You can't say you didn't see it coming

[playmakers]

Our mistakes and glaring weakness were never improved since day one. For starters, the pass defense.

A. If you remember the Giants put 35 up on us week 1 and had about a billion yards. Ok, you say a new coach playing a good offense, it might be the team not being familar with the defense.

B. Week 2, against a pitful Miami team. Fact of the matter is, they should of beaten us. They drove up and down the field on us and shot themselves in the foot. Once again, the problem was glaring, we keep giving up anything under 12 yards. Chambers had about 10 catches for 90 yards. If the Dolphins would have been patient they would have won that game.

Make a long story short, the same could be said when we played the Patriots, Lions, both Commander games, vs Eagles, and Packers. The only reason why we won 90 percent of those games is because our offense carried us. Lets throw some numbers out there

(rough estimate)
Brady 350 yards
Kitna 350 yards
Campbell 342 yards
Rodgers 300 yards
Manning 350 yards
Collins ???? I know he had a good game


Now I will make a bold statement that Ive been saying since week 1. It isnt the players its the SCHEME. We play so much zone coverage that leaves so many areas open on the field. Newman, for example, always jams his guy in the slot and stays close to the line in the zone. Reeves and Henery play about 12 yards off and stay there and hope the linebackers get over in time to cut off the 8 yard hooks. Well, the LB have to see if its going to be a run before they can run over and that leaves enough time for the 8 yard hitch, the out, square in, etc. What plays killed us today? Toomers catch was about a 12 yard out. I know we missed tackles but it was open. The 49 sec drive before the half take away the 20 yard out to Boss and all you have are the 8-10 yard routes I mentioned. That entire drive was zone coverage. We rushed four and played zone.

In the 4th quarter, when we needed the ball, we played bump and run man coverage and stopped the Giants. These players can not play zone coverage. I mean when you have Greg Ellis out covering a zone should say enough. This team has the personal for a 4-3 not a 3-4. Our offense hide our defense all season. When teams figured out Jason Garrett our defense wasnt good enough to keep teams off the field, therefore, leading to our demise.

Reason number 2

Speacil teams. Patrick Crayton must be the worst kick returner in history. All season we have gotten almost nothing in returns. On the same lines teams have been getting good returns on us. Can anyone argue that speacil teams wasn't the difference in today's game? We kept staring on our 3, 10, 20 while they were starting on the 30, 40, and our 40. One fact that probably everyone forgets is the drive that really beat us, the one right before the half, was started by a kickoff that was caught at about the 15 yard line. I think it was by design too because it was kicked high. It will be hard to argue that speacil teams wasnt that good all season. Like I said, it wasn't like you didnt see it coming. Wade is a decent coach but he never fixed or adjusted in any way. Why not try a new returner. Why play zone week after week when we repeatly get killed by it. Thanks to the offense in the first 12 weeks, this team might have finished 9-7 with an average offense. Its questions that have to be answered.

 

[SkinsandTerps]

But you almost have to play more zone, if you feel that your secondary might be a liability, and if you want to be aggressive with your LBs. EDIT: Interesting write up though, and good observations.

 

[Doomsday]

The only problem with your argument is the offense lost this game not the defense. There is no excuse for a team that averaged 30 points a game to score 3 points at home in the second half of a playoff game. We had 3 chances to drive down the field and win it in the 4th quarter.

The offense had several opportunities to make it an 11 point lead in the 3rd quarter as well.

Yes the defense is soft at times but other then the awful tackling on the Toomer reception and Reeves getting owned before the half the defense played good football. Certainly well enough to win this game.

 

[playmakers]

I know but if your getting killed one way how can you not switch just to see if you have something. I mean we stopped the G-men when we switched late in the 4th today. Your a Skins fan I assume by your name, remember how easy Campbell had it here in Dallas. He drove up and down the field hitting wide open guys. I even said that game resemble a defense that you would play in a preseason game on here. Thats how vanilla it was. How many deep ones did Campbell have? Im talking 20 plus. Not many if at all.

Is it so hard to say Newman you have Toomer man up. Henry, your bumping and running with Burries while you have saftey help, Reeves has Smith with help in Nickel. But, were running Greg Ellis from one side of the field to the other and playing db's 12 yards off the ball. Its basically a no guts defense and it would of showed it colors earlier if it wasnt for our amazing offense.

 

[Wolfpack]

I agree on the zone comments. Reeves has speed and should be able to run with any WR as does Newman. At least the offense would have to make a play vs knowing right were to go.

Watch how Green Bay's CB play the Giants, you wont see Toomer all day.

 

[playmakers]

The only problem with your argument is the offense lost this game not the defense. There is no excuse for a team that averaged 30 points a game to score 3 points at home in the second half of a playoff game. We had 3 chances to drive down the field and win it in the 4th quarter.

The offense had several opportunities to make it an 11 point lead in the 3rd quarter as well.

Yes the defense is soft at times but other then the awful tackling on the Toomer reception and Reeves getting owned before the half the defense played good football. Certainly well enough to win this game.

I hear you. The only thing I can say about that is playoff games are battles. You throw all the stats out from the regular season. Yes, our offense needed to score more in the second half and the team needed to take less penatlys, but if we didnt go soft and let up that td right before the half do you think we would had won? I think so. The score would of been 17-7 after our 10 minute drive to come out of the half. The pressure would of been on Eli. Thats just my opinion but I dont think you can really argue against yours either.

 

[SkinsandTerps]

If they played man against the Giants it might have been a lot worse. Not that it makes any easier accepting the loss.

