Reviewing
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- August
- 31
Caught last night’s game on TV because of various, already—documented financial constraints at the newspaper. I did come away with some impressions, however.
I have no doubt that, if Wade Phillips cooperates next week, the Giants will start the season 1—0 soley because Eli Manning and his starting bad will dominate the Dallas defense as they did the Patriots’.
Oh, wait. You don’t think Phillips will start his backups? Well then, forget about it.
Change that to the Giants having a decent chance to beat the Cowboys. Manning looked great (again, against the backups). And he did look good against the Jets starters last week. So there’s hope. Plenty of it.
Just pray Manning doesn’t go down injured. Jared Lorenzen did not look great, and it wasn’t just because of the seven sacks the Patriots laid on him. Even when he had time to throw, his passes didn’t have any authority behind them. The 10—for—16 completion rate was surprising, but keep in mind most of those were dumpoffs. And he did fumble. If Tom Coughlin had any thoughts of going with two quarterbacks because of roster numbers, he should think again. I’m not sure Lorenzen is quite there yet to handle the offense long—term if Manning goes down.
That leaves us with a discussion about Anthony Wright and Tim Hasselbeck for the third spot. I give them a push for last night. Both did some good things. Both got the offense moving a bit in limited opportunities.
And both scored points, Hasselbeck producing a field goal and Wright engineering a touchdown drive.
Ryan Grant looked good on special teams and could find a way onto the final roster. Guy Whimper had a horrendous night, save for a good block on Brandon Jacobs’ touchdown run, and then sprained an ankle. But he makes the team, anyway, just because there is no one else to back up at tackle. You don’t really want to see Todd Londot there, right?
Also looks like first—rounder Aaron Ross has a lot to learn about defending passes near the goal line. But he’ll get the hang of it. He’d better. He may be starting by midseason.
Both kickers did okay, but I’ll give Josh Huston the edge now because he puts his kickoffs into the end zone.
More to come.
Ciao for now.
This entry was posted
on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 1:23 pm by Ernie Palladino.
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Ernie Palladino
Ernie, I raised this possibility over on my site briefly, but what would you think of the Giants pursuing Chris Simms as a backup if the Bucs are silly enough to let him go?
Ed:
I’d hate to see that. First, I don’t think Simms isn’t very good at all. Just an opinion. And bringing him here, where he can sit in his father’s shadow, as a backup. That’s like setting the kid up for instant failure. Potential mental trainwreck as he waits his turn behind Manning, who is never leaving. Probably better to keep trying to develop Lorenzen, who in fact did have a strong camp until he got his bell rung.