New York Giants Week 15: 8 Keys to Victory over Rival Redskins

Coming off a huge comeback victory against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 14 on Sunday Night Football, the New York Giants are hoping to keep their momentum going into the final three games of the season. 

In order for the Big Blue to stay atop the NFC East and make it back to the post-eason, they have to get a few things done. 

Here they are.

Stop the Run

The New York Giants defense is most effective when the front four has success in stopping the run.

Roy Helu has rushed for at least 100 yards in his last three games, and while the Redskins are only 1-2 during that time, they will most likely be 2-2 after this week if the Giants can’t contain the run game.

Grossman isn’t exactly a great quarterback, especially when the game is on the line. Not to mention, Fred Davis won’t be playing due to his substance abuse violation.

So if the Giants can get out to an early lead and put the ball in Sexy Rexy’s hands during crunch time, they should have no problem escaping with the victory.

The Secondary Must Show Up

Can somebody help these guys? The pass defense is 29th in the league, allowing just under than 264 yards a game, and there is no change in sight.

I repeat, can somebody, anybody, do anything to stop this. Perry “Futile” can’t seem to get through to the secondary, and every game I watch, I have this fantasy of Steve Spagnuolo coming back to town.

The performance of the pass defense will make any Giants fan nauseous. Check out these numbers over the last three games: 351 yards-per-game, 12 touchdowns, a completion percentage of 64 percent and a whopping ONE interception. Unacceptable.

“Futile” can’t blitz because he doesn’t trust his five defensive backs that are on the field (a 4-2-5 defense isn’t exactly a recipe for success either). And everyone knows the Giants are better when they have the ability to blitz.

The possible return of Kenny Phillips will hopefully give the secondary a boost for this week’s game, but that’s wishful thinking. 

Get the Running Game Going

The Giants are dead last in the league, rushing for 86 yards-per-game. That is completely intolerable for a team who has a history of playing smash-mouth football. A long history of it, in fact.

Tom Coughlin decided to not start Bradshaw last week for a team curfew violation, and it is admirable that he did so. He makes it known that everyone has to follow the rules.

Brandon Jacobs filled in for Bradshaw quite well actually, rushing for 101 yards on 19 carries, but the team still had to rely on a blocked kick to win.

The Redskins defense is mediocre at stopping the run, and a tad bit better in their pass defense. Everyone knows Eli will pick up the slack if the run-game is nonexistent, but how long can he do it?

If the Giants can slam it down the Redskins throat early on, they should have no problem improving their record to 8-6.

Jason Pierre-Paul

The reigning NFC Defensive Player of the Week needs to continue his stellar play against the Redskins if the Giants want to stay atop the NFC East. Last week, Pierre-Paul had eight tackles, two sacks (one of which was a safety), a forced fumble and a blocked field goal. But that isn’t even the most impressive part.

The Dallas Cowboys had 12 possessions on Sunday night. The Giants were only able to keep them from putting points on the board on half of those drives. The defensive end out of South Florida made four plays that single-handedly stopped Dallas drives.

The safety, the forced fumble on Felix Jones, the blocked field goal and a third-down sack of Tony Romo late in the third quarter.

You down with JPP? Without Pierre-Paul, the Giants defense would be much more inconsistent than it already is. It’s blatantly obvious that he’s going to need to be naughty by nature (see what I did there?), for the Giants to have any success.

Take Care of the Ball

While the Giants currently have a plus-four turnover ratio this season, they are five under in games they have lost. The most glaring discrepancy came against the Seattle Seahawks when they committed five of them.

Against Green Bay, Eli Manning threw a dreadful pick-six to Clay Matthews, and got very lucky against Dallas when Terrence Newman dropped a pass that he would have taken back to the house.

No doubt that protecting the ball leads to winning games and the Giants need to do so if they want to beat the ‘Skins on Sunday.

Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz and Mario Manningham

Now that we’ve addressed the issue of taking care of the ball in regards to turnovers, there is another way the Giants need to protect that football.

Dropped passes. An NFL player should not be dropping passes that hit him right between the numbers, or anywhere within arms reach. Nicks does a pretty good job of catching throws that he should, but you would too if you wore 4XL gloves and had 10.5-inch hands.

Cruz seems to be a little timid when it comes to coming across the middle, and dropped a substantial amount of passes (10 this season) as a result. Manningham has been pretty sure-handed in 2011 if you omit the dropped pass in the waning minutes of Sunday night’s victory over Dallas.

That’s a big omission though, as it turned out the drop actually was beneficial for the Giants. But if Manningham drops another pass in the end zone during crunch-time this week, don’t expect for it to bode well for the G-Men.

The O-Line Must Play Well

Not to make excuses for the Giants, but they have been seeing success in spite of working with a completely revamped offensive line. The O-line was definitely one of the cornerstones for the Giants over the past half-decade or so, with the front office knowing exactly what they were going to get from their big men up front before each season.

But this year is a totally different story. This patchwork line has not lived up to the expectations of fans and Giants personnel alike.

With that being said, the line actually did a superb job last week against Dallas. Coach Coughlin has praised both Mitch Petrus and Kevin Boothe for their abilities to step in when needed, and boy do the Giants need them.

The Cowboys blitzed 20 times last week, and the Giants did a great job of protecting Eli Manning sans a couple of post-throw hits.

As the offensive line goes, so go the Giants.

Offensive Play-Calling

If a play doesn’t work, why keep running it? Irate Giants fans have seen this all too much this season.

Kevin “Killdrive” will not stop calling the shotgun draw play on third and short. It’s really hard to understand what the reasoning behind this is.

If I can sit on my couch and know that a draw play is coming, the opposing team’s defensive coordinator sure can too.

The only time the draw play does work is on two-point conversions. I have no idea why, but Gilbride has unwavering faith in the shotgun draw to Danny Ware, or D.J Ware, whatever he goes by these days.

The Giants offense seems most fluent in the final two minutes of the half and it’s not just because Eli is as clutch as clutch can be during that time. It’s because Gilbride doesn’t call the plays, leaving Manning to call the plays that he knows his team can get crucial yards on.