No Saints in New York City
December 10, 2012
By J.D. Cook
The Giants outplayed my wildest expectations; plain and simple. The Saints have pulverized the Giants in the Drew Brees / Sean Payton era. The reasons for this are many. Brees just seemed unstoppable when he played the Giants, and Sean Payton was a former Giants coordinator for the Jim Fossil era super bowl appearing team of 2000. Either way none of that seemed to matter yesterday as Brees played his worst game against the Giants. Payton was not present as he is currently suspended due to Commissioner Badell…uh Goodell I mean. Are you really thinking about getting rid of kickoffs dude? You already ruined overtime for me! Why not just get rid of kickers then? You changed overtime so kicks can’t win the game and now you want to get rid of kickoffs so it sounds like you just generally don’t want kickers in the N.F.L. Anyway back to topic!
The Giants dominated the Saints in the second half of the football game due to a defense that was playing like; to quote Antrel Rolle and Lawrence Taylor, ‘mean dogs’. Stevie Brown has become the Giants best kept secret as he added to his interception total and pronounced many prodigious hits on various wide receivers. This game was the polar opposite to last week’s snooze fest with Washington. Every play was filled with excitement, hard hits and scoring. The interception return for a touchdown followed by Wilson’s touchdown set the tone for the game early as both teams seemed poised to put up big numbers. Ultimately the Giants defense outplayed the Saints who were led by former Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnolo. Another strange twist of fate?!
The offense received a huge burst from emerging rookie David Wilson. With the loss of Andre Brown the team has really seemed to struggle but now that there is another legitimate threat at running back the Giants can be deadly again. The running game has always been the key to the Giants offense despite winning the super bowl last year with a mostly subpar run game. Eli Manning looked fairly on point all day hitting Nicks for a beautiful over the shoulder touchdown. Victor Cruz continued his quiet domination of the league and Bennett and Hixon got in on the fun. This game really reminded me of the Giants 2007 game against Buffalo when in terrible elements a young fresh running back emerged late in the season. It was Ahmad Bradshaw then and it was David Wilson last night in the rain.
It’s officially playoff season for the Giants who cannot lose another game as long as the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys continue to be only one game back in the division. Next week the game against the Atlanta Falcons could not be more important as it is still somewhat possible it could impact seeding in the playoffs and it will certainly be important if the Giants hope to make the playoffs period. Here’s to hoping the Giants play anywhere near the level they
played at against the Saints.
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The Giants Blog is published every Monday during the NFL season while the New York Giants remain viable contenders (which in 2011 was right to the end and their Super Bowl championship). On the weeks when the Giants have a Monday night game, the blog will be published on Wednesday. The blogs are thoughtful (albeit heavily biased) analysis of the Giants’ performance from our editor-in-chief and Giant fanatic J.D. Cook.