truly awful; but once again the stats won’t tell you the whole story. We actually passed the ball for over 300 yards, gross- 290 net. End of the good stuff. No one stays around after a loss like this, so I’m on the road by 5. Normally, I’m pretty depressed by the time I hit Philly, after all I get to listen to the whining in Philly and Bal’mer and then D.C.- I’m sick already knowing that I have to listen to every homer in town gloat over the crushing of the mighty Giant D, the coronation of Super Norv and Super Brad and at least 40 other pro bowl bound players.
But today, as I approach the City of Brotherly Love, the sky is bright red with beautiful swirling clouds. It looks as if the sun is setting over Philly- but then the sun is always setting over Philly; or maybe the locals have finally had enough and set fire to the place. No, as I round the bend in Deptford, there is a flaming red orb in the sky- God’s glory is above the Delaware- how strange! Then it happens. Every time I pass Philly I turn on an Oldies station- in addition to cheesesteaks and Rocky, Philly does have some good oldies stations. Lo and behold it is Do-Wop Sunday, the night they play the street corner groups from the 50s and early 60s. Before long I am 14 years old again and dancing at the CYO. Monsignor is patting my fanny and telling me to leave enough room for my guardian angel. And on the slow tunes, we all line up to dance with Gail W, who is the one girl we know wears falsies- we know this because the tissues don’t fill up her bra and we delight in making them pop as we dance with her. Ah! You wouldn’t understand if you weren’t there. The Cleftones, Louie and Frankie Lyman, Booker T and the Memphis Group, the Cherelles and a thousand other one shot wonders singing Ruby, Cherie, why do fools fall in love; and the saxaphone, drive force behind a musical era. So my spirits lift.
I have this music all the way to Bal’mer and I realize how lucky I am. At one end of this journey I have my mom, and at the other end I have my wife- somewhere in between I have my Giants, good or bad and that makes life beautiful. Usually I am alone in this motorized cocoon- I brood, I fret, I am uncomfortably lonely. Tonight I am thinking of you guys, at home, some sulking behind the closed doors of your personal space, others miserably sharing dinner with family, who generally don’t understand, all of you asking, what happened out there? I used to be inconsolable for a week with a loss like this; only dad could talk to me and his message was always this- boy, they were awful today, but they can’t win every game. And I would always answer, no, but they can at least play like winners. That’s the ebb and flow of Giant fandom- at least play hard.
Today is inexplicable, but I’ll offer this. Last week was so intense, so emotional, that there was nothing left for this week. I’ll let it at that and move on. Keep this in mind, my observations are field level, often away from the play, without the benefit of good replay and sometimes obscured because I have a camera iso on a particular player. But also keep in mind, I can see the pain, feel the emotion, smell the rawness of body on body. What I tell you is from memory, without benefit of notes. So look at the game films or your tapes, read everyone else, and take my contribution as a personal note. The afternoon started well. Frank Gifford and son were along the sidelines, Glen Close opened with the Anthem and LeRoy Nieman was doing some sketching. I had a conversation with him and told him I had some photos of him sketching Mario Andretti’s car over a decade ago- he asked if I would send him some, then he said to me that he didn’t know the players and who were the best on the Giants. I told him #98, he said how about 51. I said 59, he said 51 sure looked like a football player to him. I explained that this was young, second-year player and he might want one of the studs, like 30. Mr. Nieman felt, from the artist’s view that 51 looked good, like a football player. OK, I accept Mr. N’s judgment and after the game I teased Pete Monty and told him he now had a lot to live up to as Mr. N had labeled him, football player.
Let me stop here. Rebe, Kent tells me you didn’t send him his favorite dessert last week. Rebe, the man deserves some reward, he’s getting pounded. For all you naysayers out there, listen up- KG made only 2 really bad plays, one that interception. When they brought in Collins I had 2 shots left and I saved them because I told one of my fellow photogs, Kerry is good for three nice throws and an interception, he is just not ready yet. I can’t fault our QB play; I do fault some silly, inconsistent play calling, a line having some problems and the effort to develop a running game which won’t happen until we open up the passing game.
