Time For The Giants To Change The Blueprint

We’ve all seen the Giants lose football games before.

Some losses have been tougher than others, with yesterday’s loss to the Eagles certainly falling in the “tougher” category.

However, losing a game and being unprepared for a game are two separate matters.

And yesterday afternoon, the Giants were unprepared.

During the Fox Pre-Game Show, Jimmy Johnson discussed how the New Orleans Saints had created a blueprint on how to pick apart the Giants’ defense. The Cardinals followed that same blueprint, he said, and the Eagles would do the same.

Well, he was exactly right.

The New Orleans Saints exposed a vulnerability within the Giants’ defense: the secondary.

And like a pack of hungry wolves looking to prey on the weak, the Cardinals and the Eagles mercilessly attacked the Giants’ secondary.

The blue print on how to beat the Giants?

Run mid-range crossing patterns and out routes.

The Giants’ secondary have yet to demonstrate an ability to defend against passes thrown in front of them.

Furthermore, they have yet to show much of an ability to make a decent tackle once a pass has been completed.

The offensive side wasn’t much better for the Giants yesterday afternoon.

The Eagles appeared to know where Eli Manning was going to throw the football before Manning even knew.  

When Manning was intercepted by Asante Samuel during the Giants first procession of the game, Samuel’s move was timed so perfectly that it appeared as if he and Manning had been out on the field practicing the play prior to the start of the game.  

If only the Giants’ young receivers could time their routes as perfectly as Samuel.

And the running game?

Perhaps the Eagles offensive line found a way to electronically intercept the Giant’s play calling, because everywhere Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw turned, they were met by a sea of green jerseys.

Tom Coughlin should have probably done a playbook inspection immediately following the game, just to ensure that some young locker room assistant didn’t snatch someone’s playbook and hand it over to Eagle’s defensive coordinator Sean McDermott.

The blueprint is out on how to defeat the Giants.

The Saints created it, and other NFL coaches have since looked like the second coming of Vince Lombardi as a result of their ability to simply watch a few game tapes and realize that the Giants secondary is weak to say the least.

How do the Giants prepare for next week’s game against San Diego?

Well, they change the blueprint.

Of course, that’s a lot easier said than done. The players are still the ones that need to execute on the field. But, that’s another article for another day.