Loading ...With Chase Blackburn likely sidelined with a hamstring injury, the future is now for the New York Giants. The USA Today reports that Mark Herzlich is expected to start at middle linebacker for Big Blue on Sunday when they face off against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Head coach Tom Coughlin all but admitted last week that #58 is being groomed for the starting role; that he's the middle linebacker of the future. However, he also made sure to note that he's learning from one of the smartest guys on the field.
"I think Mark will be a good middle backer going forward because he’s learning from a good one," Coughlin said. Adding that Blackburn is "most difficult" to force out of the starting job. "His acumen is so sharp. He takes great pride in the communication part of it. Mark has learned a lot from Chase."
Granted, this is a little sooner than the Giants would have liked Herzlich to start, but injuries have a way of forcing things into motion. As they say in New York, "next man up!"
Herzlich will be filling a very important role for the Giants on Sunday, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. They may opt to have Michael Boley controlling the communications as opposed to Herzlich, who has played primarily on Special Teams this season.
So far this season, Herzlich has seven tackles with the majority of those coming on Special Teams.
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Well Dan, your guy is finally the man up. You HAVE to be pretty excited.
Me? Can’t say I’m not looking forward to what Herzlich brings, and I really hope he proves that he can, indeed, approach the athleticism he showed his sophomore year at BC and combine it with the knowledge he has gained since. IF he can do that then I think we have a potentially top NFL middle linebacker and without doubt a top SAM at the very least. I’ve loved his play on special teams, which is usually a decent indicator of who will make plays on defense if given the opportunity.
But we’d all better be prepared for the likelihood that Herzlich will need some adjustment time, will make some mistakes, will probably be slower now than he will be when he doesn’t have to think as much down the road, and is unlikely to make the world forget about Willis overnight. This is a young player who isn’t the coaches’ first choice to play the position right now and was being groomed but wasn’t quite there yet. We’d better be patient about this or the talk of “over-hyped” will echo throughout the entire fan base.
I’d love to see our linebacking group migrate toward Boley, Herzlich and Rivers as our base package, with Williams, Blackburn and Paysinger available as situational players and Kiwi playing primarily on the defensive front but shifting back on occasion when we are committed to shutting off the run game. The combination of Boley’s and Rivers’ sideline-to-sideline speed and ability to cover, with Herzlich’s hopefully quicker moves into the running gaps and quicker drops into the middle zone could make our front seven the devastating force it SHOULD be right now. I keep seeing some her insisting we need to draft “impact” linebackers. I happen to think we may well have them right now if used properly in the right combinations. We’ll see whether that’s true as this season progresses.
With the manner of defense we run it’s extremely difficult for defenders to make a lot of star plays. Our ‘bend over but don’t break’ style doesn’t foster those aggressive highlight hits. It’s quietly efficient, but lacks that wow-factor. Only the D-line has the opportunity to make that sort of impact … except for turnovers of course.
Well, here’s the deal for Sunday: the middle linebacker is an absolutely CRITICAL player out there. This kid Dwyer who is the main running back for the Steelers looks a bit like the kid from the Redskins who shredded us. He hits the line hard and keeps his feet moving, and he’s a load, and he seems to read his blocks better than our Mr. Bradshaw.
The Steelers run a ball control offense. I think they may have the biggest time-of-possession advantage in the NFL because Roethlisberger will take check-downs all day if that’s what you give him, AND they have found a good running game. That allows them to keep their defense fresh, and while this is not the great Steelers’ defenses of the past, they have some excellent players and if they only have to play 25 minutes per game they’re going to be effective in holding down the opposition’s points.
If you don’t stop the Steelers’ running game and force them into tough third down situations you are in for a major dogfight and you may well lose it. That makes our front seven, and especially our MIKE, absolutely critical this Sunday. Herzlich HAS to play well or I think we could easily be held to about 20-24 points because we will have to try scoring against a very well-rested defense. That will mean a very tight, down-to-the-wire game that could go either way.
Oh, and Perry, you’d better be planning on a good rotation of players for Sunday because if you don’t shut down the run you are going to have a stressed defense that will be very tired in the fourth quarter unless they have been getting relief throughout the game.
let’s hope our Jekyl & Hyde act brings a Mr Hyde performance this week