BIRD FLU INFECTS BIG BLUE

Jim Fassel was the master at striking early only to see his lead slip away, Tom Coughlin likes to hand the game over with hopes of stealing it back. Imagine if the Giants played football for four full quarters? For the second consecutive season, the Giants traveled to Seattle play the Seahawks. The original production was marginal at best, the sequel is ten times worse.

It’s hard to determine what reeked most about this debacle, though the bad buzz started before the Giants even landed in Latte Land. Much like last year’s drubbing in San Diego, where the defense just weighed down the plane, the Giants were teed up to fail all during the preceding week. Though the truth was severely skewed, the Chargers’ crafty media office got their traditionally passive fans riled up about Eli Manning – the quarterback who spurned their team – coming to town. It was successful propaganda, generating a raucousness that made San Diego sound like Rome after the World Cup. In Seattle, it was a similar set of circumstances. Earlier in the week it was leaked that a particular team (hmmm…the Giants perhaps???) had suggested to the league office that the high decibel levels coming from Seattle’s Qwest Field were contributed to artificial noise being piped through the stadium’s P.A. system. The Seattle media couldn’t resist when they caught wind of this, portraying the Giants as whiney New Yorkers complaining as if their bagels’ weren’t buttery enough. So with the hope of a noiseless Qwest Field quashed, the Giants arrived looking uglier than the Fremont Troll.

When asked about the crowd noise, Giants’ Head Coach Tom Coughlin said, “It sounded like Sunday afternoon.” Nobody says that playing on the road is easy, but crowd noise can be controlled by the visiting team. For a professional football team to stress the adverse affects of crowd noise is like a comedian blaming a “rough audience” for getting no laughs. Rather than moan about a hostile house, good comics still go out and deliver funny stuff. As for the Giants crying about Seattle’s “12th Man”, good teams simply play well in order to shut them up; which, if you can recall any defensive highlights from this game, did occur on the very first play when Corey Webster wrestled the ball from Darrell Jackson for an interception. For a moment it looked that both Jackson and Webster had equal possession of the ball, which by rule, has the tie going to the offense. So luck, at least between sips of Gatorade, was in Big Blue’s favor as well.

Yet in a matter of a few plays, the break the Giants so badly needed was squandered by a slew of turnovers, porous line play, non-existent pass rush and a secondary covering from different zip codes. As a result the loud got louder, forcing three procedure penalties. Perhaps Luke Petitgout, Kareem McKenzie and Dave Diehl should form a singing trio called “The False Starts”. Anything would sound better than giving reasons for trailing 35-3 at the half, which, incidentally, was the widest halftime deficit in the Giants’ 82 year history. After the game, Jeremy Shockey, the Giants’ “volatile” tight end, went on record to say the Giants were outplayed and outcoached.

Which they were…

After all, with all the focus the Giants have put on the defensive line in recent years, how else can a line consisting of Osi Umenyiora, Michael Strahan, Fred Robbins, et al, suddenly look like an instant scab team? Last week in Philadelphia, the Eagles thwarted whatever line pressure the Giants had with screen pass after screen pass. And when they didn’t do that, they made a star out of tight end LJ Smith who did nothing fancier than run slant patterns all day long. Outcoached? It’s not like Andy Reid tried to replicate the siege at Vicksburg. For Seattle it wasn’t much more complicated, just force the Giants to play in nickel and dime coverage all day so Matt Hasselbeck has enough time to sort through his recyclables. For extra measure, put in a gimpy Shaun Alexander and you’ve got a line that’s waiting for the play instead of pursuing the point of attack. Shockey was indeed right that Seattle showed them things they hadn’t seen before. Last year the Seahawks won by running down the Giants’ throat, this year it was Air Holmgren until garbage time forced Seattle to chew the clock up on the ground. In essence, the Giants brought green screens against a team owned by Paul Allen.

Upon gladly leaving the state of Washington, the Giants will prepare during their bye week to host the Redskins from Washington, DC. As always for Big Blue, the bye week presents a Giant paradox. With many players already banged up, the rest is surely welcome. Then again, fewer teams have been more dreadful than the Giants when coming off their bye; going just 3-14 since the 17-week season was introduced in 1989. Whether the Giants are able to purge the past of let the Seattle stew simmer is to be determined. Should it be the latter, then crowd noise from the road may be welcome compared to the deadly silence at home.