SuperFan: Giants vs. Saints (10/20/09)

A Long Ride Down from Cloud Nine

By Superfan

Well, that certainly didn’t turn out as planned. I sat on my couch after the game ended, staring lifelessly at the TV. The loss stung. A lot. I’m sure all Giants’ fans out there are still in pain. And that’s okay. It’s supposed to hurt, so let it hurt. Don’t forget how much this loss stings, fans. I’m sure the players and coaches won’t forget, and they’ll use this as fuel as they bounce back, which they will. Over the last few seasons, this Giants’ franchise has epitomized depth, resilience, and professionalism. The players and coaches will watch the film from this one quite a bit, and adjustments will be made. There’s too much talent and knowledge with both the players and coaches to let this go unfixed. Which makes me feel very bad for Arizona – I know I wouldn’t want to face this Giants’ team after the beating they just took.

While the outcome of the game wasn’t entirely decided by it, there’s no denying the fact that the officiating was a little more than “suspect.” How about the phantom holding call on Brandon Jacob’s touchdown reception? Are you kidding me? The team getting some letter from the league this week apologizing for the terrible call doesn’t make it okay (probably my number 2 pet peeve in all of football, right after the TD/extra point-commercial break-kickoff-commercial break deal). THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO HOLD, ED HOCHULI. Stuff like that can’t just be allowed to happen. Other bad calls I noticed and jotted down during the game: horse-collar penalty called against us at the end of the 1st quarter, when he clearly grabbed his shoulder; pass interference penalty in the 2nd quarter on third down (which eventually led to a Saints TD), where you can see the receiver tripped over his own feet. The list goes on and on, but really, what’s the point?

Despite the bad officiating, the refs aren’t to blame for this loss. Bottom line, you have to call Sunday’s result what it was – a good ol’ fashion a**-whooping. It happens. When you play a top-notch team like the Saints, in New Orleans, off their bye week, and don’t bring your A-game, you’re going to get beaten. Badly. And that’s exactly what happened. Our defense only hit Brees I think three times. THREE! How can you expect to stop a passer with his talent if you don’t get pressure on him? When a team can throw at will, their rushing game will naturally do well. The defense is forced to spread out and play the pass, creating huge holes up front for the running back to find. After the hole we put ourselves in early, we didn’t really stand a chance. Yet, our offense kept us in it heading into the half, before that whole end-of-the-half disaster happened.
As much as I hate to say it, I think the injuries on the defense are finally starting to catch up to us. Hopefully we’ll hear something soon regarding the status of Ross, Canty, and Boley, but don’t expect any of them to play against Arizona. On the note of injuries, I haven’t been able to find anything out about Kareem McKenzie. That’d be a big loss for our O-line.

If you want to look at the silver lining – at least it wasn’t like last season, where our potential undefeated season ended in a blow-out to the hapless Browns on Monday Night Football. Also, to make the pain a little less harsh, the Eagles lost to the Raiders! THE RAIDERS!!! Yes, the same team we beat so badly last week that Antonio Pierce could only describe it as being “like a scrimmage.” Despite being in the biggest game of the week, we weren’t the ugliest loss! That’s a tie between a miserable Titans team who got beyond spanked by the Pats, and a miserably shocking and disheartening loss for our ARCH-NEMESIS. Oh, that’s just fantastic.
Here’s the other thing – aside from giving the Saints the edge in a potential home-field-advantage-throughout-the-playoffs tiebreaker (seems like the newest trend in the playoffs in recent years is to be the road team, anyway), not much has changed. So, we’re not one of the first few teams listed in a reference to “the NFL elite” by “experts” and “analysts” this week. So, we drop a couple places in this week’s power rankings. SO, WHAT??? We’re 5-1, 2-0 in the division, AND STILL HAVE TEN GAMES LEFT IN THE SEASON!!!!! Believe me, this isn’t as big a deal as everyone’s making it out to be. We’re just upset because we had high expectations for last Sunday’s outcome, and things turned out differently than we’d hoped. But it’s not like this was a playoff game. And if you honestly think that any of the remaining undefeated teams in the league actually have a legitimate shot to stay unbeaten for the rest of the season, well, you should probably go work for ESPN. They love irrationally “bold predictions.”
(I can see it now; Chris Berman: “Welcome to Sunday NFL Countdown’s ‘Bold Predictions,’ sponsored by Coors Light. And now, here’s Ron Jaworski.” Ron: “Thanks, Chris. Football fans, let me explain why there’s no question in my mind that Brett Favre will not only lead the Vikings to the Super Bowl, but will also fix the economic crisis and lead us to victory in the battle for Middle Earth.”)

Now, for the single positive we can take away from the Giants’ performance against the Saints. Special teams! (Nothing against special teams, but you know it’s a really ugly loss if all you have to talk about is “that third phase.”) Dominik Hixon, way to have a day! He sure had a lot of opportunities to return kickoffs last Sunday, and he made the most of them. Seven kick returns (wow, I can’t get over how many that is) for 230 yards and two punt returns for 51 yards. We won’t be down like that every week, so if Hixon keeps returning kicks to set Eli and the offense up with great field position drive after drive, it’d be HUGE. It’s no secret what a big difference it is to start each drive from your 30 or 40 instead of back at the 20. Really opens up your play-calling options.