The running backs are having problems finding and getting to holes. To the left side there is nothing. The right side should produce results, but Williams must be cut free to move with Stone and Gragg. Luke is a rookie and he is playing like a rookie- it is going to take 5 or 6 games before he gets a sense of what is going on out there. The wideouts finally got some patterns and made some plays. Ike has the moves, Jurevicius needs more playing time and they need to send Patten on more fly patterns. Amani is just beginning to get into a game groove. We have one ridiculous pattern, which should never have been run against the `skins with their speedy linebackers- the drag across the field, just beyond the line of scrimmage- it is a flat out disaster pattern. KG can’t find the receivers until they are three quarters into the route, and this is too late. This is one of those timing things that KC and DP have down, but no one else does. Right now JJ and Pete Mitchell are our best receivers- throw them the d— ball. We were knocking twice- one stopped by the intercept and then that series on the 6 yard line. Bad play calling, poor execution- no points.
The defense played well for the first two downs of the first two first downs of the first `skins possession. That was it- by the end of the game one of the fans was yelling at Jessie to stop with the throat slashing and the talking and start making tackles. It was that kind of day- no one wanted to tackle. The right side disappeared again. Cedric reverted to normal, Lincoln played himself right off the team and the backers took a little vacation. Harris hustled on most plays but was ineffective, and incidentally Percy Ellsworth was throwing his body all over the field. He had 9 solos, 3 assists and I can’t tell you how many times he stuck a shoulder into the pile- so start recognizing it, Percy is here to stay. Jessie had 10 and 4, Phillipi had 7 and Lincoln had 4, of course, he missed 4 and covered like a noodle.
The `skins report reads like this: Johnson, Davis, Johnson, Johnson, Davis, Johnson, Davis, Johnson, Davis- this is how the entire game went, sounds a little like a mantra- 2 guys beat the hell out of the Giants. The most demoralizing play was the 19 yard Davis TD run. We’re standing in the end zone watching this thing develop; Davis hits a stone wall in the middle, everyone stops dead, Davis turns left and comes around end right to us- we are standing there asking each other, what the heck is that? If I were a `skins photog, it was beautiful, but something funny happens when I shoot another team- the image is always fuzzy. One thing I’m thankful for, this game wasn’t in D.C. and I don’t have to listen to the band playing Hail To The Redskins, nine thousand times. My son just popped his head in and asked what happened? Poor kid, he has the Giants D in his fantasy League- kiss this week adios.
Stats are a funny thing- first half, the `skins have 18 first downs, we have 8(doubled last week’s total already); total net yards, 228 to 186, rushing yards, 78 to 37, passing yards, 150 to 149. Our passing attack: Hilliard 3 for 55; Toomer 2 for 48; JJ 2 for 22, Pete 1 for 15. Final game stats: First downs 28 to 18, net yards 395 to 373, rushing 164 to 83; passing 231 to 290. Go figure. The penalties remain a problem; we had 8 for 106, and they are spread out. Everyone makes a mistake and they all stop drives. I asked JF what he intended to do about the mistakes . He said, “I’m going to think about it tonight and I am going to start on it tomorrow.” This is an all too often refrain. Penalties are mental errors- mental errors come about when a team is not prepared; this is no longer a matter of trying too hard, it is a matter of someone not doing the job. Coach needs to get on with it and address this.
I’m done talking stats-they just don’t tell us anything about this game. The Giants didn’t show up; accept it, get past it, hope they do next week in Foxboro.
