After the Jacobs fumble that put the Eagles up 14-0, I was reminded of Ryan Parker's song about last year's Christmas gift. "They bumbled and fumbled the playoffs away, Now they get to sit home and watch Philly go play." I have to hand it to the offense, though: They didn't make it look pretty, but they did their job. They put 38 points up on the board. When an NFL team puts 38 points on the board, it's not the offense's fault if they lose. The defense was a joke tonight, they let the Eagles offense do whatever it wanted all night, gave up touchdown after touchdown, gave up a 60-yard TD fifteen seconds after the offense had stormed back and retaken the lead, on a plat that just made the defensive secondary look like ineffectual fools.
This offseason, the Giants have some serious deficiencies to address. First, they need better players int he defensive secondary. The D-line has good players, and the linebackers are a pretty solid group, but they can't make up for the awful play of the DBs. Second, somebody has to teach the receivers other than Steve Smith how to catch the ball. Third, someone needs to teach Mario Manningham how to get his feet inbounds. If only there were someone on the Giants coaching staff who believes in football fundamentals and has a history as a wide receivers coach...
Fourth, do changes need to be made to the coaching staff? I'd say at a minimum a new special teams coach wouldn't be a bad idea, kick coverage this year has been awful. After that...
Should offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride be replaced? He's often a favorite scapegoat when the Giants underperform on offense, indeed at times his playcalling is awful, and the Giants doo seem to settle for field goal attempts far too often. On the other hand, the Giants did score 38 points tonight, and in their previous five losses they scored 27 against New Orleans, 17 against Arizona, 17 against Philadelphia, 20 against San Diego, and 6 against Denver. Other than the Denver game, the offense has been at least okay. So I end up leaning towards leaving things as they are right now. With a solid defense, this offense can win a lot of games.
Should defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan be replaced? I have to say I don't know. On the one hand, it's only his first year, he may improve with more time in the job, and the defense has been decimated by injuries, not exactly giving him the optimum chance for success. OTOH, injuries happen, you have to deal with them, and while certainly the pass rush has been hampered by the fact the opposing QBs have approximately twelve open receivers on every play, he's gotten remarkably little pressure from a D-line group that includes Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora, Mathias Kiwanuka, and Fred Robbins. And 2007 was Steve Spagnuolo's first year as coordinator, he certainly didn't need a year or two to get the hang of the job.
Amazingly, even after all of this, it's not out of the question that the Giants still might make the playoffs. They play very weak teams the next two weeks, and Minnesota in Week 17 will probably already be locked into the number 2 seed in the playoffs and may be resting their starters, making that game less competitive. Heck, they could still win the division: Dallas will probably lose at New Orleans next week, if Philly loses one of their next two to San Francisco or Denver, then Dallas beats Philly in week 17, we're back to the three-way tie, though the Giants don't hold the division record tiebreaker over Philly anymore, now it would come down to record against common opponents. At the least they're in the running for a wild card. But they're not going anywhere with this defense.
