Giant Nation was force-fed a huge pile of humble pie on Monday night. Making the taste resonate worse is the unfamiliarity that we have with the dish as of late. The Giants haven’t seen an “L” in the loss column since late December of 2007. The incredible finish to last season, coupled with the sensational start to the 2008 campaign, have left the Giant faithful accustomed to a higher quality of football from that of our last showing. The consecutive win streak, the road-warrior association, the impenetrable defense, and the impeccable Eli all took a back seat to reality on Monday. However, let me stress that we did not lose that game by ourselves, Cleveland lined up (like we did in the Super Bowl) and spanked us in every facet of the game – kudos to the Brownies. So, what now?
So, we correct ourselves. It is inevitable in this sport that a great disappointment will occur more than once a year. While it is shocking that one of these disappointments occurred before our stretch of tough division games, it has happened. Hazem hit it right on the head when he stated that we squandered a terrific opportunity to take a strangle-hold on the NFC East Monday Night. While many are hitting the panic button, calling their uncles and conceding that all of the Giant-haters are right: Eli sucks, the Giants will always play down to their competition, and the defense has been found out and exploited without Osi and Strahan, I choose a different perspective.
What better way to prepare a team for a huge stretch of difficult match-ups than having this taste in their mouths? While I won’t say that we have been overly cocky, the Giants carried a swagger about them above which that simply said “We are a good football team”. I was even starting to feel that were becoming indestructible – back to Earth, Murph. Let’s look back at the beginning of the season: Say what you will about our showing against Seattle, which was an utter domination, but these other games that we have played were closer than the box relayed at the final whistle. We struggled to get an overtime victory against the Bengals, and then followed that up with a less-than-stellar effort versus the winless (at the time) Rams. These games were way too close and anybody critically analyzing these performances would agree that Big Blue just could not get that necessary first down, fell short of the big stop, and missed the small opportunities to put the kibosh on these contests much earlier than we did. We have to do a better job putting teams away when then are steadying themselves on the ropes. The Seattle game was a much better performance from which we can take pieces of advice.
On Monday, our pass rush was non-existent, our press coverage was weak, our man coverage was awful (Mr. Ross), the routes were not crisp, the protection up the gut broke down, and reads on the defense weren’t made by Eli – all of these things contributed to our failure. You cannot, regardless of who you line up against, take preparation lightly. I am not certain that was the case but in my humble opinion, there was no excuse for the ineffectual performance by the Jints other than a lack of preparation. The 49’ers, Steelers, Cowboys, Eagles, Ravens, Cardinals, Redskins, Eagles, Cowboys, Panthers, and Vikings – go ahead and look again. This is the remaining schedule for 2008. It is safe to say that we have had our fly weeks already and should be geared up for plenty of quality football in the following weeks. If we continue to let teams keep a foot in the door or, as in the case of the Browns, slam the door in our face, we will not meet expectations. And just winning a Super Bowl isn’t enough for me. Mediocrity is never welcomed during a Giant’s game.
We must become more clever on defense and get to the quarterback in whatever ways possible, we must stop the pressure on Eli up the middle, we must get back to the fundamentals of quality coverage in the secondary, and we must make better decisions with the football. I feel, actually, I know that this loss will motivate the Giants.
I live in Cleveland and have spent the better part of this day listening to the Cleveland fans and media personnel dismissing the Giants as overrated. I have also seen the national consensus waver on the fence whether the Giants “are who we thought they were.” I know we back a better football team than that which was on the field Monday night. I also know that even though Coughlin isn’t into bulletin-board material, he will use this day as a reminder to the complacent. We will see if there have been lessons learned when we attempt to get refocused this coming weekend.
-Dan Murphy