unoriginal
In the Starting Line-Up
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The Giants' strength, defensively, is obviously that defensive line.
They one-gap and the linebackers fill their gaps very aggressively behind them, and they are all fast.
Osi Umenyiora and Michael Strahan, the ends, are the headliners, but in week 17 it was actually the tackles who had the best game.
Barry Cofield, who I believe left the game with an injury, is very good, but perhaps the best pass-rushing performance came from Jason Tuck.
Tuck is their 3rd DE; he played inside for most of the night and did as much damage overall against our interior line as Strahan did against O'Callaghan.
If there is one matchup I'm not so worried about in the Super Bowl, its Osi Umenyiora against Matt Light.
Light acquitted himself very well in this game.
When the Giants did blitz, they patterned their blitzes after the Jets, sending nickel backs in from wide against the short defensive line.
Spagnola also seems to like to blitz his linebackers on run downs, but that's beyond the scope of this thread.
Relevent Reiss postings:
Positional Groupings
Offensive Particpation
First, the pass play listings.
I tried to be more informative as to what was going on on each play.
Short screen passes, which are significant in that the o-line doesn't really have to pass block, are marked, as are plays when O'Callaghan got help either from Wesley Britt or Ben Watson as tight ends.
Contrary to popular belief, Britt was normally brought into the game as a run blocker, and Watson didn't do much chipping on Strahan; for the most part, O'Callaghan had Strahan one-on-one.
I also marked plays with play action - you can see that most of the times Britt helps O'Callaghan are on these plays.
Demerits on plays on which multiple failures occurred are listed in chronological order.
Thus, when a "Pressure" occurs before a "Sack," you can assume that the pressure helped cause the sack.
A pattern in these demerits are that O'Callaghan seemed to wear down as the game went along, while elsewhere it seemed the Giants defensive line wore down.
I take that as a result of O'Callaghan not being in game shape, and the Giants' running themselves ragged rushing Brady early.
Another thing you might notice is that there is not a demerit that I couldn't attribute to one player or another, i.e. there is no play where I simply list "Pressure" without assigning it to a player.
That supports my earlier assertion that the Giants weren't creating scheme problems with blitzers,
rather that the defensive line was beating their matchups.
Here are the totals:
Those are very high totals for everyone, except Light, who is right where he's been at since I started keeping track of this.
Even Faulk had more trouble that usual making blocks.
Also notice that there were no penalties called on the offensive line, a first since I've been keeping track.
O'Callaghan obviously had a rough night, though interestingly he seemed to do consistently worse in goalline situations than anywhere else on the field.
You can see that he kind of loses balance and leverage moving to an inside position on Strahan there.
Meanwhile, Evans misses his block and kind of gets away with a hold.
In the first half of the game, the Giants had Strahan doing inside power rushes against O'Callaghan and/or stunting down the line as part of their plan to get pressure up the middle.
As the game went along, Strahan began taking wider, Osi Umenyiora-like rushes against Brady; the adjustment the Patriots made, starting midway in the 3rd, was to bring Watson in motion towards Strahan and wham/chip him.
They did this maybe 2 or 3 times all game.
Here is the first play they did it, at 6:10 in the 3rd quarter:
As you can see, Umenyiora gets away from Light here; he goes on to smack Brady in the head as he runs past.
Hopefully Umenyiora will continue to play tag with Brady in the Super Bowl instead of playing football.
As I said earlier, most of the pressure early on came from the Giants' defensive tackles.
They are even more embarrasing than the one of Strahan schooling O'Callaghan above.
Here is Jason Tuck blowing by Dan Koppen at 8:06 in the 1st:
Koppen makes a lunge at Tuck's inside hip, and Tuck swims right over top of him.
In the bottom part of the pictures, you can see Mankins swinging out behind Light to pick up a blitzing linebacker.
Obviously a man-to-man protection scheme was called at the line.
This is probably the single most impressive pass rush of the game, coming at 3:36 in the 1st quarter.
