by Chris Murray
For the NFC'Easter
The question for the New York Giants (5-2) as they come into this week's NFC East showdown against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field is whether the offense and the defense are going to show up at the same stadium?
After the defense was shelled for 48 points by the New Orleans Saints the previous week, the offense couldn't get out of its own way in the Giants 24-17 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. The New York offense committed four turnovers—including three interceptions by quarterback Eli Manning.
Against the unbeaten Saints, the Giants defense gave up 493 yards of total offense while the offense piled up 325 yards of offense, but the Giants offense could only muster 84 yards on the ground with the tandom of Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw. But then again, the Saints put the Giants in such a big hole that the running game couldn't help theG-men.
And of course, the New York media is in a major tizzy over the first-place G-men who are tied with the Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys in the loss column. One Big Apple scribe is comparing the Giants recent swoon to late last season when they lost three out of their last four before being eliminated in the divisional playoffs.
Giants head coach Tom Coughlin said his team is not losing confidence and saw some good things from his team in the loss to the Cardinals.
“I think you take the game itself and try to take it apart for them. Cite some examples of the team we played last night. They go into Philadelphia on Thanksgiving (last year) and get crushed. Yet they beat Philadelphia in the playoffs and are the NFC rep in the Super Bowl,” Coughlin said.
“It is a long season now and a lot of things are going to happen. I think it is important to realize and to go do something about it. We did make progress to a certain extent, although not all the way. We made progress in our coverage and the pressure was better and therefore the coverage was better and the players were better within it.”
Even in the midst of their two-game losing streak, the Giants aren't panicking coming into Sunday's game against an Eagles team that eliminated them in last year's playoffs.
“We're not concerned. We knew it was going to be a tough battle, we have a long season left,” said Giants quarterback Eli Manning. “We are 5-2, we're not in a bad spot, we are going to get back to playing better football. We have a big game vs. Philly at Philly, it's a huge game. We know it's going to be a tough battle, but we have to go out there, play well and eliminate the mistakes.”
The Eagles (4-2) come into their second straight game against an NFC East opponent not playing exactly like a Super Bowl contender themselves. Even in Monday Night's 27-17 win over the hapless, chaotic Washington Redskins, the Eagles offense was inconsistent.
Oddly enough, that was an improvement over not showing up at all as they did in a shocking loss to a very bad Oakland Raiders team the previous week. Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb said there were some plays he'd like to have back, but the offense is not as bad people think.
“I wouldn't say that there's that much inconsistency. I would say, after the Oakland game, there were a couple of miscues and some things that we can obviously clean up. I thought last week that the offense played well, they played hard,” McNabb said.
“There were some throws that I would like to have back, but you have to give respect to them. They (Washington) are a top-five defense and haven't allowed a lot of points and for us to put points on the board against them is still a challenge. But still, just over the weeks I've thought we've gotten better, and minus the Oakland game, I thought we played hard and we played effective. We have to play really well this weekend.”
Outside of the offense's two big plays—a 67-yard touchdown on an end-around by DeSean Jackson and a 57-yard touchdown pass from McNabb to Jackson late in the second quarter-the Eagles offense didn't do much. The Redskins actually outgained the Eagles 308 to 262. McNabb was sacked three times. The Birds completed just 4-of-15 third down conversions.
“We could do some things better at times. We weren't always crisp like we needed to be, but that happens,” Jackson said after Monday's win over Washington. “It is football, sometimes the defense is going to win and sometimes the offense is going to win. We will go back into practice, work hard and hopefully next week we will put it together a little better.”
Meanwhile, Eagles head coach Andy Reid wasn't quite happy with the media immediately following Monday night's win suggesting that his offense wasn't consistent.
“Twenty-seven points – I don't think that's bad. I don't think that's a bad night. Should we have scored a few more in the second half? Absolutely,” Reid said. “Can we improve on things? Absolutely. We need to keep doing that. I'm going to enjoy this one though.”
Reid didn't budge on that position when he spoke to the media on Wednesday and said his offense did well against the Redskins defense, which ranks 5th in the NFL.
You guys would probably know the stats better than I, but there haven't been a lot of teams probably in the last 28 games or so that have scored 27 points on that team that we just played,” Reid said. “I know one of them was from a defensive standpoint, I understand that. We take [the points] as team. I know the other teams that played against them also played defense.”
No comments:
Post a Comment