Now, on to my viewing of the game itself. Ryan the roommie was out camping, so it was my buddy JJ, my other roommate Paxton, and myself watching the game at my place. I can safely say that Ryan made the right choice spending the week out in the woods – he’s a huge Dodgers fan. He’s got absolutely ZERO cell service where he is, so he has no idea how bad things have gotten in the NLCS. Smart move, if you ask me. So anyway, we watched the game at my place, and were miserable. Fortunately, I was careful to direct the violent throws of the remote/my notebook into couch cushions, and not the wall (you’re welcome, Ryan). It was such an ugly game to watch that when it was over, JJ promptly left and I didn’t even bother to stay on the couch and watch the second batch of games. What did I do instead? I cleaned my room! I realize that might not seem like a big deal to some people, but for me, it is. This wasn’t your typical “do some laundry, make the bed, shuffle stuff around on your desk” kind of clean; this was an all-out overhaul. I’m talking “everything out of the room and into the hall, floor mopping, tall kitchen garbage bags (yes, plural) full of trash, desk wipe-down, Martha-Stewart-eat-your-heart-out” kind of crazy cleaning session. I don’t normally just “do” things like that, at all. And on a Sunday in October with football and postseason baseball on TV, no less? Yeah, it was a big deal. On the bright side, I don’t feel like there’s the possibility of contracting Swine Flu every time I enter my room anymore. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Fortunately, I’ve had a day or two removed from the loss, and managed to settle down. I’m not too worried, more just upset because the opposite of what I wanted to happen happened the other day. You think we’ve got it bad at all? Go find out if any of your friends are Titans fans, and give them a call. We’re still in a great position right now, and we’ve gotten that (hopefully just one) miserably pathetic loss out of the way. Guess what else that means? Remember that “They’re a good team, but far from being elite” opinion of us that everyone had in 2007 which helped secure a chip into the Giants’ shoulder which led to their incredible Super Bowl run? Well, I think the chip might be back. We had our big NFC statement game, and we lost it. Now everyone thinks, no matter what we do, we’ll still be second fiddle to New Orleans. WE’RE THE UNDERDOGS AGAIN!! I know it seems like a cynical way to see the glass half full, but if there’s one thing this fan (who bases 90% of his professional football opinions on superstition) knows, it’s that the attitude that comes with being the underdog is partly what makes this Giants’ defense such a scary one to face.
That being said, let’s move on to my random musings for this week:
• Girardi, what were you thinking Monday afternoon? Robertson came in (leaving two guys in the bullpen), got two quick outs in less than five minutes, and you pulled him for Alfredo Alceves? Nothing against Aceves (besides Monday, he’s looked great out of the pen), but what was the reason? They’re both right-handed pitchers, so I don’t quite see what difference it would have made match-up wise. Also, if you’re that worried about Kendrick, than pitch around him to get to Izturis! In the post season, when it’s a close game, in extra innings, and your pitcher’s “in the zone,” you can’t pull him unless there’s a really good reason. And unless there is one that we (the fans) simply don’t know about, I’m putting Monday’s loss directly on Joe Jr.’s shoulders. Although it’s not like we’re out of the series. We can still end it before having to get on another plane, which would really be preferable seeing as how the Yanks decided to go with a three-man rotation. This is still the year! I don’t know what might happen between now (Tuesday morning) and whenever this article goes online, but I feel strongly that the Yankees are the best team in the post season right now, and this is the year for number 27! GO YANKEES!
• If you want a visual of how every Giants’ fan felt watching the beat-down we suffered on Sunday, check out the picture of Reby Sky on ESPN’s New York Giants photo wire. Here’s the url:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/teams/photo?photoId=2361863&team=nyg.
(Sorry to single you out here, Reby, but the expression on your face is PRICELESS. It’s the one exact moment where, no matter how die hard of a fan a person might be, or how badly they want to believe that a crazy miracle is still possible, the fan must accept the fact that this is actually happening, and there’s no way to change it. It’s the worst feeling in the world. But I have a good sense that we won’t have to worry about that happening again, at least not for a long while.)
• Is it going to take for the Giants to lose a bunch of game before we no longer have to worry about Troy Aikman announcing our games? It’s stressful enough having to watch the Giants’ get their rears handed to them, I shouldn’t also have to listen to that freaking homer Aikman pointing out every Giants mistake, and why they’re probably not as good as everyone thinks. What an unfortunate burden to have to bear when your favorite team earns Fox’s top announcing team for each televised game.

And that just about covers it for this week. If you have any questions or comments, or just wanna vent to a fellow Giants’ fan, feel free to send me an e-mail at gmensuperfan@gmail.com. Or you can reach me at Facebook, under the name “Gmen Superfan.” Stew on this loss a bit, then move past it, sports fans. We’ve got a whole lotta football left to play! Until next week, GO GMEN!!