New York Giants 35 – Detroit Lions 7
by David B.
Overview: Bravo! The Giants finally put a convincing win on the board this year against one of the League’s scariest offenses. On offense the Giants picked up where they left off in the second half of the Skins game. Reeves deserves credit for opening up the offense and Nolan deserves credit for completely derailing the Detroit offense. This win showed that the Giants could shut down DET’s elite WRs without Phillippi Sparks, and Barry Sanders without Keith Hamilton. The defense not only created turnovers and a blocked punt, they put 2 TD’s on the board with INT returns.
Offense: Strong first half. Helped by the defense, the offense turned turnovers into points. THE MOST ENJOYABLE moment of this game for me came immediately after the Giants intercepted a Mitchell pass. Instead of Reeves’ typical momentum-killing Hampton plunge into the pile, he called a great play, and the Giants executed it PERFECTLY. Fake handoff to Hampton, Brown bootlegged (beautifully) rolled out a fired a PERFECT — A TRULY PERFECT, 23-yard throw to Lewis on a slant for a TD. Hit him in full stride, and TL didn’t drop it. After a turnover, this is what’s called “going for the jugular,” and the Giants almost never do it. The second half of the game was less impressive offensively. Reeves didn’t go completely into a shell, but he did try to eat the clock, and the Giants got into more 3rd-and-longs than is good for them.
Quarterback: Is he Brett Favre yet? No. But WHEN HE HAS PROTECTION AND A DECENT GAME PLAN he’s nowhere near as bad as most of the Brown-bashers claim. This week, Reeves let Brown BEGIN the game throwing in non-obvious situations and Brown responded with another very strong game. Once more, his numbers would appear better had he not been victimized by several drops from Calloway and Lewis on VERY WELL thrown balls. Brownie was really on the money with his throws this day, less than 5 were poor throws. The INT was a case where the WR didn’t fight for the ball. Brown’s accuracy seems improved, he’s hitting WR’s in their stride — very apparent on the slant TD to Lewis. Brown throws the slant VERY well — this needs to become a bread-and-butter play for the Giants. Brown also connected on a deep ball with Calloway — it wasn’t a perfect throw, but it was closer than we’ve seen. In my last “Letter to the Editor,” I said that Brown needs to throw the ball 25-35 times a game to get into a rhythm. Guess what? He threw 27 times, including some early and often work that got him going– DUH! Since the Jets game, Brown’s showed improvement and confidence. I particularly liked that he lit into Tommy Lewis after another key, bonehead-drop of a 3rd-and-long pass that hit him in the hands. As they were walking off the field Brown gave him a earful. He showed some fire.
Running Backs: Many RBs have had big days against Detroit who are not particularly strong against the run. Hampton was Hampton. 3 yards and a cloud of dust until the 4th Quarter where he typically gets stronger as the Giants tried to chew the clock. Wheatley’s ejection caused the Giants to use Hampton exclusively in the 2nd half, and it’s clear that Hampton is now primarily a short-yardage RB. It’s purely a lack of speed. Charles Way is CLEARLY faster and more explosive than Hampton. The bulk of the carries need to go to Wheatley. Wheatley had an interesting game. He ran the ball well when given the opportunity, and it looked as if he was going to get a lot of carries. Unfortunately for him and those of us who want to see him get more work, Wheatley got ejected from the game for trying to kick a player in a scuffle. Stupid. Let’s hope Reeve’s doesn’t hold it against him for long. Wheatley seems to be on the verge of that breakout game we’re expecting. Also, Wheatley threw a perfect HB option TD pass to Calloway like Meggett used to against the Redskins. Way is still a secret to most around the league, but he is not only a devastating blocker, he’s becoming a good offensive weapon. Another very strong game by the FB. He also made a nice open-field tackle on Glyn Milburn on a punt return. He seems very athletic, and once he’s got a head of steam, he’s not easy to take down.
Wide Receivers: Another hot and cold day for this group. The DET secondary is pretty bad, and the Giants WRs did a nice job shredding them. The were getting good separation and beating their men well. The problem continues to be untimely dropped passes of perfectly thrown balls. Lewis is the biggest offender. Physically, he’s got everything needed to be a star, but mentally, he’s just not there yet. I don’t think it’s his hands, I think it’s lack of concentration, discipline. Despite the drops, he had another big day by Giant WR standards. Calloway too, had a big day by Giant WR standards, but he too had trouble holding the ball at times. Dawsey was invisible if he played. Toomer was inactive with a sprained knee.