I agree, I wouldn't have hurt to utilize it a little more in certain situations, but the match-ups are tough. Smith, Toomer, Buress, just be glad Shockey didn't play.

Biggest thing that Eli did right yesterday was show patience and not force too many shots. Thus no picks.

 

[playmakers]

I forgot to mention all the pentalys throughout the season. It was costly in this game. Throughout the year we could all see these issues.

 

[theogt]

Wait, so, the only reason we won those games in the regular season was "the offense carried us."

Now, we lose a game because the defense steps up (only giving up 163 yards passing and makes two huge stops at the end of the game) and the offense falters.

And we were supposed to see this coming?

 

[chinch]

LOL. Our D deflated the team (yet again) 42 seconds for a TD before half.

DUMB PENALTIES were mostly on D.

The only problem with your argument is the offense lost this game not the defense.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Wait, so, the only reason we won those games in the regular season was "the offense carried us."

Now, we lose a game because the defense steps up (only giving up 163 yards passing and makes two huge stops at the end of the game) and the offense falters.

And we were supposed to see this coming?

I think what we could see coming is this team taking a big dump in the playoffs after falling apart the last month of the season.

 

[playmakers]

Wait, so, the only reason we won those games in the regular season was "the offense carried us."

Now, we lose a game because the defense steps up (only giving up 163 yards passing and makes two huge stops at the end of the game) and the offense falters.

And we were supposed to see this coming?

Thats because we had the ball the whole game. They threw only 18 times and completed 12. 12 completetions for 163 yards is 13.5 yards per completetion. Way too much. If they had 30 attempts and if you average it out your have 20 for 30 and 271 yards. I think your being a bit nieve to say our defense wasnt the issue this season and we couldnt see it coming. What game this season did the D win? I dont think you could say against teams like the Jets, Vikings, Bears and Rams because there offense's stink. In the money games where was our D?

Pats 48 points

Packers 27 but blew a huge lead. We score 37, our offense wins that game.

First two Giants games we score 45 points and 31 points. We gave up 35 and 20. Not exactly dominating and again our offense wins another game.

Commander games the D was subpar too. We almost blew two leads in the game here.

Against bad teams and offense's the D played well. When it counted and we had money games if the offense didnt put up almost 30 points then we would of lost. Two games out of those 5-6 games I just mentioned, I was hoping that our D would step up and dominate a game. From my eyes they didnt. Every week it was same old same old. Just my opinion.

 

[theogt]

Thats because we had the ball the whole game. They threw only 18 times and completed 12. 12 completetions for 163 yards is 13.5 yards per completetion. Way too much. If they had 30 attempts and if you average it out your have 20 for 30 and 271 yards. I think your being a bit nieve to say our defense wasnt the issue this season and we couldnt see it coming. What game this season did the D win? I dont think you could say against teams like the Jets, Vikings, Bears and Rams because there offense's stink. In the money games where was our D?

Pats 48 points

Packers 27 but blew a huge lead. We score 37, our offense wins that game.

First two Giants games we score 45 points and 31 points. We gave up 35 and 20. Not exactly dominating and again our offense wins another game.

Commander games the D was subpar too. We almost blew two leads in the game here.

Against bad teams and offense's the D played well. When it counted and we had money games if the offense didnt put up almost 30 points then we would of lost. Two games out of those 5-6 games I just mentioned, I was hoping that our D would step up and dominate a game. From my eyes they didnt. Every week it was same old same old. Just my opinion.

How do you explain those two 3 and outs at the end of the game? You know, the ones that gave the offense the possession with great field position twice in order to win the game?

 

[playmakers]

We switched to man to man coverage not a soft zone. Plus, they ran the ball so it eased our pass defense a bit. Ill give them credit for that, they were nice stops.

 

[alancdc]

I didn't see it coming.

 

[bysbox1]

I think what we could see coming is this team taking a big dump in the playoffs after falling apart the last month of the season.

I could not have said it better, even with my big mouth!

 

[Everlastingxxx]

How do you explain those two 3 and outs at the end of the game? You know, the ones that gave the offense the possession with great field position twice in order to win the game?

Giants were playing conservative and trying to run out the clock. Aikman even noted it. Cowboys D was a major dissappointment. They were horrible. They looked slow and didnt look fast like they did against Greenbay. The Giants barely had the ball and scored on all their first possessions.

 

[notherbob]

I think what we could see coming is this team taking a big dump in the playoffs after falling apart the last month of the season.

Agreed. I did not expect them to win yesterday, but I was hoping they would.

They stopped playing well the minute Favre got hurt and have simply not been a force since then. Why? I don't know but I'm guessing their success went to their heads and they got to thinking all they had to do was talk a little trash and show up at gametime for easy wins. They were wrong.

Looks like another "interesting" off-season.

 

[theogt]

Giants were playing conservative and trying to run out the clock. Aikman even noted it. Cowboys D was a major dissappointment. They were horrible. They looked slow and didnt look fast like they did against Greenbay. The Giants barely had the ball and scored on all their first possessions.

Yeah, they were trying to run out the clock and keep the ball away from us. And our defense prevented that from happening.

Did we do that last year in the playoff game? No, we let Alexander rip off a 20 yard run when we needed a stop.

 

[Everlastingxxx]

Yeah, they were trying to run out the clock and keep the ball away from us. And our defense prevented that from happening.

Did we do that last year in the playoff game? No, we let Alexander rip off a 20 yard run when we needed a stop.

And before halftime, what was that? The 10:00 drive should have been the backbreaker. But, wow, i dunno how you can think for a second the defense played well.