|
|
|
E-GIANTS THE DAY AFTER SEATTLE By DAVE KLEIN ELI AND FRIENDS PLAYED NEAR PERFECTLY; PLAXICO JUSTIFIES HIS NO-SHOW ACTIONS It took a while -- by head coach Tom Coughlin's reckoning, about six questions -- but he finally felt he had to mention something during his Monday press conference. "I don't know what you guys are doing and where you are going," he said. "This issue [the Plaxico Burress situation], well, so far there have been five or six questions and they have all been on this. Not one question about yesterday's game. This is an issue we have talked about for two weeks, or [rather] that we haven't talked about for two weeks. He is back. He was told to be back this morning, that he would report for work today. He did. He exercised with his teammates and he ran and he did the things he was supposed to do." Coughlin was right. In fact, he is becoming "more right" weekly, as the Giants' winning streak continues and as he continues to place emphasis where it should be placed. The Giants played a damned near perfect game Sunday in their 44-6 shredding of the Seattle Seahawks, a game in which the running and the passing and the defense was virtually flawless. Many of the players were talking about the performance submitted by Eli Manning, who had a "Phil Simms" type game by completing 19 of 25 passes for 267 yards, two touchdowns and nary an interception. For the day, his so-called "QB rating" was an astronomical 136.6. "He had a very, very good game, yes," said Coughlin. "He played very well. He really did an outstanding job with his ability to audibilize and get to us with alerts into the right place and to get away from things, plays, whether they were run or pass plays, that had less chance for success based on what the defense was doing. He did an excellent job of that. He was accurate. There were probably just a few throws he would have liked to have back but he played very well. He was confident. He was poised. He was under control. He was utilizing the full offense to get us out of bad situations and, well, his management of the game was very, very good." From Tom Coughlin, this approximates nomination for the Hall of Fame. Bur Eli was that good, and perhaps Coughlin's observation after the game on Sunday is a better indicator of where this is all going. "Eli," he said, "gets a little better with each game he plays." And where that can lead could be dazzling. There are any number of facts that can be thrown into the hopper here, and after that kind of game there always are. But some are more impressive than others. For instance, the victory was the Giants' eighth straight dating back to the four-game playoff run last season; the victory was their third at home, and all last season they won only three at home; they needed to try only eight third-down conversions (and made three) while Seattle was one for 11. They gained 523 total net yards of offense, the most since Jan. 6, 2002, when they had 524 against Green Bay in the final game of the 2001 season (it had been put back a week, you'll remember, because of 9/11). They had 27 first downs, averaged 7.1 yards per offensive play; controlled possession for 36:28; limited the Seahawks to 187 total net yards and just 74 yards rushing. Doing it without Plaxico (more on him soon), they gained 269 passing yards. Eli threw two touchdown passes to first-timers (Domenik Hixon and Sinorice Moss), and David Carr even got into the act with a five-yard scoring strike to Moss, who caught the first two touchdown passes of his career. Hixon, filling in for Plaxico, had four catches for 102 yards and a touchdown in the first half, and after he left with a concussion (he appears to be fine, by the way) Moss came in for him and caught four for 45 yards and his pair of touchdowns). So in effect, the Giants went down to the third string split end and netted eight catches for 147 yards and three touchdowns. Brandon Jacobs had 136 yards in 15 carries, or 9.1 per carry. He came within 12 yards of equaling the Seattle rushing total. The offensive line played a near-flawless game, and the defense was snarling and stifling all day. The big question is how the Giants will do when they play strong teams. After all, beating Washington in the opener is about as good as it gets so far. St. Louis, Cincinnati and Seattle were hardly competitive. But on the other hand, will the Giants continue to roll along making all their opponents look like junior college squads? That's not likely, but it is possible, and if they swamp Cleveland next Monday night and return home to beat San Francisco, they'll go to Pittsburgh with a sparkling 6-0 record. Right, that will be tougher, as will Dallas (here), Philadelphia (there), Baltimore (here), Arizona (there) and Washington (there) after that. Focus on those five games, start playing them with a 6-0 record. What's the worst that could happen? After 11 games they'll be 9-2, 8-3? Uh-huh. Okay, now for Plaxico. He deigned to participate in a telephone conference call Monday afternoon and he was just terrific. --- On his suspension: "My emotions were that they suspended me and that was the decision they chose and I took it as that. I didn't lose any sleep over it. It gave me some rest and I was able to get away for a little while and chill out and relax." --- On why he was suspended in the first place: "I ran into some family issues as far as taking my son to school and things like that. It was not like I purposely missed out or that was my intention. If just seemed to happen that way and I don't feel any reason to explain to them [the Giants] what happened or why I missed because I don't feel it is really anybody's business. I told them if I had a decision to make as far as my family and my son and things like that I wouldn't change anything about it and I would still make the same decision to do that. Maybe I would have put a phone call in, but that probably would have been the only thing." --- On whether taking his son to school was a family emergency: "Yes, it was. I felt it was and the situation that I had to deal with that morning as far as my son ... I made the right decision and I don't have any regrets about the decision I made. If I had to make that decision again I would do the same." --- On whether he is concerned that his actions are not those of a team leader and that he might be setting the wrong example: "I am really not concerned about being a team leader and I am really not concerned about the way my teammates look at me as far as me making decisions based on my family." There was a lot more, but typing is such a nuisance. Maybe I'll just not show up today. Maybe I'll call in, maybe not. Check
out Dave's website at E-GIANTS
where you can subscribe to his newsletters which
run much more frequently than what is available here. NEW - Send a request to davesklein@aol.com for a free week's worth of news!
| ||||||||
|
Stop
in and visit "Mike's
Keys to the Internet" |
| |