What the Giants need to do...

[Storm]

I love how everyone bashes the linebackers yet doesn't say shit about a secondary that completely sucked in the second half of the season.

[Nas]

I love how everyone bashes the linebackers yet doesn't say shit about a secondary that completely sucked in the second half of the season.

 

Put that on a first year DC... our secondary is better than you give it credit for... Webster was a start out here.. with the exception of the GB game... you hardly heard his name.. and in the case of CB, that's a good thing.

[CrazedDogs]

I love how everyone bashes the linebackers yet doesn't say shit about a secondary that completely sucked in the second half of the season.

 

How do you figure? Based on two or three blown plays?

[Nas]

How do you figure? Based on two or three blown plays?

 

four

[Storm]

How do you figure? Based on two or three blown plays?

 

OK, using that logic, how many blown plays can you name that can be pinned on the linebackers? Maybe the Mccoy scamper on 4th down in Eagles game 1. How bout another specific play?

 

Goff and Boley, especially, made me forget we used to have Antonio Pierce who couldn't cover anyone.

 

How about this: the Giants secondary let the team down in big games. Such as giving up such numbers like 327 yards and 3 TDs to JOHN KITNA.

[Storm]

Put that on a first year DC... our secondary is better than you give it credit for... Webster was a start out here.. with the exception of the GB game... you hardly heard his name.. and in the case of CB, that's a good thing.

 

Deon Grant had the best season in our secondary. A recently signed free agent who is pretty old and the 3rd safety. He was all over the field making plays.

[CrazedDogs]

OK, using that logic, how many blown plays can you name that can be pinned on the linebackers? Maybe the Mccoy scamper on 4th down in Eagles game 1. How bout another specific play?

 

Goff and Boley, especially, made me forget we used to have Antonio Pierce who couldn't cover anyone.

 

How about this: the Giants secondary let the team down in big games. Such as giving up such numbers like 327 yards and 3 TDs to JOHN KITNA.

 

I don't recall the linebackers "blowing" many plays. They're a pretty good coverage group, I guess... hadn't thought about it much until now. However, if I have any complaint, they were not very active around the line of scrimmage. If the defensive line wasn't blowing it up it seemed those guys were making the tackle 5+ yards down field (Goff did flash a few times, but he got blocked a lot too....need a lot more tackles from a MLB).

 

Having watched Kitna for a few years out here on a crap assed Bengals team, I know there's no shame in him lighting you up. Very underrated player - very streaky too, he runs hot and cold; and its the nature of the game that there's no defending a perfect pass. Kitna was working it that day. When a QB has all day in the pocket, it happens.

 

If I have any complaint, its the amount of time he had in the pocket. Zero sacks, against one of the worst OLs in the league, and an undersized, immobile QB? And you're blaming the secondary? Really?

[CrazedDogs]

four

 

If thats really all, then this must be a pretty good secondary.

 

Defensive performance is less about accumulating individual talent and more about communication and being in sync with your teammates. Might be that all this group needs is more time.

 

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't argue with adding more talented players to the mix... but I don't think we're going to find an upgrade in free agency or the draft this side of Nmandi Asamugha.

[CrazedDogs]

Deon Grant had the best season in our secondary. A recently signed free agent who is pretty old and the 3rd safety. He was all over the field making plays.

 

I agree. And using him as a pseudo-linebacker was brilliant on Fewell's part.

[Gman329]

I agree. And using him as a pseudo-linebacker was brilliant on Fewell's part.

 

Yes, Grant had a nice season and using him as a 3rd safety/linebacker was a good way to get our best 11 on the field, since our LB's are weak. However, as the season progressed, teams figured out that this alignment made us more vulnerable to the run and put some big numbers up on the ground. Moves like that work for a while or in certain situations but opposing OC's will figure out how to attack gimmick D if fed a steady diet of it.

[Bigblue25]

I don't recall the linebackers "blowing" many plays. They're a pretty good coverage group, I guess... hadn't thought about it much until now. However, if I have any complaint, they were not very active around the line of scrimmage. If the defensive line wasn't blowing it up it seemed those guys were making the tackle 5+ yards down field (Goff did flash a few times, but he got blocked a lot too....need a lot more tackles from a MLB).

 

Having watched Kitna for a few years out here on a crap assed Bengals team, I know there's no shame in him lighting you up. Very underrated player - very streaky too, he runs hot and cold; and its the nature of the game that there's no defending a perfect pass. Kitna was working it that day. When a QB has all day in the pocket, it happens.

