Carolina Panthers 27 – New York Giants 17
Overview: The first half of the game couldn’t have gone much better for the Giants. The offense moved the ball early on as Dave Brown led the Giants to two quick early TD’s. Remarkably, the offensive line and running backs did a superb job picking up the Carolina pass rush and Dave Brown was as accurate as we’ve ever seen him. The Giants were setting the tempo for the game and keeping the crowd relatively quiet. If there were any warning signs, it was that the Giants’ defense wasn’t doing a particularly good job in shutting down the Panthers’ offensive attack. What the Giants did do was lose yet another game in which they led, and lose another close game in the 4th quarter, just like game against the Bills and the one against the Eagles. Two costly second half turnovers and poor defense on an early 4th quarter, 9-play, 64 yard drive by the Panthers turned this game around for Carolina.
Quarterback: Dave was “on” in the first half and made a number of excellent passes to both Thomas Lewis and Chris Calloway. Where Dave really impressed us was his recognition of the defense and his quick decision making. He didn’t hold onto the ball (which no QB can afford to do against Carolina). He dropped, made his read, and fired the football. This is real improvement on the part of Brown. Trailing by 0-7 after Carolina’s opening drive, faced with an intimidating defense and hostile home crowd, we expected the Giants’ offense to go in the tank right then and there. But what did the Giants do but march down the field and tie the game. On the first play, Dave’s primary receiver, Brian Saxton was covered and he smartly threw the ball away. On second down, his downfield receivers were covered and he hit Howard Cross as an outlet receiver — a play which picked up a first down. On the next play, Dave threw a nice deep out pass to Lewis. Two plays later, he hit Calloway on an inside route. On third-and-goal from the nine, he threw a TD strike to Calloway. All these passes were right on the money; and most importantly, as we said, Dave got rid of the ball quickly. On Dave’s next drive, with the Panthers now more wary about defending the pass, the Giants hurt Carolina by a couple of impressive Hampton runs. Then the Giants came right back and passed on first down when Brown threw his best pass of the night — a deep crossing pattern to a well covered Calloway. Two plays later, Brown burned the Carolina blitz by pump faking and hit Lewis for a TD with out-and-go route. The Giants had Carolina’s defense on its heels. The Panther defenders didn’t know what was coming — the run or the pass. On his third drive, Dave was hampered by poor field position and a delay of game penalty and the Giants were forced to punt. On his fourth drive, Dave stood in tall against the pass rush and threw a 17-yard beauty to Calloway on 3rd-and-7. After two Hampton runs, with the Giants at about mid-field with five minutes left in the half, Brown tossed yet another perfect pass to Calloway on a slant on 3rd-and-5, but Calloway dropped the ball. That was the Giants’ last meaningful possession of the first half and Brown played as well as we have ever seen him. At the start of the second half, the Giants and Dave picked up where they left off. Dave hit Lewis on a deep out and then came back to him on a naked bootleg. He then made a good play by hitting Calloway inside the ten with a Carolina blitzer bearing down in on him. However, on Dave’s next two passing plays, the rush was too much and Dave was forced to throw the ball away and the Giants had to settle for a field goal. On the first play of the Giants’ next drive, Dave slightly overthrew Calloway, the ball was tipped and intercepted. Indeed, this was the turning point of the ball game, yet Brown’s pass wasn’t off more than a few inches. After this, the rush seemed to bother Dave more and more and you could feel the momentum switch in the game. Brown tried to rally the Giants late in the 4th quarter. He made a good throw on a crossing route to Dawsey on 4th-and-5 that picked up big yardage and he then came back with a nice deep pass to Calloway (which Calloway could not bring in). However, Brown and his receivers were not as sharp as they were early in the game, and two more interceptions were the result in the final two drives. On both interceptions, we didn’t think Brown threw particularly good passes, but we also thought that his two receivers (Dawsey and Lewis) did not do a good job in fighting for the ball.
