Giants - Will the Giants finally get respect?

First, I must apologize for not posting in a while, it has been busy with my new job but that is not a good excuse, and in fact is the kind of an excuse a Cowboys fan would give, so again I apologize.

Now to the substance ...
Coming in to this week, if you went on to any of the Espn boards or anywhere else, the Giants were continually being called "overrated", particularly by Cowboys fans, Eagles fans, and Steelers fans, among others. These naysayers predicted that the Steelers would stomp us out. Just look at Espn.com, where the 5 out of the 8 "experts" picked the Steelers (and I could swear Mortensen originally picked the Steelers), and where three Sunday Countdown personnel picked the Steelers (3 picked the Giants, but one included Mortensen who was double counted). But most importantly 60% of US picked the Steelers in Sportsnation.

And if you look at some of the fans comments in Espn's Rapid reaction, there are Steelers and Cowboys fans trying to blame this on injuries and bad calls. First, injuries are part of the game and if you cannot overcome them, then that is part of your weakness. More than any other sport, depth is key to winning a championship in football. And depth is exactly the reason why I believe in the Giants so much this season. At Running back, we have three very good backs in Jacobs, Ward, and Bradshaw, at Wide Receiver, we have very solid starting 3, Burress (our star), Toomer (a great route runner and master at the sideline catch), and Smith (master of the slot route), but then our depth provides even more support with Domenik Hixon, Mario Manningham, and Sinorice Moss, all of whom I have liked when I have seen them play. And this is just a few positions. I would say the only positions where we really lack depth are linebacker and cornerback.

Also, many Steelers fans most often cited the injury to their long snapper, which led to James Harrison throwing the ball over the punter's head and leading to a Giants safety. Keep in mind Steelers fans, Cowboys fans, and other Giants haters, we were about to get the ball back anyway, and just as we drove the field after the free kick we probably would have done so anyway even if the Steelers got the punt away.

And to those who would cite bad officiating or miss calls, I have many responses.

First of all, as my wrestling coach once told me, if you leave your fate in the hands of the officials, you will lose. If you want to win you must take control of the match (game) and make sure there is no doubt.

Second, I did not see one missed call against the Giants, but I will admit I am biased.

Third, I did however, see plenty of bad calls or missed calls that went against the Giants. First, in my opinion Jacobs crossed the plane on 4th down at the goaline (though I understand it was questionable and hard to overturn on replay). Second, I saw a play where on a long third down, Steve Smith just missed catching a ball, but during his route the cornerback blatantly grabbed his jersey and a defensive holding should have been called, yet there was no call. Third, on one of our many field goals inside the redzone, Burress's jersey was also held on a second down throw, in a throw that was just past his reach. Again that should have been defensive holding and an automatic first down.

But fourth and most importantly, the Giants dominated the Steelers offensive line. Yes the Steelers ran for a total of 95 yards (though 32 of that came on one play), which is a respectable 4.52 yards a carry, but if you take away the one touchdown play by Moore (which you cannot completely discount but helps show how we did for most of the game), then the Steelers only managed a weak 3.1 yards a carry. We also sacked Roethlisberger 5 times, and most importantly knocked him down about 16-17 times out of 33 dropbacks. That is phenomenal pressure. Oh, and the Giants also had 4 interceptions. Basically with the exception of two bad plays (which again you cannot ignore) we shut them down.

On offense, we did not do that well against their superb defense. We only ran for 84 yards and passed for 199 yards (though that was the most against the Steelers all season). However, even though the Steelers did a remarkable job of stopping us in the redzone, we easily could have scored 4 touchdowns given how many times we marched down the field and got into the redzone in the first place, or had our defense and special teams get us there.

With the exception of the Browns game, the Giants look to be a very good football team. And even though we lost to Cleveland, every team loses a game, with the exception of the 18-1 Patriots who remarkably did not manage to lose a game during the regular season (which was only the second time ever, and then they lost the most important game anyway). So even great teams lose to teams they are better then (I remember the undefeated Broncos lose to a much inferior Giants team a few years ago). So for all you Giants haters, you cannot say the Giants are not a good team because they lost to the Browns and now you have no claim that we have not beaten any good teams.

Now in the eyes of many, the Giants cannot really win next week. If they lose, Giant haters will say, wow Brad Johnson beat you, just imagine what happens when Romo comes back. If the Giants win, haters (mostly Cowboys fans) will just say, oh well, when they have Romo back the Cowboys will beat the Giants. It is just too hard for some to admit the Giants are a damn good team.

On another note, I just have a little Arm-chair quarterbacking to do. Why oh why will we not run Bradshaw? I love Jacobs and the way he runs over linebackers, cornerbacks, and safeties, but sometimes he is not effective. He does not have alot of vision and it seems whenever there is a man in front of him he just lowers his shoulders and for the most part does not try and make a man miss. I also love Ward, who has much more vision and the ability to make man miss but while he is faster then Jacobs he does not have electric speed. Bradshaw, on the other hand has explosive speed, good vision, and the ability to make people miss.

For some teams the big back will work better (particularly teams with faster, but smaller linebackers), but against the Steelers who are big and pretty good speed, it is going to be hard to run over them, and so a back like Bradshaw might be more effective. They should have tried to put Bradshaw in a few plays to see if he could do anything especially after Jacobs wore teams out a little (this is the reason Jacobs should always start because he pounds defenses), but we need to put in Bradshaw more.

But it is hard to question Coughlin, Spagnuolo (especially him), and Gilbride as they have the Giants 6-1.

Now to switch gears.

I have to ask, what are the Cowboys doing????

You add Roy Williams, one of the biggest me-first, whining, prima-donna wide receivers to a team that already has one of the other big me-first, whining, prima-donna wide receivers in Terrell Owens. They do this after already having made a failed gamble on perennial trouble maker, Pacman Jones. Basically they now have two wide receivers who complain they never get the ball enough, how can this possibly work in the long run?

Second, the Cowboys need serious defensive help with Williams, Jones, and others out. Now while they shutdown a moderate offense in Tampa Bay, I just do not see a team who got run over by Stephen Jackson and the Rams as well as the Cardinals the week before, being able to stop strong offensive teams. I cannot see them beating the Giants, Redskins, or even the Bears or Eagles for that matter. They should have traded for some secondary help.

Third, they gave up three draft picks to make this move, including a first round pick. See what happens Detroit when you get rid of Matt Millen? You make the first move on your long way to recovering as a team.

As a Giants fan, I love this move, especially considering what they had to give up (1 1st round pick along with two other picks). I just hope that we run them over last night and take them out of contention in the NFC East.

But hopefully the Giants get some respect and that the naysayers and Giants-haters shutup because they lose all their usual Giants hating talking points. Until next week.