 

If I have any complaint, its the amount of time he had in the pocket. Zero sacks, against one of the worst OLs in the league, and an undersized, immobile QB? And you're blaming the secondary? Really?

 

and most of the time Webster had tight coverage on Dez Bryant, he just made unbelievable catches. Your right we blitzed Dallas like hell the first time we played them and then against Kitna we just layed off. The pass rush actually went non existent for most of the second half of the year.

[Bigblue25]

If thats really all, then this must be a pretty good secondary.

 

Defensive performance is less about accumulating individual talent and more about communication and being in sync with your teammates. Might be that all this group needs is more time.

 

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't argue with adding more talented players to the mix... but I don't think we're going to find an upgrade in free agency or the draft this side of Nmandi Asamugha.

 

yeah, I think we have three starting caliber corners. We could use depth but we are not in dire need of secondary help. Rolle and Phillips might be the best safety duo in the nfl. They did play bad against a hot handed Rodgers, but he has those games he is that good. Alot of those plays GB ran were towards the LB's anyway.

[Storm]

I don't recall the linebackers "blowing" many plays. They're a pretty good coverage group, I guess... hadn't thought about it much until now. However, if I have any complaint, they were not very active around the line of scrimmage. If the defensive line wasn't blowing it up it seemed those guys were making the tackle 5+ yards down field (Goff did flash a few times, but he got blocked a lot too....need a lot more tackles from a MLB).

 

Having watched Kitna for a few years out here on a crap assed Bengals team, I know there's no shame in him lighting you up. Very underrated player - very streaky too, he runs hot and cold; and its the nature of the game that there's no defending a perfect pass. Kitna was working it that day. When a QB has all day in the pocket, it happens.

 

If I have any complaint, its the amount of time he had in the pocket. Zero sacks, against one of the worst OLs in the league, and an undersized, immobile QB? And you're blaming the secondary? Really?

 

I'd rather the blame the unit that actually gave up the big plays ALL SEASON than blame the linebackers who were better than anything we've had in YEARS.

 

I think the linebackers were one of the more consistent groups on the field for the defense this season. Like you said, the defensive line had some pretty bad games, also.

 

Antrel Rolle isn't that good. Kenny Phillips was not the same coming off that surgery. Terell Thomas is okay but misses probably half as many tackles as he makes. Webster is the stand out in that group.

[Storm]

yeah, I think we have three starting caliber corners. We could use depth but we are not in dire need of secondary help. Rolle and Phillips might be the best safety duo in the nfl. They did play bad against a hot handed Rodgers, but he has those games he is that good. Alot of those plays GB ran were towards the LB's anyway.

 

Please.

 

Put that loss on Fewell overestimating the talent of our secondary (and that of the Packers wide receivers) and asking them to try to make plays 10 yards off the line of scrimmage. They were finding holes all over in that secondary.

[Bigblue25]

Please.

 

Put that loss on Fewell overestimating the talent of our secondary (and that of the Packers wide receivers) and asking them to try to make plays 10 yards off the line of scrimmage. They were finding holes all over in that secondary.

 

they were killing our corners on the comeback routes, and Rolle did bite on playaction on Nelson's first TD and got burned.Rolle also made plays in that game he come up and made a alot of tackles, also stripped Nelson once. The Lb's were getting beat on dump offs to John Kuhn. Plus Eli's 4 Int's didn't help, everytime it looked like we were gonna comeback and make it close it was another INT.

[Storm]

they were killing our corners on the comeback routes, and Rolle did bite on playaction on Nelson's first TD and got burned.Rolle also made plays in that game he come up and made a alot of tackles, also stripped Nelson once. The Lb's were getting beat on dump offs to John Kuhn. Plus Eli's 4 Int's didn't help, everytime it looked like we were gonna comeback and make it close it was another INT.

 

He caught 2 passes for 7 yards...

 

He's a good third down back and it was clear the Giants weren't prepared (or at least unable to stop) for the inevitable hand off to John Kuhm on 3rd and 1...but even that doesn't go completely on the linebackers. Other than Cofield, we don't really have an effective defensive tackle. Canty is alright, but a lot what you guys are bashing Goff for (lack of tackles) isn't entirely on Goff....you have to put that on the DTs, too. I think all things considered (such as intangibles such as being in position, staying at home and keeping contain, and defending the pass), the 2010 linebacker crew was better than the previous 10 crews.

