Impaired Giants can’t play respect card anymore

By Connor Byrne  |   Thursday, August 28, 2008  |  Comments( 6 )

New York Giants
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The New York Giants spent a good portion of the offseason reminding everyone that they won the Super Bowl in February. When you consider the lack of attention the Giants received after shocking the 18-0 New England Patriots to close the 2007-08 NFL season, rightly so.

But the Giants can't play the Rodney Dangerfield card anymore; instead, they're deservedly back to being upstarts in a dog-eat-dog, parity-driven league.

The season-ending knee injury star defensive end Osi Umenyiora's suffered last weekend and the June retirement of fellow pass-rusher extraordinaire Michael Strahan have put Big Blue in a difficult position. The front office, presided over by general manager Jerry Reese, knows the team has been weakened substantially; otherwise the franchise never would've tried to lure Strahan out of his post-football career. However, rather than flip-flop like Brett Favre, Strahan -- whom the Giants attempted to persuade back earlier this week -- elected to keep living the good life as a European vacationer and soon-to-be Fox studio analyst.

Sans Umenyiora and Strahan -- who combined for 22 sacks last year, including a team-best 13 from the former -- the Giants' pass rush will depend on the highly talented Justin Tuck (10 sacks in 2007) and end-turned-linebacker-turned-end Mathias Kiwanuka, who has 8.5 quarterback takedowns in two pro campaigns. Even if Tuck continues standing out as a QB tormentor and Kiwanuka transitions smoothly to end, where he dominated on the previous level at Boston College and has played occasionally in the pros, New York's defense is still much worse off than it was last year. Keep in mind that the team also lost role-playing linebacker Kawika Mitchell to Buffalo during free agency and standout safety Gibril Wilson, a now-Oakland Raider whom the Giants will try to replace with first-round rookie Kenny Phillips.

With an enfeebled defense, the onus this year will be on an Eli Manning-controlled offense to pick up the slack and help the Giants respectably defend their championship. The question is: Can Manning & Co. do it?

Despite playing in a pressure-packed fishbowl throughout his four-year career, Manning has mostly been a competent pro passer; the problem, though, is whether he's a true franchise quarterback like his brother Peyton. His career efficiency rating of 73.4 means the jury is still out; of course, the trade to New Orleans of tight end Jeremy Shockey -- who, despite a rocky relationship with Manning, is a game-changer who can catch and block -- takes away a major weapon, which means second-year man Kevin Boss will have to aid an elite, Plaxico Burress-led receiving corps and serve as a capable target for for the signal-caller. What will also help the Giants' offense is a steady line and three-pronged ground attack consisting of the bruising Brandon Jacobs, speedster Ahmad Bradshaw and Derrick Ward.

Even if most of the team is clicking, the Giants play in the league's toughest division -- the NFC East -- and will have to face loaded Dallas, previously playoff-bound Washington and formidable Philadelphia a combined six times. As followers of the division know, its games are often all-out battles that go down to the wire. Luckily for Big Blue, its out-of-division slate (aside from contests against Seattle, Cleveland and Minnesota) doesn't appear all that daunting. (Then again, preseason appearances can be deceiving; just ask last year's Giants, who many believed were a mediocre-at-best bunch.)

The Giants, undoubtedly a worse-looking squad than they were when they orchestrated random acts of down-the-stretch magic last winter, could be the third team this decade to miss the playoffs the season after a Super Bowl victory.

Although the roster surely thinks it can once again thrive off such disrespect, the fact is that the G-men -- after enduring such key losses -- don't seemingly deserve a ton of regard right now.

When the Giants open the season Sept. 4 against the rival Redskins, the football-viewing world will begin to find out whether that's true.



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