In his post game, JF started by saying “we played a bad game of football..I don’t think we played well in any phase.and I’m very disappointed in this football team, in everybody, not just the team, the coaches, everybody… we did not play well, go ahead, I’ll take your questions.” He was asked if he saw this coming and he answered, “no, I did not see this coming at all. I thought we were ready to play football.” He said he was concerned about the depth at corner, but he said ” my attitude is anyone who has a Giants uniform on needs to go out there and play like an NFL player, capable of winning a football game.” He was asked if this was the worst game of football he had ever been associated with and answered “from a personal standpoint, yeah..” On the offense he said, “we did some things that were better, but we still malfunctioned enough that we .self-destructed”. Again, he reiterated that he “was embarrassed about the way we played, and I’ll take the whole brunt of it.” He thought the offensive line played better at times, at times not real good. He thought LeShon was little indecisive on making his cuts, but got better as he got into the flow of the game. On running the ball, he indicated that his attitude going into the game was that “we were going to run the ball, and set it op with the pass.. The problem was they put points up so quick, that to a degree I had to void the run game, if we were going to catch them.”
I talked to Lyle West who was as down as everyone else, but indicated that personally, “he was enjoying it (being on the team) . He told me they “made a lot of mistakes, you can’t put your finger on one thing.” He echoed JF and said “we didn’t play well in any aspect of the game, that includes special teams, defense and offense. We had a few bad luck plays. If you’re playing well you can overcome these, but they kind of compounded all the errors we made.” I asked him what he was working on in his game and he told me that going down on kickoffs “is a lot different than the college level. The kickoff return they had (`skins) they had guys flying down the field looking to take my head off, so I had to have my head on a swivel the whole time. it’s fast out there and you have to be ready.”
Pete Mitchell told me about his play “At that point I think it’s 21 to nothing and it’s fourth down and we needed a big play, we needed to get something going, and I was able to get a ball and make a play with it. That’s what I love doing and I hope we can do it many more times.” I asked about production, and he said they really hadn’t been out there on offense much and it was a combination of everything.
JJ very graciously talked to me while he was dressing, and although he peered at me with only one eye open, he refused to make a big deal out of it. I asked about his routes and some bouncing balls and he said “this is a business where you can never say die, it was an unfortunate thing that happened. I tried to get the ball away with my knee and they’re coming up and kicking it out- it’s uncharacteristic of me, but I think as an offensive team we have to check the films out and be prepared to go to work on Wednesday. this team by no means is down and out, it’s the second game of the season and this is the kind of thing you learn from. There was some improvement from last week and this is the kind of thing you build from. We can’t let too many of those things happen to us.” I asked him if there was a memory imprint of this for the return match in D.C. He said “without a doubt. If you’re any kind of athlete or any kind of competitor, you remember.and this was an embarrassment for the NY Giants, and I don’t see it happening again.”
KG talked about the interception and said it was a screen that broke down. He also said it was important for the offense to come right back and score after the int. He talked about the penalties being drive killers, said the loss hurts, no matter what the score, but didn’t feel it would have any lasting effect. He said he was taken out by JF more or less to keep him from getting hurt. He said he was embarrassed, the team was embarrassed, but he told the team they had to fight to the bitter end. He told me “I thought protection today went fairly well, it was pretty good for the most part.” He said the yardage was a good indication of that. On the fan booing, he said “when you get behind like that early, that happens here. We understand that.”
Michael Strahan said “we let them jump on us.they came ready to play, we didn’t come ready to play.we start slow and you can’t do that.” On the missed tackles he indicated that “last week we had three or four guys to help get the guy down, today we didn’t have that.” He said maybe “it was a lack of concentration, maybe a lack of desire.as a player out there on the field, you have to feel responsible.” He said maybe at the end there was some frustration but that the `skins had a right to be mouthy, they put 50 points on the board, at that point, “just shut your mouth and use that energy to play.” He told us as good as it felt last week, it felt that bad now. Last week they were one of the best defenses, this week one of the worst. But there was too much pride on the team to give up. The O put up 21 points and that should be enough to win a game. When asked about the fans, he drew a laugh when he said maybe “we should reimburse them for gas, or something” indicating they had a right to be unhappy. He said the fans came to see a game and they didn’t get that. He said this was “the most embarrassing loss since he was playing football..to do it at home, in front of your fans, on opening day, there’s nothing worse than that”
It’s one a.m.- what else can I say. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. I won’t be going to Foxboro next week- night games in that place are ugly. Be back the week after for you know which team. Keep the faith.