Offensive Line: In the first half, we were asking, “Who are these impostors?” Granted, the Giants were often throwing on a quick count (another smart move), but the line did an excellent job in protecting Brown and opening up holes for the running game in the first half. Remember, Carolina is one of the very best defenses in all of football. In particular, kudos must be given out to tackles Greg Bishop and Scott Gragg for their work during the entire game. We also saw OC Brian Williams effectively engaging the always tough MLB Sam Mills on a number of occasions. In the first half, Dave wasn’t sacked and only really knocked to the ground hard once. There were no penalties and Hampton had some of the best holes he has had in some time. In the second half, things began to come apart a little bit more. Really it was a matter of Panthers’ Head Coach Don Capers adjusting his blitz schemes to confuse the Giants more. The result was that Brown had less time to throw and was being pounded more. Two costly penalties on Lance Smith and Greg Bishop set the Giants back on their second drive of the second half — right before Hampton’s fumble. Nevertheless, the line didn’t lose this game and played remarkably well. In fact, this probably was their best game.
Running Backs: What really caught our eye in the first half was the blitz pick-ups on the part of Hampton and Elias. Twice we saw Hampton save Brown just in the nick of time with aggressive blocks on the blitzer that stopped him in his tracks. Hampton’s size and smarts make him the perfect back to perform this task. Elias, on the other hand, doesn’t have a lot of size and he has made a ton of mental errors on blitz pick-ups this season, but his block allowed Brown to hit Calloway for a TD on the Giants’ first drive. On this play, Elias, once again, almost failed to see the blitzer, but got just a piece of his man and was largely responsible for the success of the play. Charles Way was again a major factor in the running game with his run blocking. Hampton ran with a little more vigor than we’ve seen him this year and had a few nice runs between the tackles against Carolina in the first half. However, his fumble on the second drive of the second half was a killer and led directly to three points. Hampton also missed the block on Sam Mills’ blitz that led to the Panthers’ only sack of the game. While the Panther defenders made a great play on the screen pass to Elias right after this sack, we thought his impatience as a runner allowed the play to be tackled short of the first down. He needed to allow his blockers to make their blocks instead of riding right up their backs.
Wide Receivers: A strong game in the first half against a couple of tough CB’s for Calloway and Lewis, but Calloway’s drop of Brown’s pass on 3rd-and-5 was costly. It is very obvious that Brown is becoming more and more comfortable throwing to Lewis and with Lewis’ own confidence starting to rise, he’s beginning to look for making bigger plays after the catch, rather than meekly running out-of-bounds. However, we thought the Giants’ WR’s were guilty of not fighting strongly enough for the ball in the second half and this cost the Giants bigtime. We thought Calloway should have caught Brown’s deep pass near the goalline near the end of the game. We also didn’t like the fact that Dawsey didn’t come back to help out Brown on Brown’s second interception and that Lewis didn’t fight for the ball more on Brown’s last pass of the game that resulted in yet another interception. In football, the tie goes to the offensive player and we thought Lewis could have tied the ball up with the safety; however, once he was on the ground, he just let go of the ball — a BIG no, no. NFL quarterbacks have to make plays, but so do NFL wide receivers.
Tight Ends/H-Backs: Not much of a factor as pass receivers, though Cross made an aggressive run after a short catch from Brown on the Giants’ first drive. His second and last catch didn’t come until the 4th quarter. The ensuing 3rd-and-short pass was also intended for Cross, but the ball was tipped by the defender and Cross couldn’t come up with the deflection. It was interesting that the Giants’ first pass attempt was in Brian Saxton’s direction. We would have liked to see him used more.
