Giant Boreee
December 4th, 2012
By J.D. Cook
The Giants vs Redskins games have been hit or miss affairs for years. They are not as polarizing an opponent as the Dallas Cowboys or Philadelphia Eagles. Maybe this is 
because they do not usually get the ‘hype’ of those two or maybe it’s because they haven’t been very good in a long time. Traditionally the Redskins beat the Giants late in the season in the Eli Manning era of the New York Giants. What makes the games even duller is that the first game of the season is almost always in the day time and the second is usually a night game with little riding on it so it’s a football scenario I’ve seen repeatedly. This game was certainly meaningful but not as much as ESPN made it sound. Maybe the N.F.L. schedule needs some variety added to it? Finally the nature of this game was just downright boring!
The Redskins dominated the game with runs that never seemed to be stopped. Yet they didn’t run away with the game. They just sort of ran out of steam before they could score. The Giants defense played ok but they had no big plays to speak of in the game. They didn’t get to Robert Griffith III and they didn’t stop much in the backfield. As a Giants fan this game just gave me nothing to get excited about. There were no big hits, big stops or big plays to speak of.
On offense it was almost exactly the same. The Giants kicked three scoring field goals and had one Michael Bennett touchdown. Besides those the Giants looked nonexistent on offense. In the second half when they should have buckled down and played tough there were runs for few yards and errant passes. Then if the team did get in a rhythm it was broken by penalties. The common Giants fan just had nothing to stand up and cheer for. The Redskins ran the same plays on offense and the Giants defense could not stop them.
The Redskins looked good in this game but I was annoyed with how much the N.F.L. seemed to build up Robert Griffith III before and during this game. Alfred Morris really dominated this game but every year the N.F.L. picks a new quarterback to dub its golden child so no one even talked about him. I’m just sick of the football media’s focus on people who sell. Shouldn’t they be an unbiased organization dedicated to proliferating all elements of the sport? Not just the players who are exciting?
I was bored to tears by the time the Giants final possession effectively ended with a penalty that put them in 3rd and 20 and instead of tossing a bomb Eli dumped it off to Bradshaw to try and get the ball back. The Redskins then replied by running the ball down the Giants throats as they had done the entire game. The Giants were physically outplayed and out finessed in this game. They play the Saints next week. A team that has dominated them in the Brees era; they could very easily go into a late slide and find themselves out of the playoff picture come January despite having a team that should be winning a second super bowl.
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The Giants Blog is published every Monday during the NFL season while the New York Giants remain viable contenders (which in 2011 was right to the end and their Super Bowl championship). On the weeks when the Giants have a Monday night game, the blog will be published on Wednesday. The blogs are thoughtful (albeit heavily biased) analysis of the Giants’ performance from our editor-in-chief and Giant fanatic J.D. Cook.
