Giants Return To Their Roots Against Redskins

With their backs against the wall, the Giants needed to get back to playing physical "Giants football" even more than they needed a "W". And that is exactly what they did while defeating Washington yesterday 19-3. On offense they came out with a "shove it down your throat" run first game plan. On defense they dominated the point of attack, aggressively pursuing both Portis and Brunell.

The win over the Redskins yesterday was more impressive than last year's 36-0 rout. The Giants had been playing poorly, especially on defense, while Washington was on a roll offensively. It was a recipe for disaster. Yet the Giants D went out and limited a Washington team that had averaged 500 yards a game during the prior two weeks, to 86 net yards passing, 78 yards rushing, and a total of 3 points (scored only after a horrendous roughing the passer call on Osi kept the drive alive). The G-Men shut down Clinton Portis. The Giants secondary played a great game, holding Santana Moss to 3 catches for 39 yards. And Brunell was under pressure for most of the day, sacked three times. According to the NFL official stats, Washington had zero red zone opportunities the entire game.

On the other side of the ball, the Giants returned to "lunch bucket" football, running the ball 36 times and establishing physical dominance. The O-line played a great game, creating holes for Tike and Jacobs and didn't allow a single sack. Eli and Toomer had monster games and Buress had some incredible downfield blocks. The offense put together a killer 15 play touchdown drive in the 3rd quarter that ate up 8:05 on the clock and sealed the game.

This was exactly the type of game plan the Giants needed. For that reason my "game ball" goes to Tom Coughlin for remembering his Giants roots and adopting a game plan that allowed the players to play physical aggressive Giants football.

Side note: Where is Shockey's head? With the Giants backed up on their own 2 yard line, instead of getting down to business, Shockey turns around and engages Siragusa in the endzone about the offensive pass interference call against him during a prior series - all while the rest of the offense is huddled up. This kid needs to learn to focus.

Shockey Postscript: BBI forum posters correctly pointed out to me that Jeremy's chat with Siragusa was during a television time out and therefore not really that big of a deal.