Oh My God

[ntang]

That was painful to watch. The Giants outplayed the Colts in many ways, but ultimately managed to shoot themselves in the foot with mental mistakes: penalties, dropped passes, poor clock management, and lousy passes. So, so bad.

The good:
- The O-line were excellent, as has become usual, even with an injury or two
- The run game was even better than I hoped, with the team averaging more than 7 yards per carry (!)
- Decent defense, especially as the game went on, with a few glaring exceptions
- Solid run defense

The bad:
- Eli's passes were not on the mark, at all
- Multiple dropped passes
- Multiple dropped interceptions (!)
- Eli's bad decision to try to hand off to Tiki when he wasn't where he was expecting
- Multiple stupid penalties
- Shockey's completely boneheaded decision to run back in during their last-ditch attempt to score
- Feeley's kicking
- The general lack of pass rushing

Overall, the Giants squandered more opportunities than most teams ever get, and instead of having a nice, neat victory to ride into week two, they had a disheartening, depressing loss that everyone knows they should have won. Eli is showing continued questionable judgment and poor accuracy, which are not good qualities in your quarterback. The pass rushing was a big disappointment - with Strahan, Umenyora, Tuck, and Kiwanuka all seeing playing time, and not one of them really managing anything substantial, well, you have to be disappointed. When the only sack of the game comes from Robbins, of all people, you know something's a bit off. And those three missed interceptions (not to mention a couple of tipped passes that could theoretically also have been interceptions) really hurt.

All in all, what had the potential to be a great game (and was looking like one at first) turned into a major disappointment and a terrible note to start the season with. Here's to hoping this is the shock to the system that the Giants need to start playing like a Superbowl team instead of a wildcard team.

Comments

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

And yet Eli got a better rating than Peyton.

But that ref call on the "push off" right before Eli's interception? So wrong.

But, yes. It was an ugly start.

[ntang.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was definitely not offensive pass interference - but on the other hand, if the Giants hadn't made so many mistakes up until that point, they never would've been in the hole and needed to come from behind in the first place.

[wyliekat.livejournal.com]

I thought Eli showed some growth, actually. He did send out a couple of major lasers and, even from a Colts fan's perspective, there were a couple of really ticky tack calls made against the Gs. They definintely hurt their own cause, but it's never a good game when the refs are their own team on the field, you know?

Frankly, I think your boys are going to do fairly well this year, even with their tough schedule.

[ntang.livejournal.com]

But I already knew they had talent and potential. They've got too good a lineup not to do decently, but what's disappointing is that they're not playing like a Superbowl team, and we were all hoping that's what they had this year.

Barber, Strahan, and a few other key members of the team are getting old and can't keep this up for much longer. Barber's said he's not going to play for more than 3 years (including this one). They've got some surprisingly talented replacements waiting in the wings, but even so, it takes time to get a rookie (no matter how talented) to a championship level. Jacobs for instance can run well, but can he maintain it all year if he's the primary running back? I have doubts.

Eli's improving, sure, but what bothered me were a.) some questionable decisions and b.) his ongoing problems with accuracy. He threw some really shitty passes, even excluding the terrible interception. He's slowly improving, but he's got enough talent and had enough experience now that he should be better. The entire team should be.

The Giants team that played last night was not a superbowl-caliber team. They have superbowl-caliber talent, but they don't have superbowl-caliber mental preparation (attitude, discipline, aggression, focus...) yet.