 

And I don't completely buy that Fewell put Grant in because of perceived "weaknesses" at the linebacker position. We all knew coming into the season that Fewell was going to try to get Grant on the field--he's a good player that is playing behind a younger player with more upside--and was a quality free agent signing who was expected to get more snaps than just the Dime package. To insinuate that you all KNOW that Grant was inserted in for some plays because the linebackers suck is kind of untruthful. Grant was substituted in because it was a very specific formation and situation designed to defend against the pass and to get a pretty good player on the field more. Give me a solid safety in on pass defense any day over a linebacker...any linebacker in the league.

[TaylorBanksCarsonVanPelt]

Yes I think the 4-2-5 alignment was a winner for the most part. However it has to be mostly man as opposed to zone and the ten yard layoff by the CB's to be effective.

[CrazedDogs]

yeah, I think we have three starting caliber corners. We could use depth but we are not in dire need of secondary help. Rolle and Phillips might be the best safety duo in the nfl. They did play bad against a hot handed Rodgers, but he has those games he is that good. Alot of those plays GB ran were towards the LB's anyway.

 

You're so right, and I can't emphasize that enough. Some of the plays he made that game were like Peyton on his best day. When a QB gets rolling like that, there's no defense that's going to stop them - a perfect pass always wins.

[CrazedDogs]

I'd rather the blame the unit that actually gave up the big plays ALL SEASON than blame the linebackers who were better than anything we've had in YEARS.

 

I think the linebackers were one of the more consistent groups on the field for the defense this season. Like you said, the defensive line had some pretty bad games, also.

 

Antrel Rolle isn't that good. Kenny Phillips was not the same coming off that surgery. Terell Thomas is okay but misses probably half as many tackles as he makes. Webster is the stand out in that group.

 

I didn't mean to blame the linebackers so much as defend the secondary. IMO, the linebackers were an average group this year - and you're right, that is better than anything we've had in several seasons, probably since Armstead was still on the field for us.

 

I don't think they're as talented or deep as the secondary though. Rolle might not be a hall of famer, but he's a better safety than anybody the Giants have at linebacker. And I'm not sure what you have against Terrell Thomas... well, thats not true, I understand why a lot of people would think he misses a lot of tackles - he pursues so well and so aggressively that he's involved in far more running plays than the average cornerback (and I've posted the numbers that prove that on this board before... he was the league's best CB at taking down runningbacks in '09, and I suspect he'll be near the top when a similar study is done on the '10 season. footballoutsiders.com publishes the numbers sporadically on the free part of their site, hopefully they do the same this offseason). But he's still just a cornerback, a good runningback will often make even good tackling cornerbacks look silly. Wish you were wrong about Kenny Phillips, but he's still good enough, sans a complete loss of concentration in the 2nd Philly game. Good thing Deon Grant was around.

 

When I look at this defense overall, I can't place "blame" on any one player or unit. It just doesn't work that way, at least, not this time. They failed not from a lack of front line talent but from miscommunications and a lack of depth.

 

To address the title of this thread directly, 1) more time to build rapport on defense, 2) more depth, especially on defense, 3) reload on the offensive line, and last and probably least, 4) a good 3rd TE and another RB to push Bradshaw & Jacobs.

[Allstarjim]

and most of the time Webster had tight coverage on Dez Bryant, he just made unbelievable catches. Your right we blitzed Dallas like hell the first time we played them and then against Kitna we just layed off. The pass rush actually went non existent for most of the second half of the year.

 

 

Terrell Thomas had the chore of coverage on Bryant, and Thomas was schooled. To be fair, there is no shame in it... he played Dez about as good as you could. But Dez showed that you can cover him well and he can still make you look bad.

 

Webster was on Austin, and Webby did a damn fine job on him.

 

It is very true that there is no defense for a perfectly thrown pass on a perfectly ran route, particularly run at the perfect time. Look at the game yesterday, Wallace was absolutely shut down by Revis (1 catch, 6 yards). But that stat line doesn't look so good if Roethlisberger throws a good pass to Wallace on a fly pattern when Mike had about 2 steps on Revis. It would've been a touchdown on the best corner in the game.

 

 

To Chuck: The defense DID NOT give up all those points to those teams. It's so easy to say, hey, look how the Colts put up 38 points on our defense. But Indy's defense scored 7 of those points, and we turned the ball over 3 times. Another 10 points were set up by the other two turnovers. 17 points off of turnovers.... 7 scored directly by the defense.

