Loading ...The New York Giants walked into San Francisco feeling disrespected and underestimated and they made sure to remind the San Francisco 49ers, as well as the rest of the league for that matter, who the defending Super Bowl champions are and what they are capable of. Ahmad Bradshaw was phenomenal for a second straight game, and the Giants defense played their best game of the season as New York absolutely dominated San Francisco for a 26-3 win that puts them at 4-2 on the year and in sole possession of first place in the NFC East.
Key to Victory: Defensive focus, intensity, and consistency
What an outstanding, outstanding performance put together by this Giants defense across the board. The pass rush looked a lot more intense and a lot more determined than we've seen them through the first five games of the season and that was matched with a lot of strong individual play in the secondary. Most importantly against an offense like the one the 49ers run, the Giants did an excellent job tackling underneath and taking good angles to the football, limiting yards after the catch on those quick throws, screens, and plays out of the wildcat type formation.
GAME POSITIVES
- Nothing was more encouraging in this game than what we saw from the New York Giants pass rush. When the defensive linemen are getting after it, this team is extremely difficult to beat. Jason Pierre-Paul was all over the place, Mathias Kiwanuka and Osi Umenyiora flashed, and Alex Smith had less and less time to throw the football as the game went on – which is something we saw during the Giants late season and postseason run last year.
- The next thing to note was the play of the offensive line. Clearly this group came into the game excited about the Giants gameplan – which was to play smashmouth football and run the ball right at the San Francisco defense early and show them that they were ready for a physical football game as well as make them well aware of the fact that they were going to have to defend both the run and pass in this game. The offensive front wall protected Eli very well in this one, and as the game went on imposed their will on arguably the best defensive front seven in the game.
- Plus three in the turnover battle with no turnovers offensively. That's what great football teams do. With all the talent the Giants have, this is what is going to happen in games in which they don't shoot themselves in the foot. Even against teams like San Francisco, New York's ceiling is at the point where they can dominate top six and seven football teams in this league when they aren't costing themselves points and field positions with mistakes.
- Moving to the man who created two of those takeaways, last year – Antrel Rolle showed his unselfishness, playing out of position, at several positions for this Giants defense with injuries and inconsistency plaguing the defense. Covering the slot, dropping down and playing as a linebacker in the box, back at safety – you name it he was there. In this game, Antrel was locked in from the start, showing aggression, intensity, and rewarding himself with two interceptions in the second half that really swung the momentum in this game. Fun to watch him playing this level of football, he deserves time at the forefront with the way he's played through injury and sacrificed for this football team.
- Give it up for Prince Amukamara. After a lot of injury issues and growing pains, he's slowly starting to lock in here. He had an outstanding game against Philadelphia and he's playing very physical, excited football and seems a lot more comfortable and confident in himself as of late. Seeing a lot of growth with him the past few weeks.
- Toughness. The toughness of Hakeem Nicks to start. To go out there on a bad ankle, bad knee, maybe at 60-70%, still make some big catches, still give it his all in a big game for his team – don't think for one second that that didn't light a fire under this football team. And of course Ahmad Bradshaw, who ran with purpose as usual and bruised this 49ers front seven for over 100 yards – something you rarely, rarely see. Outstanding persistence from Bradshaw.
- A sign of a defense on the same page is the ability to take away an offense's biggest weapon. It takes communication, it takes discipline, attention to detail, and constant focus. The Giants shut down Vernon Davis on Sunday and it was something we talked about in the game preview as something they really needed to do to get the upper hand defensively in this game. Well they did it, and then some.
- Anybody out there still wondering if Victor Cruz is the real deal? Anyone? Good.
- David Wilson is electric. We talked about it when the Giants drafted him – he was going to bring a new element to this football team – the homerun threat out of the backfield. Well he's also bringing it on kick returns. And if the Giants become a top field position team thanks to the first round pick, with this offense, look out.
