Dallas Cowboys 19 – New York Giants 3
Game Overview: I just can’t get over how bad this season has turned out. You wait eight months for football to start and are “rewarded” with this crap?
The Giants’ offense simply could not compete with the Dallas defense. The Giants were without too many key starters such as Collins, Shockey, Hilliard, Carter, Petitgout, Seubert, and Rivers. Moreover, the Dallas defenders were so much quicker and faster than the New York offensive players that it seemed as if the Giants were running in mud.
Defensively, the Giants played reasonable well and at least keep the game respectable (pretty sad when keeping a game respectable is to be lauded as an accomplishment). The front seven did a good job defending the run for the second week in a row and the secondary was not exploited as badly as it was last week.
Like the Saints, the Dallas special teams out-hustled and out-hit the Giants.
On a side note, I’m not sure that picking extremely high in the upcoming draft is going to help the Giants much. Taking a linebacker, safety, offensive lineman, or running back very high (top 7) doesn’t seem appropriate in terms of prospects available, value, and financial considerations. At this early point, it is debatable whether there will be a defensive lineman worthy of such a lofty pick (though that could change as someone like Vince Wilfork or Kenechi Udeze could climb the charts). Right now, I get the feeling that the best available player when the Giants pick may be a wide receiver (there are going to be some really good ones in this draft), quarterback (Ben Roethlisberger), and tight end (Kellen Winslow). It might be best if the Giants trade down.
Quarterback: The good news was that Jesse Palmer (18-of-32 for 190 yards, 0 touchdowns, 0 interceptions) did not hurt his team with dumb mistakes. He managed the game pretty well, did a decent job of getting rid of the ball despite somewhat shaky pass protection, and maintained his confidence despite being victimized by a number of dropped passes. The bad news is that Palmer really didn’t make many plays. Most of his work was on short stuff. When he did throw down the field, his accuracy wasn’t very good. In summary, Palmer didn’t do much to excite or flash any long-term potential.
On New York’s first drive, Palmer missed a great opportunity when he missed Amani Toomer over the middle in a one-on-one situation when Dallas came with a full blitz on 3rd-and-6. If Palmer connects with Toomer here, Amani may score. Palmer also underthrew Toomer twice on deep passes where Toomer had a step on a defender. Even Palmer’s 40-yard completion to Toomer in the 3rd quarter was underthrown.
On a side note, what a stupid call on the quarterback running play to the right on 4th-and-2 from the Dallas 12-yard line in the 3rd quarter. The Giants had run this play successfully earlier in the game, so Dallas was not going to be surprised by it again.
Wide Receivers: Amani Toomer (5 catches for 66 yards) was more involved in the offense this week despite all the attention focused on him by the Cowboys. However, Toomer did drop two passes in the first half. Toomer did a good job of coming up with a 40-yard reception on an underthrown ball despite contact from the defender.
David Tyree (3 catches for 20 yards) also dropped two passes, including a costly one on 3rd-and-1 where he was wide open.
Willie Ponder caught one pass for 4 yards.
Running Backs: Tiki Barber (13 carries for 47 yards) could never really get untracked as Dallas crowded the line of scrimmage and their defenders were often too quick for the Giants’ blockers up front. Barber was more of a factor in the passing game with 5 catches for 55 yards. The good news was that he held onto the ball this week.
Dorsey Levens (6 carries for 4 yards) looked sluggish and wasn’t helped by poor short-yardage blocking.
FB Jim Finn picked up 25 yards after a short pass on New York’s first drive. He gives a good effort when blocking, but he doesn’t play with much power.
Tight Ends: An up-and-down game for Visanthe Shiancoe as both a blocker and pass receiver. Shiancoe did a good job on most of his blocking assignments, but I did see him get thrown aside by the defensive end on one running play that went nowhere. He was also flagged with a false start. In the passing game, Shiancoe continues to see more and more action as Palmer often looks to dump the ball off short. Shiancoe caught 3 passes for 20 yards, but he also dropped a pass. He had a chance to make a huge play deep on a play where Palmer scrambled to his right and Shiancoe got behind the defender, but Visanthe didn’t make a play on the football.
Darnell Dinkins blocked well against the smaller, but quicker Dallas defenders.
Offensive Line: Jeff Hatch had a rough game. He spends too much time on the ground, often (for some reason), trying to take the knees out from a defender instead of blocking him straight-up. In the first half, I saw him give up two hits on Palmer. His play deteriorated in the second half as he gave up one big pressure on an inside move, got beat by a linebacker to the outside for another hit on Palmer, and gave up a sack/forced fumble to DE Greg Ellis. After that play, he was benched in favor of Jeff Roehl.
Roehl was horrible. In his short time at right tackle, I saw him give up two pressures/hits on Palmer plus a sack to end the game.