 

People will look at the Tennessee game and say our defense gave up 29 points... well, the offense gave up a safety and they and the atrocious special teams constantly put the defense in bad spots... here are the Titans starting field positions in that game on their ELEVEN possessions:

 

TEN 49 (resulting in a FG)

TEN 20

TEN 43 (resulting in a TD)

TEN 20

TEN 24

 

TEN 48

TEN 49 (resulting in a TD)

TEN 20

TEN 49 (resulting in a FG)

TEN 35 (TD)

NYG 44

 

So our defense was asked to stop Tennessee six times where they started out at their own 43 or better. They gave up 20 points on those six possessions. BTW, our offense turned it over another 3 times.

 

When Tennessee started out inside their own 40... they only scored 7 points. Of course, that only happened 5 times. You turn it over, putting a less than rested defense back out there and ask them to defend a short field time and time again... you are going to get points scored on you even if you are the 2001 Ravens... they were able to rest their defense with an awesome running game that could hold on to the ball and get first downs.

 

The Philly game (the one with the comeback we'd all like to forget)... it was our defense that held that Philly offense to just 3 points in the first half. And guess how the Eagles scored those three points? Off an INT in NYG territory. Those 3 points were a win by our defense.

 

Second half - They got their first TD off a fumble by Manningham that set them up on the NYG 25 yard line. The defense had just weathered a 12 play drive where they finally forced a Philly punt. Our offense put our defense back on the field after TWO plays.

 

And you know what, if our offense gets ONE first down on their final possession we don't have to punt that ball to DeSean Jackson and we go into overtime. Or, if our special teams makes a tackle. OR if those special teams don't allow an onside kick recovery where nobody seemed to expect it in a 31-17 football game in the 4th quarter!

 

Here's Philly's 2nd half possessions:

 

PHI 27 - No points

PHI 8 - No points

NYG 25 - 7 points

PHI 27 - No points

PHI 20 - No points

PHI 25 - 7 points (65 yard reception Celek)

PHI 43 - 7 points (off onside kick)

PHI 12 - 7 points (8 play drive)

 

I'll put 14 points in that game on our defense. And even the touchdown off the onside kick... should've never happened if our special teams do the job... but pin that on the defense too. That's 21 points they gave up that I will say, yep, should've stopped them. But that is a great offense on the other side and we win that game if that's all they get. But the Eagles scored 17 points.... (17!) as a direct result from two turnovers on our side of the field and a game clinching punt return.

 

The Eagles got NINE possessions in the second half of that game.... NINE (counting the punt return). That is ridiculous, and as usual, it's turnovers and special teams to blame.

 

So we can do all this fuzzy math and average out point totals off of these losses, but if you keep what actually happened on the field of play in context, our defense played much, much better than most people realize. They got burned sometimes but so does everybody. But you can't say that they sucked when a lot of those points some of the posters are blaming the defense were scored by the other teams' defenses or special teams directly, or were set up deep in our territory because of turnovers. No defense can survive 42 turnovers in a season. We won 10 games and turned it over 42 times. If anything, it is fair to say our defense was herculean with the hands they were dealt this year.

 

Here is the top ten teams by rank for turnover margin in 2010...

 

New England +28

Pittsburgh +17

Atlanta +14

Green Bay +10

Tampa Bay +9

KC Chiefs +9

NY Jets +9

Philly +9

Baltimore +7

St Louis +5

 

Eight of those 10 teams made the playoffs, and two of the top 4 are playing for a Lombardi in 2 weeks.

 

We were -3 even though we LED THE ENTIRE NFL in creating turnovers! That's our defense... better than every other team in the NFL in getting the ball back for our offense.... and we were -3.

 

Just ahead of us in turnover diffferential was Oakland at -2... they went 8-8.

 

Just behind us in the rankings at -4 were Washington, Tennessee, and Indianapolis.... two 6-10 teams and a 10-6 team like us.

 

Nobody's going to be able to convince me that our defense isn't playoff caliber, or that our offense doesn't shoulder most of the blame for the problems we had this year. It's as simple as an interception that falls right into your lap.

 

 

But we still need an impact linebacker in the worst way.

[Storm]

I didn't mean to blame the linebackers so much as defend the secondary. IMO, the linebackers were an average group this year - and you're right, that is better than anything we've had in several seasons, probably since Armstead was still on the field for us.

