Giants Super Bowl Victory Should Create Hope For Bengals Fans

create hope for the bengals?

It took a Miles Austin-Tony Romo screw up just to make the playoffs. They played Green Bay when their offensive coordinator son passed,which caused a distraction. They were fortunate to get 2 muffed punts against SF. Then Welker drops a catch that he

The Giants always seem to play their best ball down the stretch. They peak at the right time. Furthermore, it always seems they rise up in the biggest games. To me, that speaks volumes about the mental toughness of the coaching staff, and the top-down effect it has on the players.

Marvin is a very good coach in many respects, but this is one attribute that he sorely lacks.

Coughlin probably wouldn’t have put up with the nonsense of Mike Brown drafting/bringing in problem players. That’s one of the many reasons he wouldn’t have lasted here beyond a couple of years. Lewis was able to succeed quickly because he can relate to the players; Coughlin always struggled with this and he would have been a disaster here. It wouldn’t have been his fault, but Marv was the better fit at the time.

Its just always intresting to bring up the fact that they were the 2 finalist for the Bengals job long ago. Its only worth noting because Coughlin has won 2 Super Bowls since. I love what Lewis has done and hopefully he can get one.

But another criticism I have of him is, the game moves too fast for him. Meaning, he doesn’t have the time to process and make good sound snap judgements on the fly. That’s why he stinks at challenges and time outs. And I also firmly believe that is part of the reason he plays so conservative. Would he ever make the call to let the Giants score with 57 seconds left? Never in a million years. Because he can’t process the ramifications like Belichick does.

But I’m sure he’d say “I made the best decision I could with the information available” and “the fans don’t really understand the game of football”.

However, I would NOT necessarily look at the Giants entire team as a “blueprint” and try to emulate it. The Giants have two of the most important elements that make a football team very tough to beat in a do-or die match-up (i.e. the playoff format) – an elite QB and a dominating D-line. These are the only elements that are worth emulating from the Giants. But I think it’s wrong to say, “Well, the Giants really don’t have an elite offensive line (or Mike LB, or secondary, etc), and they just won the SB, so hey, we don’t need to improve those areas, because, the Giants just showed us that a team can win a SB without great personnel at those positions.” This is not sound logic. If a team has a glaring weakness (like the Bengals at OG), it is unwise to not try to address that weakness as best as possible, based on the fact that the SB may have the exact team weakness. The article seems to imply that the Giants just proved that a team does not need a solid o-line to win a SB. The Giants no more proved this than Trent Dilfer proved you don’t need a better-than-good quarterback to win a SB. These are the exceptions that tend to prove the rule.

The NFL playoffs are all about match-ups. The Giants matched up well against all the teams they faced in the playoffs. However, had the Giants faced the Saints in the playoffs, we’d likely be singing a different tune. The Saints annihilated the Giants in Week 13, and beat them by 25 points. The much-revered Giants defensive-line had ZERO (0) sacks of Drew Brees in that game. Nicks, Evans, and Bushrod swallowed Tuck, Osi, JPP, Canty, Linval Jospeh, and the rest of the Giants defenders in that game (which, again, was only played two months ago!). Also, you speak of Nicks and Evans as not being able to Justin Smith’s loos and stunts, but the fact remains that if it were not for the Saints four turnovers, the Saints would have won that game, and they would have faced the Giants at home in the Superdome (where they, again, destroyed them by 25 points a month before and had allowed ZERO sacks to that vaunted Giants d-line) the next week. Moreover, I wouldn’t quite characterize Nicks and Evans’ as not being able to “handle Justin Smith’s loops and stunts”. Smith had three tackles and one sack (and other pressures and knock downs), but the Saints offense still put up 32 points, ON THE ROAD, against that defense, and had it not been for the 4 Saint’s turnovers (which were NOT due to lack of Guard play), the Saints likely win that game, and then face the Giants the next week in the NFC Championship game. In looking at Brees’ INTs that game, he was not necessarily under pressure when he made those throws (especially the Goldson INT, where Brees had an eternity to throw on that play and just made a poor throw). On the TD tosses to Graham and Colston, Nicks handles Justin Smith just fine.

The Giants-Saints film from Week 13 shows how dominant the Saints oline (and Nicks) was against the current SB Campions. It is the Saints that offer the blueprint on how to beat the current SB Champion Giants – i.e. the Saints o-line utterly dominated the Giants’ dfensive line in that game – zero sacks! Moreover, I recall from this past SB, that a 35-year old perennial pro bowl OG – Brain Waters – was continuously shutting down the Giants’ most feared pass rusher , JPP. JPP was a total non-factor in the SuperBowl on Sunday, in large part due to a top-notch OG. Also, with regard to Grubbs, if we are simply going to look at one game that Grubbs struggled in against the Patriots (you mentioned this past AFC Championship game), let’s go back at look at the 2009 Wildcard playoff game played in NE, in which Baltimore played against a much better Patriots defense, in general, and defensive line, in particular. The Ravens won that game handily, in large part to Ray Rice’s 80-yard TD run on the first offensive snap of the game. Ben Grubbs made that play possible. He sealed the 5-technique d-end (i.e. the 3-4 DE), and easily got the the second level of the defense where he completely took Pro Bowl LB Jerod Meyo out of the play with a terrific block, thus springing Rice for his 80 yard run. Watch tape of that game to see how Grubbs played rather well against a much better defense (or simply You Tube a replay of the Rice 80-yard run and focus on LG Ben Grubbs).

The bottom line is that although the NFL is a copy-cat league, attempting to follow suit can have its shortcomings. I agree with the title of this article, which essentially says that that the Bengals should be inspired by the fact that the Giants (i.e. a team with some very obvious flaws) can win a SB. However, it is wrong to simply look at the Giants flaws (i.e. no real strong o-linemen wit hthe exception of Snee), and surmise that the Bengals really don’t have to go after a dominating OG because the Giants don’t have them on their team. The Giants do NOT have to face Haloti Ngata 2x per season (or Phil Taylor. or the Steelers defensive front 7). While the Giants do face Pro Bowl DT Jay Ratliff of the Cowboys 2x a year, they also face the Eagles who have a horrendous d-line, and the the Redskins, whose strength of the d-line is the edge (with Orakpo and Kerrigan), and not the interior part of the d-line. Therefore, if Nicks and Grubbs are available, attempting to sign them would be wise (again, look at what they did against the very same Giants d-line and team). The defending SB Champion’s weaknesses should not be used as a reason to avoid at least trying to improve obvious areas of weakness on a team. In fact, the Giants’ Front Office would probably be the first to admit that their team needs improvement in certain key areas if they aspire to have a realistic chance to repeat.

Again, it is equally important to realize that the NFL playoff format really boils down to how teams match-up against one another in a one game, do-or die scenario. Week 13 showed that the current SB champions matched-up rather poorly against the Saints, and if this matchup would have occurred again in the playoffs, teams would be wanting to emulate the Saints formula of having a dominant O-line (with two dominanting guards). The tape of this year’s Giants-Saints game reveals how truly dominant Nicks and Evans are.