- Great performance from Linval Joseph on the defensive line. The Giants have been looking for someone to step up in their defensive front and he definitely did that in this game as the 49ers really had trouble keeping him from being disruptive against both the run and pass.
- Steve Weatherford has been a regular in this portion of the game review. Another very strong game punting the football and putting the Giants defense in good spots.
GAME NEGATIVES
- Trading touchdowns for field goals in the red zone. Would have been nice to see the Giants punch it in there off Antrel's interceptions.
PLAYER OF THE GAME - S Antrel Rolle
You saw it right from the start from Antrel when he absolutely hammered Kendall Hunter and sent him tumbling out of bounds after a big run – he was locked in and ready to be a beast in this football game. Rolle was active, he was focused, and he played angry – and it was a disaster for the 49ers offense. One of the best games we've seen #26 play since joining Big Blue.
Game Balls
DE Jason Pierre-Paul, RB Ahmad Bradshaw, CB Prince Amukamara, WR Victor Cruz
OVERALL PERFORMANCE GRADE
Even after their incredible postseason run last year, this might be the most complete game I've seen from the Giants in a very long time against an elite football team. They went out there and manhandled one of the best teams in football in their home stadium. There's no other way to put it, and really not much more to talk about. Impressive is an understatement.
Grade: A+
photo credit: Rajiv Patel (Rajiv's View) via photopin cc
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I still think the GB game was better overall. But this is one of our handful of best games over these SB runs. I think SF is a very good team and were no frauds but still a little overrated by some.
great article but you left out Dom Hixon, who had a terrific game. He made a couple of great catches setting up scores. Great body control when needed.
if and when Nicks gets healthy, with a run game and pass protection, how does anyone stop eli Manning throwing to Nicks, Cruz and Hixon, with a little Bennet on the side?
Hixon, what a rock. I can’t wait to see Nicks and Bennet back healthy.
Ralph Vacchiano ?@RVacchianoNYDN
Ooops. Troy Aikman on Fox in 2nd Q said one “thing I have not seen that they talked about is using Mathias Kiwanuka more as a D-lineman.” At that point, Kiwanuka had played 15 plays. Nine at DE. Six at DT. Zero at LB.
Does anyone know where I can get that Kiwi breakdown on his snaps for all the defensive players for the SF game?
I know the boxscores now have snap counts, though I don’t know if they feature the position.
I thought Ralphie was a fan of Giants 101. All he had to do was come here to see that we had talked about that quite a lot. Aikman wasn’t the only one.
This is a good review, as usual, but I’m going to use this post as a way of saying that even smart guys like Haz sometimes fall prey to not thinking everything through.
The entire “still bad in the Red Zone and we traded field goals for touchdowns on Sunday and can’t do that” is bunk.
The first trip to the end zone, when the game was very much in question, Eli made a beautiful throw to Cruz and the latter made a great catch of a bullet. Touchdown. And we scored two other times down there.
But most of our trips into the Red Zone were under circumstances where the only mistake you can make in a game that you are dominating is to turn the ball over in tight quarters and give up points that are heading you toward first a 2-score margin and then a 3-score margin EVEN if you settle for field goals. In those circumstances you play it safe and “settle” for 3-points at worst. You don’t call risky plays and don’t make risky throws. You just make sure you don’t give up those points that make the Niners’ coming back that much harder.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice to get 7 points instead of 3, but there are game situations where you will take 3 rather than take ANY real risk on getting 0. That’s pretty much the way the Giants played it on Sunday, and it was absolutely the correct approach.
Except for Coughlin’s weird clock management at the end of the first half, this team played as close to a perfect game as can be played against a good team. Those Red Zone situations were not failures at all. I acknowledge that Haz gave the team an A+, so he isn’t letting anything get in the way of that, but people on this site have mentioned the Red Zone stuff a number of times and that just isn’t correct.
this is usaually one of my pet peeves and reasons why I can never fully endorse Gilbride as OC
over his tenure, we have often been one of the worst teams in terms of converting TDs inside the 20, despite being one of the best teams at getting inside the 20. Maddening!