Tight Ends/H-Backs: Hooray, the Giants didn’t throw to Howard Cross! They let him block. They threw to Pierce on one very nice (I think it was a seam pass but it’s been so long since I’ve seen one, I don’t remember what they look like).
Offensive Line: Poor Rob Zatechka. The remove him form the offense and the Giants respond with 56 points in 2 games! The line played pretty well. Brown was sacked twice, but as I’ve said before, that’s like a “day off” for him. He was hit a few times too, but generally, he wasn’t under siege. Lance Smith made some nice blocks on sweeps as did Stone. Greg Bishop cannot handle speed rushes. This is going to continue to be a problem. Gragg was beat on a speed rush too. Williams hurt his non-snap hand, but returned. The Giant rushed for 100 yard. Hampton averaged 2.8 YPC and Wheatley had 3.6.
Defense: WOW! This group was without Sparks and Hamilton, and Widmer was playing in a lot of pain. Great plan by Nolan. He had 5 or more DBs in for much of the game. Everything was well-disguised. They gang-tackled Sanders and held him to 47 yards on 16 carries. They picked off Mitchell 3 times prompting idiot Fontes to pull him. The Giants then proceeded to pick off the bumbling Majkowski 2 more times. The Giants got 2 sacks, but basically a mere four-man rush was in the DET QBs face ALL day without much blitzing.
Defensive Line: They rotated the DL all game. Strahan, Harris, Holsey, Agnew, Bratzke and Jones. Strahan has his usually good day. Holsey’s looking more an more like a player. Bratzke played a bit at LE, Jones showed some pressure. For some reason, this group put a ton of pressure on the DET QBs possibly because the coverage was great in the secondary. Agnew had a pick for a TD.
Linebackers: The Giants played with 2 or less LBs for most of the game. Widmer’s getting better every game and had a strong day keeping Sanders in check. Widmer also had an INT. Armstead almost had a 6th INT, and he would have been gone for a TD. Corey Miller didn’t seem to be on the field much, but he occasionally lined up at RDE and put decent pressure on Majkowski.
Defensive Backs: Ahhh. Enjoy this guys: The Giants have a really good, young secondary. Without their leader Sparks, this group stepped it up BIG. Wooten had a huge day, blocking a punt an making a highlight film INT where he leaped high into the air and pulled the ball down with one hand. Maurice Douglass had a pick for a TD. Beamon had a pick. Ellsworth and Hamilton played very well. Sehorn and Randolph played great shutting down the hi-scoring DET WRs. THEY ALL helped run support to keep Sanders in check. Marvelous effort and game all around by the Giants secondary
Special Teams: Problems still here. Daluiso continues to struggle. His kick-offs in the Silverdome reached the endzone, but only one was a TB. He hits chip shot FGs, but he’s absolutely worthless beyond 40 and in clutch kick situations. It’s time to take a serious look at Olindo Mare. His leg is just as strong, he’s probably attempted and made more FGs, and he cannot be worse that Daluiso in the clutch. Horan had a hot and cold day again. The coverage teams did a good job except for on the opening KR coverage where they let Milburn get a 65 yard return. Lewis filled in for Toomer on PR and returned 2 for 9 yards. Lewis and Wheatley returned 3 kickoffs for 62 yards. Not too impressive.
Coaching: Today they get an “A”. Hats off to Reeves. He surprised the hell out of me by opening up the offense, mixing up the plays nicely, and letting Brown throw 27 times. He also called the HB option for a TD which is a good play once in a while. You have to wonder, however, if he’ll continue to do things this way. He doesn’t have a strong track record of sticking with what works. I worried about how they’d play in the second half with a big lead — would they try and sit on it? They were more conservative, but not to the point of disaster. It didn’t hurt that the Giants D continued to wreak havoc, create turnovers and points well into the 2nd half, because from the end of the 1st half, there was a 10-15 minute stretch where not much was going right on the Giants offense — it seemed to be slowly regressing into 3rd-and-longs, and 3-and-outs. Nolan’s defensive scheme was brilliant, but it was also executed extremely well. Kind of reminded me of the Bellichik plane against Buffalo in SB 25.