Ian Allen played reasonably well in the first half and for much of the second half, but fell apart late in the game (this has been an annoying trend on him for 3 weeks now). Late in the game, he allowed a pressure and gave up a sack. Allen also missed a run block in the 3rd quarter, allowing his man to make the tackle at the line of scrimmage.
Chris Bober played fairly well except for one play where he botched the shotgun snap and allowed immediate pressure on Palmer. David Diehl played well in the first half, but struggled quite a bit in the 4th quarter. He missed his run block on a pull, allowed a pressure on Palmer, and also gave up sack to DT La’Roi Glover.
Defensive Line: The star of the game for the Giants was Michael Strahan (4 tackles, 3 sacks). Strahan also provided a number of other pass pressures, leading to key incompletions. His run defense was also excellent. The only real negative I saw was that he lost contain on one scramble by Quincy Carter that picked up a 1st down on his side of the field.
Once again, there wasn’t much pass rush assistance from Cornelius Griffin (3 tackles), Keith Hamilton (4 tackles), and Keith Washington (1 tackle). Griffin was pretty stout in run defense and played hard. Hamilton had his moments in run defense, but also got pushed around some. I noticed Griffin getting more double-team attention than Hamilton on running plays. Both Griffin and Hamilton lost their contain responsibilities on a couple of Carter scrambles up the gut. Hamilton also missed a tackle at the line of scrimmage in the first half.
Washington got one good pass pressure on a stunt, but he got pushed around some against the run. Worse, he missed two tackles early in the game at the line of scrimmage on plays that picked up decent yardage.
Lance Legree looked pretty good in run defense. William Joseph hardly saw any playing time. Neither did Osi Umenyiora, who had a chance to sack Carter, but mistakenly left his feet when Carter faked throwing the football.
Linebackers: Good game by Mike Barrow (9 tackles) and Dhani Jones (11 tackles). Both were very active in run defense, and Jones performed much better in pass coverage this week as well. Both Barrow and Jones were aggressive in taking on blocks and making plays against the running backs at the line of scrimmage. Barrow forced Carter into Strahan’s arms on one sack when Barrow blitzed off the corner.
Early in the 3rd quarter, on the goal line, Barrow was in on all three plays as he stuffed an inside run, combined with Jones to tackle the fullback short of the end zone on a screen pass, and then tackled Carter for a loss on quarterback draw. On the latter play, Barrow expertly avoided the block of the pulling guard. Jones prevented a couple of first downs with aggressive tackles after short passes. Both Barrow and Jones also played hard until the final whistle blew.
Defensive Backs: The Cowboys were not able to take advantage of the Giants’ secondary as much as I thought they were going to be able to do. Things did not look good early as Joey Galloway beat Ike Charlton deep for 64-yard gain on Dallas’ first offensive play (Johnnie Harris was late to help out on this play as well). What was especially damning on this play was that Charlton was playing almost 10 yards off the line of scrimmage and still got beat deep.
But after that, the corners did a reasonable job. Interestingly, the Giants rotated Charlton with Ray Green quite a bit. WR Terry Glenn got wide open against Green on one occasion. Green and FS Omar Stoutmire were also lucky that WR Antonio Bryant dropped a deep fullback option pass, as both were beat on the trick play.
Frank Walker got beat on one slant, but otherwise did a fair job on his opponent. However, Walker really pissed me off by clearly pulling up and avoiding contact with the halfback on a 10-yard run down to the Giants’ 4-yard line early in the 3rd quarter.
Nickel back Ryan Clark had problems covering Glenn at times out of the slot, including allowing two first down completions on 3rd-and-5 in the second half.
Stoutmire made a nice play against TE Jason Witten, causing an incompletion. However, Johnnie Harris was badly beaten by Witten for 36 yards on Dallas’ lone touchdown.
Special Teams: Blocking for punt and kick returns remains pathetic. Giant special teams blockers look disinterested while opponents regularly out-hustle and out-hit them. Once again, Wes Mallard was flagging with an illegal block.
Brian Mitchell not only can’t do it physically, but he is making too many mental mistakes. He made a rookie mistake by fielding punts inside the 10-yard line. He also made a bone-head play by not fielding a short punt and then allowing it to roll for big yardage. Delvin Joyce can’t get it done either with the poor blocking. He should have called for a fair catch on one play where he got hammered.
Jeff Feagles punted well, averaging 43.3 yards on 8 punts, including 4 that landed in side the 20-yard line. Punt coverage was very good except for the killer 46-yard return in the 3rd quarter. Nick Greisen missed a tackle on this return, but to be fair, Dallas should have been flagged for blocking Kevin Lewis in the back right at the point-of-attack. On the other efforts, David Tyree, Darnell Dinkins, and Brian Mitchell were active in coverage.
PK Matt Bryant hit a 45-yarder, but was also very short on his kick-offs. Kick-off coverage was good.