What the Giants need to do...

[Storm]

When was the last time you saw a blitz from the MLB position?

 

WTF does that have to do with anything? The pass rush is why we have 12 1st-2nd round defensive ends. And I rarely see anyone blitz from the middle linebacker position. Green Bay, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh are about the only teams that will occasionally do it. And that's because their defenses REVOLVE around linebackers. Ours revolves around the defensive line.

 

LOL, our linebackers aren't good because we don't blitz from the middle linebacker position.

 

I'll take what we have now over Antonio Pierce and company any day.

 

Again, we have way more pressing needs than linebacker. Let's start with a running and run blocking game that shut down midway through the season and screwed our entire offense up.

[Storm]

Mark it down: Our secondary isn't as good as everyone thinks. Storm said it. 1/24/2011.

[Bigblue25]

Terrell Thomas had the chore of coverage on Bryant, and Thomas was schooled. To be fair, there is no shame in it... he played Dez about as good as you could. But Dez showed that you can cover him well and he can still make you look bad.

 

Webster was on Austin, and Webby did a damn fine job on him.

 

It is very true that there is no defense for a perfectly thrown pass on a perfectly ran route, particularly run at the perfect time. Look at the game yesterday, Wallace was absolutely shut down by Revis (1 catch, 6 yards). But that stat line doesn't look so good if Roethlisberger throws a good pass to Wallace on a fly pattern when Mike had about 2 steps on Revis. It would've been a touchdown on the best corner in the game.

 

 

To Chuck: The defense DID NOT give up all those points to those teams. It's so easy to say, hey, look how the Colts put up 38 points on our defense. But Indy's defense scored 7 of those points, and we turned the ball over 3 times. Another 10 points were set up by the other two turnovers. 17 points off of turnovers.... 7 scored directly by the defense.

 

People will look at the Tennessee game and say our defense gave up 29 points... well, the offense gave up a safety and they and the atrocious special teams constantly put the defense in bad spots... here are the Titans starting field positions in that game on their ELEVEN possessions:

 

TEN 49 (resulting in a FG)

TEN 20

TEN 43 (resulting in a TD)

TEN 20

TEN 24

 

TEN 48

TEN 49 (resulting in a TD)

TEN 20

TEN 49 (resulting in a FG)

TEN 35 (TD)

NYG 44

 

So our defense was asked to stop Tennessee six times where they started out at their own 43 or better. They gave up 20 points on those six possessions. BTW, our offense turned it over another 3 times.

 

When Tennessee started out inside their own 40... they only scored 7 points. Of course, that only happened 5 times. You turn it over, putting a less than rested defense back out there and ask them to defend a short field time and time again... you are going to get points scored on you even if you are the 2001 Ravens... they were able to rest their defense with an awesome running game that could hold on to the ball and get first downs.

 

The Philly game (the one with the comeback we'd all like to forget)... it was our defense that held that Philly offense to just 3 points in the first half. And guess how the Eagles scored those three points? Off an INT in NYG territory. Those 3 points were a win by our defense.

 

Second half - They got their first TD off a fumble by Manningham that set them up on the NYG 25 yard line. The defense had just weathered a 12 play drive where they finally forced a Philly punt. Our offense put our defense back on the field after TWO plays.

 

And you know what, if our offense gets ONE first down on their final possession we don't have to punt that ball to DeSean Jackson and we go into overtime. Or, if our special teams makes a tackle. OR if those special teams don't allow an onside kick recovery where nobody seemed to expect it in a 31-17 football game in the 4th quarter!

 

Here's Philly's 2nd half possessions:

 

PHI 27 - No points

PHI 8 - No points

NYG 25 - 7 points

PHI 27 - No points

PHI 20 - No points

PHI 25 - 7 points (65 yard reception Celek)

PHI 43 - 7 points (off onside kick)

PHI 12 - 7 points (8 play drive)

 

I'll put 14 points in that game on our defense. And even the touchdown off the onside kick... should've never happened if our special teams do the job... but pin that on the defense too. That's 21 points they gave up that I will say, yep, should've stopped them. But that is a great offense on the other side and we win that game if that's all they get. But the Eagles scored 17 points.... (17!) as a direct result from two turnovers on our side of the field and a game clinching punt return.

 

The Eagles got NINE possessions in the second half of that game.... NINE (counting the punt return). That is ridiculous, and as usual, it's turnovers and special teams to blame.

