5 BOROUGH SPORTS

Victor Cruz has been a Pleasant Surprise

After an embarrassing let-down loss to the Seattle last Sunday at home, the Giants have found themselves at 3-2 after five games. Overall, I have found that the Giants have met their expectations through a third of the season. With all of their unfortunate injuries, the GMen were still able to beat the Eagles in Philly and have an incredible fourth quarter comeback in Arizona. They’ve also, however, had terrible losses to the Redskins and the Seahawks. In both games, the Giants were simply overplayed, outworked, and played flat all game long. After watching the Giants take care of business in Philly, I think Giants fans felt that this team was invincible. But after losing to Seattle this past weekend, the criticism has returned to the Big Apple (fortunately the Jets’ three-game losing streak has put the Giants on the back-burner in the media). What happened to the running game? Is this secondary strong enough to last this season? When will Eli cut down the turnovers? Suprisingly, I am not concerned about the state of the Giants.

First, the Giants will get the running game back on track. Ahmad Bradshaw will get going, and I believe he will have a big week this Sunday against the Bills. The running game has struggled because Brandon Jacobs hasn’t been healthy. Once Jacobs gets his knee healed, the running game will be back in full force. But while Jacobs continues to recover, look for DJ Ware to get hot. He hasn’t had that much experience, but he’s an extremely talented running back. Look for him to have a breakout game sometime soon.

Not going to lie, the secondary was terrible against Seattle on Sunday. But this season, these guys have exceeded my expectations. Aaron Ross has come out of nowhere and has become a pick machine. Antrel Rolle and Deon Grant have played strong while Corey Webster has been very effective. After Sunday’s terrible performance, it’s not surprising that the secondary is starting to feel the heat again. Even though Ross has raised some eyebrows, I still can’t see him continuing his strong play all season. The problem with the secondary is that the Giants have no depth here. If someone goes down with an injury, it won’t be pretty.

I’m sick and tired of hearing writers bash Eli on being a turnover machine. Yea I know he had three interceptions on Sunday, but only one was legit (Cruz fell down during the game-sealing pick in the redzone and the other was a desperate pass at the end of the game). This has been the epitome of Eli Manning for the last two seasons. I know he threw 25 picks last year, but I would say about ten of them weren’t his fault. People need to realize that Eli is an intangible for this season. Without him, the Giants wouldn’t even have a remote shot of making the postseason. He hasn’t had a losing record since his rookie season in 2004. Everyone needs to get off his ass because he is the last thing Giants fans should be concerned about.

These next two games for the Giants are crucial. Like I’ve said before, the back half of the schedule is incredibly tough so these next two games against the Bills and Dolphins are must-win games. It’s important for the Giants to be in a good situation before the crazy November schedule begins.

Here’s Victor Cruz’s incredible touchdown catch last Sunday:

This entry was posted on October 12, 2011 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Giants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.