Defensive Line: Not a strong game for the defense all around. Early in the game, the Panthers were getting good yardage running the ball both inside and outside the tackles. In particular, DE Chad Bratzke, DT Keith Hamilton, and OLB Jessie Armstead were having problems with the left side running game. On one play, we saw a Panther RB knock Bratzke to the ground — that can’t happen! We also expected a stronger pass rush from the front four, but the Panthers’ offensive coordinator was doing a great job of confusing the Giant defenders. Bratzke did make a nice backside pursuit play on a run in the 2nd quarter and he and Strahan did force Collins to throw the ball away on the same drive, but these guys didn’t do enough. The Giant tackles were quiet for almost the entire game, though we thought Ray Agnew played his strongest game of the year. Cedric Jones and Bernard Holsey played some but didn’t make an impact.
Linebackers: The worst game these guys have had in a while. Jessie Armstead made a great read and intercepted the ball on a Panthers’ screen pass to save at least 3 points right before halftime, but that was largely it. Armstead, Widmer, Miller, and Buckley were just not that effective in defending the running game, though they did improve in the second half. What also amazed us, and we don’t know if this was game plan design or failed execution, but the Giants were not putting a big body on TE Wesley Walls and jamming him at the line of scrimmage. Time after time, Walls was allowed to quickly get into his route and he burned the Giants repeatedly. Carolina also did a good job of attacking the Giants’ LB’s greatest weakness — and that is defending the short pass outside the hash marks; Widmer and Miller simply could not react quickly enough to defend the swing pass. What’s worse, Miller slowed up on a TD scoring play where he should have knocked the Carolina RB out of bounds before he got to the endzone (Jesse Campbell was guilty here too). We were most disappointed in the play of Miller. This was his big homecoming, yet he was largely invisible.
Defensive Backs: Not a good game here either. Jason Sehorn blew his contain responsibilities on Ismail’s TD reverse and Phillippi Sparks missed the TD-saving tackle on the play. Sparks also didn’t play as aggressively as he usually does and was beaten on a short 3rd-down pickup on a quick slant in the 2nd quarter and one later in the 4th quarter in the same situation — in such short yardage situations, we feel the CB has to jam the WR. The worst of the bunch was Thomas Randolph. For some reason, Ismail kills Randolph (remember last year’s Raider game?). Randolph was burned on a Giants’ blitz by Ismail for a big gain in the first half. Randolph’s first mistake was playing too far off of Ismail. His second mistake was not making the tackle and allowing Ismail to pick up significant yardage after the catch. Later in the half, Randolph was flagged for a very flagrant 33-yard pass interference penalty when Randolph didn’t turn around to look for the ball. How many times does Randolph have to get burned doing this before he learns that he has to look back for the ball? The good news was that FS Tito Wooten made a great read on the Panthers’ flea flicker and almost made an incredible interception. That’s the kind of patience and maturity the Giants have been looking for in Wooten. Jesse Campbell had a VERY strong game in run support. He had trouble covering Walls, however, and made an incredibly stupid late hit in the 3rd quarter by hitting the RB out of bounds. The pass interference call on him in the endzone was bullsh*t. Sehorn made an outstanding tackle on a 3rd-down sweep to his side in the 3rd quarter.
Special Teams: Not good. Brad Daluiso was horrible on kick-offs and the kick-return coverage units were not that effective. Mike Horan boomed his first punt, but it was right down the middle of the field again. Only a good open field tackle on the part of Sehorn saved a big return. Lewis didn’t do much returning punts, but Conrad Hamilton improved as a kick returner as the game wore on.
Coaching: Outstanding in the early going offensively. Reeves did a good job allowing Brown to throw on a quick count and allowing Brown to pass early on 1st down. Defensively, we’re not sure we would have used as much zone blitzing as the Giants did since Carolina is used to seeing it in practice. Plus, it wasn’t working. Once again, the opposing coach made great adjustments at halftime, yet the Giants didn’t seem to adjust once the game started to turn on them. Where were the screens and passes to the RB’s that would have burned some of the blitzes? Defensively, why didn’t the Giants adjust by jamming Wesley Walls at the line of scrimmage?
