New York Giants: Week Four Takeaways and Reactions

The New York Giants sit at 0-4 after blowing a fourth quarter lead in Tampa Bay. Here are some initial takeaways.

As the great Bill Parcells once said “You are what your record says you are”, and the New York Giants record says that they are 0-4. For the second straight week the G-Men lost on a game winning field goal. This week it wasn’t a 61 yarder that sent the Giants home wondering how the game got away from them. The field goal did however come off the leg of Nick Folk who missed two field goals and an extra point earlier in the game.

We are four weeks into the season and the Giants have yet to score in the first quarter. Scoring period is a problem for Big Blue, but it is even harder for the Giants to score in the first 15 minutes.

So what can we takeaway from this game?

• Well for starters Eli Manning has some wheels. Eli managed to escape he ensuing sack for a 14 yard touchdown run up the right side to bring the Giants within three in the second quarter.
• On a more serious note, our defense is not nearly as good as we thought it was. The giveaway in this game was when OJ Howard broke free with no one remotely near him for a 58 yard touchdown. No one should ever have nearly as much clearance as the Bucs tight end had on that play. He broke free through the middle and then up the right side with no Giants defender knowing where he was.
• Wayne Gallman jr. can be a dependable starting running back. The rookie out of Clemson made his debut while celebrating his 23rd birthday. In his first rush as a Giant he broke free for a 10 yard rush and a first down. On the same drive he managed to catch a four yard pass from Eli for a Giants touchdown giving them their first lead of the day at 17-16.
• The offensive line. The Giants O-Line actually played probably their best game of the season this afternoon. Manning was not sacked once and Ereck Flowers showed some significant improvement.

If the Giants do not learn from any of their losses we are just going to see more and more poor football from the team that was supposed to contend for the NFC East. This loss unlike the other three can not be blamed on one player or one play in the game.

Next: Odell is not going anywhere

As much as we would like to blame it on Aldrick Rosas for missing a 43 yard field goal, or Brad Wing for kicking a 15 yard punt leading to a Bucs touchdown, we simply cannot. You win as a team and you lose as a team, and this week that could not be any more true because the reality is, Nick Folk should not have missed two field goals and an extra point so we never should have been that close to begin with.

The only thing we can do at this point is look on to next week like we have been the entire season. In week five the G-Men will take on the 0-4 Chargers at home, in a battle of winless teams. If the Giants can’t manage to win that game it will be time to start thinking about tanking.