It's not that the Giants' three-game losing streak has gone unnoticed. It's just that, with all the excitement over everything the Yankees have been up to, New York sports fans have had other things on their minds. Yes, they're aware, vaguely, that the Giants' defense hasn't been able to stop the Saints, Cardinals or Eagles the past three weeks. And they have seen a headline or two about Eli Manning suddenly looking much more mortal than his contract and his championship pedigree say he should. But the panic meter hasn't moved too much over all of this, because New York is still one of the few American towns in which football can take a backseat to baseball. And for the past few weeks, for very good reason, New York has been a baseball town.That all changes this weekend. The San Diego Chargers hit town -- another dynamic offense surely licking its chops over a chance to take its turn at the Giants' battered ego and secondary. If the Giants lose again, they're looking at a 5-4 record heading into their bye week, which would mean two solid weeks of tabloid and talk show debate on the issue of "What's Wrong With the Giants?"
Right now, there are a lot of answers to that question. Injuries have left the defense extremely vulnerable to attacks in the middle of the field. Brandon Jacobs hasn't looked like his old self and Ahmad Bradshaw's been playing through an ankle injury, so the running game hasn't been as reliable as they expected it to be. And Manning, who has his own foot injury, looks skittish in the pocket.
These are problems the team isn't denying. The Giants know things are going to stay difficult. The schedule they played during their 5-0 start included games against the Redskins, Chiefs, Buccaneers and Raiders, and they knew all along it wasn't going to be that easy all year. Looking beyond their Week 10 bye, they can see the Falcons, Broncos, Cowboys and Eagles waiting -- four more strong offensive teams in a row before they get a Monday night breather in Washington four days before Christmas. If the Giants are going to get this thing right, they're going to have to do it without the schedule's help.
"You've got to be a man about the good and the bad," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said earlier this week. "When things happen like this, you just have to learn from it somehow, some way, and eliminate it, and maybe the next locker room will be a cheerful one."
Coughlin has plenty of players who have won the Super Bowl. He knows the character of his team and is counting on that to be one of the things that pulls it through this stretch. But there are other, more concrete issues that the Giants must correct if they're going to return to their preseason role as one of the league's Super Bowl favorites.
Scouts who have seen the Giants the past three weeks point to two standout issues -- a shorthanded defense thanks to injuries and the surprisingly uneven play of Manning -- as the reason they're losing. We'll take them in that order.
Major injuries to Giants defensive players include defensive tackle Chris Canty, linebacker Michael Boley, cornerback Aaron Ross and safety Kenny Phillips. None of those guys has been playing, and their absence, the scouts say, shows up in opposing game plans that are taking advantage of opportunities in the middle of the field. Canty's absence leaves them weaker in the middle of the defensive line, Boley's in the middle of the linebacking corps and Phillips' in "center field," where a safety is needed as the last line of defense against a long pass play or a breakaway running back. Or even, in Sunday's shocking first-drive case of the Eagles' Leonard Weaver, a breakaway fullback.
"Obviously there was a breakdown up front, but you certainly never anticipate the ball going that length, because that's why you have three levels of defense," defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan said of Weaver's 41-yard touchdown run. "Totally shocking. It's not that the ball is never going to break the line of scrimmage, because guys are getting blocked and stuff, but you certainly never expect it to go the distance like that."
So changes are being made. Canty and Boley have been practicing this week, and both are expected to play Sunday. That'll help, but Phillips' injury is of the season-ending variety, so help is not on the way at safety. Coughlin announced that Aaron Rouse will start at safety this week in place of C.C. Brown, who clearly has not been up to the task of replacing Phillips. And there's a chance that a cornerback (Terrell Thomas, most likely) could get some time at the safety spot, though for strategic reasons Coughlin declined to address that possibility when asked about it.
As for Manning, this is one of those cases where nobody really knows how much the plantar fasciitis he's had for the past month is bugging him because Manning's the kind of guy who plays hurt. From the scouts' standpoint, the belief is that Manning is a different quarterback when an opposing defense moves a safety into the box. They say it's as if he forgets what he's supposed to be doing, gets jittery in the pocket and begins to force throws and make questionable decisions.This is confusing, because teams have been putting eight in the box against the Giants since the preseason, focusing on Jacobs and Bradshaw and daring Manning to beat them through the air, and earlier this year Manning and the passing game looked great. But as the scouts point out, that was against some pretty weak competition, and it's possible that the strong teams the Giants are playing now weren't scared off by the success Manning and his young receivers had against the dregs of the league in the first five games.
Coughlin said after Sunday's game that he thought Manning was having some mechanical problems, specifically pushing off that injured back foot, and apparently some work was done this week in practice to address that.
"Yeah, I think that was over the past three weeks that happened a few times with the foot," Manning said. "I don't remember it occurring last week. I was conscious of it to make sure I was pushing off. You stop using your legs, it affects your elbow, your arm gets tired or starts getting sore, so I have been better. My body feels better this week. I feel stronger and more confident in what I'm doing."
That's got to show up Sunday against the Chargers, or things are going to start getting ugly around the Giants pretty quickly. They have a couple of things working in their favor. San Diego is not a strong run defense, so they should be able to lean hard on Jacobs and Bradshaw and keep some of the pressure off of Manning. San Diego is also traveling across the country for the game, and the Chargers have a reputation as not being among the toughest of the NFL's teams. So it's possible that an angry bunch of Giants will rise up Sunday in the swamps of Jersey and take out their frustrations on another disappointing would-be contender and head into the bye at 6-3.
The Giants had better hope that's what happens. Because they don't have the Yankees to shield them anymore. If they lay an egg this week ... well, it's all anybody's going to be talking about.