Barry Cofield swims over both Mankins and Koppen in succession.
If you watch the video it kind of looks like he's running a slalom course. Koppen isn't even in the last screenshot.
They one-gap and the linebackers fill their gaps very aggressively behind them, and they are all fast.
Osi Umenyiora and Michael Strahan, the ends, are the headliners, but in week 17 it was actually the tackles who had the best game.
Barry Cofield, who I believe left the game with an injury, is very good, but perhaps the best pass-rushing performance came from Jason Tuck.
Tuck is their 3rd DE; he played inside for most of the night and did as much damage overall against our interior line as Strahan did against O'Callaghan.
If there is one matchup I'm not so worried about in the Super Bowl, its Osi Umenyiora against Matt Light.
Light acquitted himself very well in this game.
When the Giants did blitz, they patterned their blitzes after the Jets, sending nickel backs in from wide against the short defensive line.
Spagnola also seems to like to blitz his linebackers on run downs, but that's beyond the scope of this thread.
Relevent Reiss postings:
Positional Groupings
Offensive Particpation
First, the pass play listings.
I tried to be more informative as to what was going on on each play.
Short screen passes, which are significant in that the o-line doesn't really have to pass block, are marked, as are plays when O'Callaghan got help either from Wesley Britt or Ben Watson as tight ends.
Contrary to popular belief, Britt was normally brought into the game as a run blocker, and Watson didn't do much chipping on Strahan; for the most part, O'Callaghan had Strahan one-on-one.
I also marked plays with play action - you can see that most of the times Britt helps O'Callaghan are on these plays.
Demerits on plays on which multiple failures occurred are listed in chronological order.
Thus, when a "Pressure" occurs before a "Sack," you can assume that the pressure helped cause the sack.
Code:
Time Down Info
10:52 1 & 10 (play action)
10:18 1 & 10
09:04 2 & 10 (screen pass)
08:55 3 & 10 (screen pass)
08:08 4 & 2 [COLOR="DarkOrange"][B]Koppen: knockdown[/B][/COLOR] (Tuck)
07:01 2 & 10
05:42 2 & 8 [COLOR="Orange"][B]Light: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
05:30 3 & 8
03:36 1 & 10 [COLOR="orange"][B]Mankins/Koppen: pressure[/B][/COLOR] (OC + Britt)
[COLOR="orange"][B]Hochstein: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
02:51 3 & 14 [COLOR="orange"][B]Mankins: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
[COLOR="Red"][B]Koppen/Hochstein: sack[/B][/COLOR]
02:28 1 & 10
01:50 1 & 10 (screen pass)
00:35 2 & 10
15:00 2 & 4 [COLOR="Orange"][B]O'Callaghan: pressure[/B][/COLOR] (play action)
14:04 1 & 10 (screen pass)
12:59 1 & 10 (screen pass)
11:28 2 & 13 (play action + screen pass)
10:45 3 & 14
07:02 1 & 10
05:16 2 & 6 [COLOR="orange"][B]O'Callaghan: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
04:07 1 & 10 (play action) (OC + Britt)
02:56 2 & 6 (screen pass)
02:10 3 & 4 [COLOR="orange"][B]Koppen/Hochstein: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
15:00 1 & 10
13:50 3 & 7 [COLOR="orange"][B]Light: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrange"][B]O'Callaghan: knockdown[/B][/COLOR]
08:30 2 & 12
07:41 3 & 8 [COLOR="#ff8c00"][B]O'Callaghan: knockdown[/B][/COLOR] (Torbor)
[COLOR="Orange"][B]Mankins/Koppen: pressure[/B] [/COLOR](Tuck)
06:53 1 & 10
06:14 1 & 10 [COLOR="DarkOrange"][B]Light: knockdown[/B][/COLOR] (Watson rub)
05:39 2 & 6 (screen pass)
04:19 2 & 8 [COLOR="Orange"][B]O'Callaghan: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
04:10 1 & 1 [COLOR="orange"][B]O'Callaghan: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
00:30 1 & 10 [COLOR="orange"][B]O'Callaghan: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