 

So we can do all this fuzzy math and average out point totals off of these losses, but if you keep what actually happened on the field of play in context, our defense played much, much better than most people realize. They got burned sometimes but so does everybody. But you can't say that they sucked when a lot of those points some of the posters are blaming the defense were scored by the other teams' defenses or special teams directly, or were set up deep in our territory because of turnovers. No defense can survive 42 turnovers in a season. We won 10 games and turned it over 42 times. If anything, it is fair to say our defense was herculean with the hands they were dealt this year.

 

Here is the top ten teams by rank for turnover margin in 2010...

 

New England +28

Pittsburgh +17

Atlanta +14

Green Bay +10

Tampa Bay +9

KC Chiefs +9

NY Jets +9

Philly +9

Baltimore +7

St Louis +5

 

Eight of those 10 teams made the playoffs, and two of the top 4 are playing for a Lombardi in 2 weeks.

 

We were -3 even though we LED THE ENTIRE NFL in creating turnovers! That's our defense... better than every other team in the NFL in getting the ball back for our offense.... and we were -3.

 

Just ahead of us in turnover diffferential was Oakland at -2... they went 8-8.

 

Just behind us in the rankings at -4 were Washington, Tennessee, and Indianapolis.... two 6-10 teams and a 10-6 team like us.

 

Nobody's going to be able to convince me that our defense isn't playoff caliber, or that our offense doesn't shoulder most of the blame for the problems we had this year. It's as simple as an interception that falls right into your lap.

 

 

But we still need an impact linebacker in the worst way.

 

Yeah I realized that after thinking back to that game.

[Allstarjim]

Yeah because we won Super Bowl 42 with an all star cast of linebackers

 

We have way more pressing needs than linebacker.

 

We get the best crew of linebackers we've had in years and here people are actually bitching that we can cover running backs and tight ends.

 

I can't agree with this statement. We may not have had an allstar cast, but those guys were better than what we have now. It was Antonio Pierce, Kawika Mitchell, and Reggie Torbor... those were our starting linebackers in Super Bowl 42. And that group was better than what we have now... and the thing about it, is that Torbor was actually off the bench, replacing the injured Kiwanuka. I like Boley simply because he is good in pass coverage. But with Pierce, Mitchell, and Torbor, all three could rush the passer and stop the run much better than Goff and Bulluck, who was a great linebacker in his day, but is now past his prime.

 

We need 2 linebackers this offseason.

[Storm]

I can't agree with this statement. We may not have had an allstar cast, but those guys were better than what we have now. It was Antonio Pierce, Kawika Mitchell, and Reggie Torbor... those were our starting linebackers in Super Bowl 42. And that group was better than what we have now... and the thing about it, is that Torbor was actually off the bench, replacing the injured Kiwanuka. I like Boley simply because he is good in pass coverage. But with Pierce, Mitchell, and Torbor, all three could rush the passer and stop the run much better than Goff and Bulluck, who was a great linebacker in his day, but is now past his prime.

 

We need 2 linebackers this offseason.

 

I completely disagree. Antonio Pierce always sucked. Mitchell and Torbor were slightly above average. Goff is a better linebacker than Pierce. He might not have the team's ear and might not yet be the quarterback of the defense that Pierce was but he will get there.

[Nas]

I completely disagree. Antonio Pierce always sucked. Mitchell and Torbor were slightly above average. Goff is a better linebacker than Pierce. He might not have the team's ear and might not yet be the quarterback of the defense that Pierce was but he will get there.

 

Goff is better than Peirce's last year. During the SB run Peirce played well. I just want to see a Ray Lewis or a Brian Ulracher-like player on the Giants.

[Storm]

Goff is better than Peirce's last year. During the SB run Peirce played well. I just want to see a Ray Lewis or a Brian Ulracher-like player on the Giants.

 

I honestly don't think it will happen....

[Allstarjim]

I completely disagree. Antonio Pierce always sucked. Mitchell and Torbor were slightly above average. Goff is a better linebacker than Pierce. He might not have the team's ear and might not yet be the quarterback of the defense that Pierce was but he will get there.

 

 

Pierce's production was slightly better than Goff's this year. But one thing Pierce did have what slightly better mobility and played the run a little better than Goff. Plus he was a hell of a leader despite his shortcomings. I always thought we could've done a lot better than Pierce, and b/c of that, it is fair to say we can do a lot better than Goff. As far as Mitchell, during that SB run he was as integral a piece on that defense as anyone. Nobody on this LBer crew made an impact this year anywhere close to what Mitchell gave us. And Torbor was a backup that still compares favorably to what we had this year at SLB.

 

Goff is nowhere close to being the answer. I see no reason why we shouldn't want to upgrade that position. It would take our defense from good to great.