TEAM STATISTICS
WAS NYG
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FIRST DOWNS 28 18
Rushing 10 4
Passing 14 14
Penalty 4 0
3RD-DOWN EFFICIENCY 7-12 2-10
4TH-DOWN EFFICIENCY 0-1 1-3
TOTAL NET YARDS 395 373
Total plays 69 57
Average gain 5.7 6.5
NET YARDS RUSHING 164 83
Rushes 41 17
Average per rush 4.0 4.9
NET YARDS PASSING 231 290
Completed-attempted 20-28 23-38
Yards per pass 8.3 7.3
Sacked-yards lost 0-0 2-22
Had intercepted 0 2
PUNTS-AVERAGE 3-42.3 5-46.6
RETURN YARDAGE 156 206
Punts-returns 3-39 2-8
Kickoffs-returns 2-29 9-198
Interceptions-returns 2-88 0-0
PENALTIES-YARDS 5-40 8-106
FUMBLES-LOST 2-0 3-2
TIME OF POSSESSION 33:13 26:47
PLAYER STATISTICS
Washington rushing: Stephen Davis 23-126, Skip Hicks 8-22, Brian Mitchell 3-13, Brad Johnson 2-11, Casey Weldon 3-minus 2, Larry Centers 1-minus 2, Michael Westbrook 1-minus 4.
NY Giants rushing: Sean Bennet 4-45, Leshon Johnson 8-18, Charles Way 3-15, Kent Graham 2-5.
Washington passing: Brad Johnson 20-28 for 231 yards, 0 INT, 3 TD.
NY Giants passing: Kent Graham 20-31 for 268 yards, 1 INT, 1 TD, Kerry Collins 3-7 for 44 yards, 1 INT, 0 TD.
Washington receiving: Stephen Alexander 5-86, Michael Westbrook 4-59, Larry Centers 4-39, Albert Connell 4-29, Irving Fryar 1-10, Stephen Davis 1-5, Mike Sellers 1-3.
NY Giants receiving: Ike Hilliard 8-114, Amani Toomer 5-105, Joe Jurevicius 3-36, Pete Mitchell 2-28, Sean Bennet 2-14, Leshon Johnson 1-8, Tiki Barber 1-4, David Patten 1-3.
Washington tackles-assists-sacks (unofficial): Champ Bailey 6-1-0, Sam Shade 4-3-0, Leomont Evans 6-0-0, Shawn Barber 5-1-0, Derek M Smith 4-0-0, Greg Jones 2-2-0, Marco Coleman 3-0-0, Kenard Lang 3-0-1, Darryl Pounds 2-0-1, Matt Stevens 2-0-0, Dan Wilkinson 1-1-0, Marc Boutte 1-0-0, Fred Strickland 0-1-0.
NY Giants tackles-assists-sacks (unofficial): Jessie Armstead 10-4-0, Percy Ellsworth 9-3-0, Phillippi Sparks 7-0-0, Ryan Phillips 4-2-0, Jeremy Lincoln 4-0-0, Corey Widmer 4-0-0, Scott Galyon 3-1-0, Michael Strahan 2-2-0, Sam Garnes 2-1-0, Bernard Holsey 2-1-0, Andre Weathers 2-1-0, Cedric Jones 1-1-0, Shaun Williams 1-1-0, Marcus Buckley 1-0-0, George Williams 1-0-0, Robert Harris 0-1-0, Christian Peter 0-1-0.
Interceptions: Washington (Shawn Barber 1 for 70 yards, Matt Stevens 1 for 18 yards).
Fumbles lost: NY Giants (Kent Graham, Scott Galyon).