 

I don't think they're as talented or deep as the secondary though. Rolle might not be a hall of famer, but he's a better safety than anybody the Giants have at linebacker. And I'm not sure what you have against Terrell Thomas... well, thats not true, I understand why a lot of people would think he misses a lot of tackles - he pursues so well and so aggressively that he's involved in far more running plays than the average cornerback (and I've posted the numbers that prove that on this board before... he was the league's best CB at taking down runningbacks in '09, and I suspect he'll be near the top when a similar study is done on the '10 season. footballoutsiders.com publishes the numbers sporadically on the free part of their site, hopefully they do the same this offseason). But he's still just a cornerback, a good runningback will often make even good tackling cornerbacks look silly. Wish you were wrong about Kenny Phillips, but he's still good enough, sans a complete loss of concentration in the 2nd Philly game. Good thing Deon Grant was around.

 

When I look at this defense overall, I can't place "blame" on any one player or unit. It just doesn't work that way, at least, not this time. They failed not from a lack of front line talent but from miscommunications and a lack of depth.

 

To address the title of this thread directly, 1) more time to build rapport on defense, 2) more depth, especially on defense, 3) reload on the offensive line, and last and probably least, 4) a good 3rd TE and another RB to push Bradshaw & Jacobs.

 

I think this post is entirely more fair. The whole defense was pretty shoddy during some of the games...I think a lot of us look at the Giant's defensive rankings and kind of get misled....they had 2 or 3 AWESOME games that kind of skewed the rankings. Our defense has a lot of work to do this offseason and hopefully, part of it will be Fewell and the players getting more comfortable in the scheme we're running. And I also think the linebackers are getting a bad rep because they don't force a lot of turnovers or get many sacks...it'd be nice to have that kind of production from that position but there's only a handful of teams that can really say that they have that. Sure we could use a playmaker at linebacker but I don't think it's a position worth going after in the draft this season. Not in the first or second round anyway. I honestly think we should lure a guy in his mid to late 20s from their team in free agency (a guy like Greenway or Woodley) and maybe draft 4-7 round guy to shore up the position.

 

An impact, game changing, running back who is reliable with the ball and a threat out of the backfield is a greater need....I also think an offensive lineman such as a center or OT is a greater need.

[Nas]

I didn't mean to blame the linebackers so much as defend the secondary. IMO, the linebackers were an average group this year - and you're right, that is better than anything we've had in several seasons, probably since Armstead was still on the field for us.

 

I don't think they're as talented or deep as the secondary though. Rolle might not be a hall of famer, but he's a better safety than anybody the Giants have at linebacker. And I'm not sure what you have against Terrell Thomas... well, thats not true, I understand why a lot of people would think he misses a lot of tackles - he pursues so well and so aggressively that he's involved in far more running plays than the average cornerback (and I've posted the numbers that prove that on this board before... he was the league's best CB at taking down runningbacks in '09, and I suspect he'll be near the top when a similar study is done on the '10 season. footballoutsiders.com publishes the numbers sporadically on the free part of their site, hopefully they do the same this offseason). But he's still just a cornerback, a good runningback will often make even good tackling cornerbacks look silly. Wish you were wrong about Kenny Phillips, but he's still good enough, sans a complete loss of concentration in the 2nd Philly game. Good thing Deon Grant was around.

 

When I look at this defense overall, I can't place "blame" on any one player or unit. It just doesn't work that way, at least, not this time. They failed not from a lack of front line talent but from miscommunications and a lack of depth.

 

To address the title of this thread directly, 1) more time to build rapport on defense, 2) more depth, especially on defense, 3) reload on the offensive line, and last and probably least, 4) a good 3rd TE and another RB to push Bradshaw & Jacobs.

 

We need an impact linebacker.

[Storm]

We need an impact linebacker.

 

Yeah because we won Super Bowl 42 with an all star cast of linebackers

 

We have way more pressing needs than linebacker.

 

We get the best crew of linebackers we've had in years and here people are actually bitching that we can cover running backs and tight ends.

[Nas]

Yeah because we won Super Bowl 42 with an all star cast of linebackers

 

We have way more pressing needs than linebacker.

 

We get the best crew of linebackers we've had in years and here people are actually bitching that we can cover running backs and tight ends.

 

When was the last time you saw a blitz from the MLB position?

[fringe]

Yeah because we won Super Bowl 42 with an all star cast of linebackers

 

We have way more pressing needs than linebacker.

 

We get the best crew of linebackers we've had in years and here people are actually bitching that we can cover running backs and tight ends.

 

the NFL is cyclical. OC's make schemes to beat what was successful last year. What won 42, doesn't win 46. We need Linebackers.