14:19 3 & 9 [COLOR="orange"][B]O'Callaghan: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
13:37 1 & 10 [COLOR="orange"][B]Faulk: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
13:31 2 & 10 (screen pass)
12:59 3 & 11
11:29 1 & 10 [COLOR="orange"][B]Mankins: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
11:25 2 & 10 (Britt + OC)
11:15 3 & 10 [COLOR="DarkOrange"][B]O'Callaghan: knockdown[/B][/COLOR]
[COLOR="Orange"][B]Hochstein: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
[COLOR="orange"][B]Faulk: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
09:53 1 & 10 [COLOR="orange"][B]Hochstein: pressure[/B][/COLOR] (play action) (OC + Britt)
[COLOR="orange"][B]O'Callaghan: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
09:31 1 & 10 (play action) (OC + Britt)
08:58 2 & 20 (Watson rub)
08:20 3 & 11 (OC + Watson)
06:16 3 & 9 [COLOR="orange"][B]Hochstein: pressure[/B][/COLOR]
05:26 1 & 10 (screen pass)
A pattern in these demerits are that O'Callaghan seemed to wear down as the game went along, while elsewhere it seemed the Giants defensive line wore down.
I take that as a result of O'Callaghan not being in game shape, and the Giants' running themselves ragged rushing Brady early.
Another thing you might notice is that there is not a demerit that I couldn't attribute to one player or another, i.e. there is no play where I simply list "Pressure" without assigning it to a player.
That supports my earlier assertion that the Giants weren't creating scheme problems with blitzers,
rather that the defensive line was beating their matchups.
Here are the totals:
Code:
Name Sack Knock Press Hold False
Light 0 1 2 0 0
Mankins 0 0 4 0 0
Koppen 1 1 3 0 0
Hochstein 1 0 5 0 0
O'Callaghan 0 3 7 0 0
Faulk 0 0 2 0 0
Those are very high totals for everyone, except Light, who is right where he's been at since I started keeping track of this.
Even Faulk had more trouble that usual making blocks.
Also notice that there were no penalties called on the offensive line, a first since I've been keeping track.
O'Callaghan obviously had a rough night, though interestingly he seemed to do consistently worse in goalline situations than anywhere else on the field.
You can see that he kind of loses balance and leverage moving to an inside position on Strahan there.
Meanwhile, Evans misses his block and kind of gets away with a hold.
In the first half of the game, the Giants had Strahan doing inside power rushes against O'Callaghan and/or stunting down the line as part of their plan to get pressure up the middle.
As the game went along, Strahan began taking wider, Osi Umenyiora-like rushes against Brady; the adjustment the Patriots made, starting midway in the 3rd, was to bring Watson in motion towards Strahan and wham/chip him.
They did this maybe 2 or 3 times all game.
Here is the first play they did it, at 6:10 in the 3rd quarter:
As you can see, Umenyiora gets away from Light here; he goes on to smack Brady in the head as he runs past.
Hopefully Umenyiora will continue to play tag with Brady in the Super Bowl instead of playing football.
As I said earlier, most of the pressure early on came from the Giants' defensive tackles.
They are even more embarrasing than the one of Strahan schooling O'Callaghan above.
Here is Jason Tuck blowing by Dan Koppen at 8:06 in the 1st:
Koppen makes a lunge at Tuck's inside hip, and Tuck swims right over top of him.
In the bottom part of the pictures, you can see Mankins swinging out behind Light to pick up a blitzing linebacker.
Obviously a man-to-man protection scheme was called at the line.
This is probably the single most impressive pass rush of the game, coming at 3:36 in the 1st quarter.
Barry Cofield swims over both Mankins and Koppen in succession.
If you watch the video it kind of looks like he's running a slalom course. Koppen isn't even in the last screenshot.
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