But I agree with FF.
After counter-punching for the first quarter, including shaking off two huge body blows on the two opening drives by SF, Eli and the offense went TD, FG, TD so that by the 10:00 mark of the 3d Q we were up 17-3. It was obvious by that point that only the Giants could beat the Giants in this game. And thus, the Giants took a pretty conservative, make no mistake approach from there on out. In fact, Eli almost made a killer mistake when he missed cruz and hit Rogers right in the gut at the 5. Had Rogers hung on, he might have taken it all the way back and turned a 20-3 game into 20-1- with the concomitant swing in momentum. After that near miss the 3 was just fine. In fact, each of the 3′s following the second TD made SF’s job incrementally harder. The first turned a 14 point game into a 17 point game — 3 scores. the next made it not only a three score game, but a 3 TD game. The final 3 made it a 3 score 2 2pt conversion game.
So while one would rather have had 7′s at each opportunity, the 3′s were the result of knowing the scoreboard and the tempo of the game and playing conservatively to the 3.
Where I disagree is I don’t equate trying to score a TD as being risky. I think we were trying to score TDs and just didn’t execute. We attempted 5 FGs and had 2 TDs, I don’t think that’s good. I thought be failing SF still wasn’t completely out of the game. Maybe 38-14 still is in my head but 23-3 when it should have been 31-3 or 27-3 didn’t feel 100%.
Also, this has been an ongoing problem. We are leading the NFL in percentage of drives scored but not points. I think this clearly shows our inefficiency in the redzone or inside the 30. We kicked a ton of FGs vs TB and Carolina. We had to settle for a FG when starting a drive at the 2 vs Dallas. And we had a key TO inside the 10 vs Philly. I would just like to see us improve in this area. For all the areas we have improved in this is an area that hasn’t really gotten any better from game 1.
Weird or bad clock management? That really could have hurt us. I’m glad he missed the kick. I hope it’s not a pattern, but clock management has been curious lately with him. He tends to call time out way too early.
Andy Reid panicking. Maybe I’m wrong on this but I thought the Eagles D was playing pretty well so far this season. If anyone is to blame for their 3-3 record one would think it starts and ends with Vick, who seemingly got very old over the offseason.
As for this weeks game, it seems that Griffin is a right handed version of Vick, albeit one that protects the ball better, still has all his athleticism, actually puts in work in film study, and doesn’t have genital herpes. From what we know anyway.
Vick was just never that good to begin with. People are letting that five-game sample at the end of 2010 cloud their judgment as to what kind of quarterback he really is (and that’s a bad one).
My post was in reply to your other post about Vick, by the way. I’m batting 1.000 today. Jesus.
You think Andy Reid panicked? I think Reid was forced to fire Castillo. Someone had to be the sacrificial lamb.
The Iggles are 31st in scoring in the NFL. Sound like the D is the problem?
Vick was just never that good to begin with. People are letting that five-game sample at the end of 2010 cloud their judgment as to what kind of quarterback he really is (and that’s a bad one).
Sorry. Meant to reply to Nosh there.
Marty B Watch:
20 receptions through six games.
Currently on pace to finish the year with 53 catches.
This one’s going down to the wire, kids.
Although I think that knee needs a rest. Give the kid a week off.
Great stuff.
Expanding a bit on Linval Joseph I think that there is an unintended benefit for Joseph having to be the interior line leader in Canty’s absence. He has had to step up and be the anchor of the interior line. This will only serve to enhance the effect of a healthy Canty returning to the middle. Bodes well for the stretch run.
Prince is developing into the player that everyone thought he would be when he was drafted. The key is that he has been able to get some consistent game action. As I’ve been saying over and over, health is the key for him. There is no questioning the ability, that’s not an issue.
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