by Paul Seebald
This week we prepare for the Giants. Another game I think could go either way. On paper, the Giants have more talent, but in reality they seem to be pretty comparable.
Giants Run Offense. So far this season the Giants rushing attack has not impressed. Their starting center, David Baas, was hurt this week and may not play against us (I haven’t heard any updates on him yet). Apparently their starting LG Chris Snee was concussed, and also may not play. This bodes well for our run D, which has been inconsistent. They were very good against the Eagles early in the game, but struggled late after gaining a lead. Same thing happened against the Bengals.
Ahmad Bradshaw is doing well (4.0 YPC), but not great. Brandon Jacobs was injured against the Seahawks, but from the little I know of his injury, has a decent chance of playing against us. DJ Ware was his backup, and he performed very poorly, rushing 4 times for 3 yards and getting dropped for a safety.
In the end, I think the Bills interior matches up very well against the OL of the Giants, we should be able to contain the running game overall. They’ll probably break a big play or two against us anyway – who hasn’t? However, in my opinion, our poor YPC on defense (5.5, worst in the NFL), is more a reflection of our inconsistency and big plays – instead of consistently poor defense, like it was last year.
Giants Pass Offense. This is obviously where we will struggle again. I’ve been impressed with the play of Drayton Florence, but we could certainly use Terrence McGee out there. I think Florence would match up well with Hakeem Nicks, while McGee could cover Manningham or Cruz.
Eli Manning tends to target his top two receivers. Lately those receivers have been Nicks and Cruz, with Manningham taking a backseat to the slot receiver. Bradshaw is also a very good receiving back, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see several screen passes and dump off’s to Bradshaw. We have to be able to cover those similar to how we bottled up Jamaal Charles on his receptions.
Eli Manning is one of those guys where the numbers don’t tell the whole story. In general, it looks like he’s a fairly accurate guy, and he has the ability to throw nice passes. But he tends to act like Fitzpatrick – he’ll throw good passes for a stretch, or his receivers will make decent plays, but at some point he’ll start throwing some passes that make your head itch.
One name to remember is TE Jake Ballard. He and Travis Beckum have combined to replace Kevin Boss, and while Ballard isn’t fast or anything, he did have 3 receptions for 72 yards and a score against Seattle. We have to watch out for that TE, though our D did a good job against Celek.
Giants Run Defense. Buffalo may end up having an advantage in this area, especially if Justin Tuck doesn’t play. He’s an underrated run defender and the Giants REALLY missed him against Seattle.
Overall, the Giants are defending the run well, allowing 4.2 YPC. That’s generally around average (they’re 17th in the NFL). However, if you look at the numbers, you’ll see that they played very poorly on defense against Seattle, a team that has NOT ran the ball well at all this year.
Look at Marshawn Lynch’s yards per carry for each week this season: 2.5, 1.8, 3.8, 3.0, 8.2. Yes that last number, 8.2, was against the Giants. The Giants have been without Tuck three games this season – Weeks 1, 4, and 5. Week 1, they contained Tim Hightower pretty well, but in Week 4 Beanie Wells ran all over them (27 carries, 138 yards), and in Week 5, Lynch destroyed them with 98 yards on 12 carries.
We can’t make conclusions based off of 2 out of 3 games. But it appears the Giants may be susceptible to the run. When they played the Eagles, Lesean McCoy ran very well (24 carries for 128 yards). Their only other game was against the Rams, who ran very poorly, but were missing Steven Jackson – Cadillac Williams ran 13 times for 36 yards.
In general, it appears our run game should be able to do well, though I don’t believe we can lean on it nearly as much as we did against Philadelphia.
Giants Pass Defense. This is a very dangerous team with an excellent pass rush. Buffalo may be in big trouble with Hairston at LT, because the short passing game was not working nearly as much in the second half against the Eagles. The Giants may take that gameplan and make us try some deep passes, leaving us open to their pass rush.
Their defense has 18 sacks on the year, which is the most in the NFL. They’re led by Jason Pierre-Paul (7 sacks) and Osi Umenyiora (3.5). Pierre-Paul has made a big difference at RDE and has ravaged poor lineman in Washington, Seattle, and Philadelphia. The Eagles didn’t seem to test our tackles, and blitzed our interior a lot. Buffalo’s OL held up well against that blitz, but the Giants will be bringing a ton of edge pressure.
The Giants have decent LB’s, but their secondary is a bit questionable – not nearly as good (at least on paper) as Philadelphia’s. This is a good game to start going deep if the Giants creep up like Philly did in the 2nd half.
In general, the Giants are allowing 7.6 YPA, comparable to Philadelphia’s 7.8 YPA. However, the Giants have allowed only 5 TD passes, and managed to intercept 5 passes. Despite injuries to the secondary early in the season, they seem to have held up pretty well against the pass so far. That being said, they may still be vulnerable, as they haven’t faced terribly prolific passers.
It seems to me that if there’s a game to bring out the play-action pass, this would be it – though I say that every week now. I am still unsure why Gailey doesn’t use it more often.
Conclusion
This is a toss-up game. I have to go with Vegas and give a slight edge to the Giants at home. This is another week where we should use the run to set up the pass, but less predictability would be good. Our defense should get more stops than normal, but will still be vulnerable for a big play (Nicks, Manningham and Cruz are all capable).
I have a feeling our run defense will come out of this game looking a little better. I can see a pick or two from Manning, but another 300-yard passer.
I anticipate a tight game, but may be lower scoring than people expect. I wouldn’t be surprised to see both defenses step up this coming weekend.
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