Big Blue View
The New York Giants had a historic game against the Denver Broncos. Not the kind of history anyone outside of Denver wanted to see, but historic none the less. I don’t need to go over the gory details; there have been, and will be, plenty of other pieces diving into it in excruciating detail.
But I also couldn’t not take the opportunity to dust off my infrequently-used opinion piece.
I’m going to start with the most obvious possible observation: You don’t give up 33 points in 15 minutes of football without having some significant problems. A defense with as much talent as the Giants boast doesn’t have three collapses in six weeks without having issues that need to be addressed.
I know, I know. I said I wasn’t going to dig into the gory details of the Giants’ fourth-quarter collapse. But it’s also true that the first step of solving problems is identifying the problem. The Giants have several right now, but there are also some reasons for hope.
Some of the problems are pretty obvious, like Jude McAtamney. I’m not going to pile on the kid, but he can’t remain the Giants’ kicker after missing three extra points in two weeks. We shouldn’t forget that the two competed for the starting job and McAtamney beat out the veteran Younghoe Koo — at least in practice. However, there’s no way to simulate the psychological pressure of a game in practice, and McAtamney seems to be more pressure-sensitive than an NFL kicker can be.
The Giants will likely turn to Koo this week, though he may not be a great option, either. He lost his job in Atlanta for a reason, but he’s at least been a good NFL kicker before. Even if he’s diminished and doesn’t have great range, he’s only missed three extra points in the last three complete seasons — as opposed to the same number in the last two games.
The more permanent solution will likely be for the Giants to pursue a real successor to Graham Gano this off-season. That doesn’t help them this week against the Eagles, but it has to be done.
I want to couch this by saying that I actually admire the transformation Bowen has gone through over the last year. He wants to win with a four-man rush while dropping seven into a quarters coverage. That’s the defense he built in Tennessee and was pretty successful doing so. But that isn’t what the Giants’ defense is built to do, and that’s not the type of team Brian Daboll wants to run.
The Giants want to run an aggressive, attacking defense that uses man or press-man coverage and versatile defenders to create confusion or scheme additional pressure.
And credit to Bowen for adapting. He’s played far more man coverage, and blitzed far more, over the last year than he did before. He’s willing to do what he has to in order to try and build a defense...
