GIANT DEFENSE RUNS PIRATE SHIP AGROUND

When looking back on the Giants 2006 season, the game against Tampa Bay will likely blur into the season like a rest stop en route to summer camp. With the swirling winds reinforcing the Meadowlands’ gusty reputation, there was little offense to be found. More euphemistically said, it was a game of “field position”…a punter’s duel, of which there were 18 punts in all. Not bad enough to watch Heidi, but with the exception of Plaxico Burress’ one-handed touchdown grab, this game provided few, if any other highlights.

The game got off to a somewhat tentative start. The Bucs in the last seven days have had to adapt to climate extremes; stifling heat at home against the Eagles a week ago, brisk chills Sunday in Giants Stadium. It’s no secret that cold weather to Tampa Bay is like kryptonite to Superman. As a result, the game started like a lumbering bear coming out of hibernation.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Giants did go for the throat, blitzing early and often. Clearly the Giants have found a way to compensate for their secondary, and that’s to simply get to the quarterback as quickly as possible. It’s nice to see again, as making life miserable for quarterbacks had been a lost art in Giantdom until recently. Even better, since the secondary hasn’t been able to cover much of anyone this season, why not ramp up the corner and safety blitzes as well? Until Sunday, Gibril Wilson had been a complete afterthought. And when the Giants had a chance to get burned by the blitz, they got help from the wind in the form poorly thrown passes from Bucs’ QB Brad Gradkowski. Add in a number of dropped passes by a frightened Joey Galloway and company, and one could see early that it was going to be a long day for Tampa Bay.

The Bucs’ however, did make some adjustments that stymied the Giants pass rush as the game worn on; putting in a two tight-end set consisting of Anthony Becht and Alex Smith. This spread out the Giants linebackers into the flat and thus took away the Giants ability to blitz. To further exploit this formation, Tampa Bay was also able to work in several screen passes to Cadillac Williams and Michael Pittman for marginal gains. At best, however, this enabled Tampa Bay to pick up a few first downs in the second half. Yet as soon as they looked to be in striking distance, something would implode in the form of a penalty, sack or turnover and kill the drive.

Even though this wasn’t the most exiting match-up, there was one very significant thing to extract from this game, and that was the innate sense the Giants had this game won from the very beginning. For years, as well as early in the Tom Coughlin era, there was always a disturbing anticipation that the Giants were about to let a game slip away. This feeling didn’t go without merit, just look at the last ten years. We’ve seen it earlier in this season as well, when they could have beaten Indianapolis, as well as in Dallas last week where the Giants had a chance to deliver the finishing blow early in the second quarter. For years the Giants have simply lacked that knockout punch. Yet something about the way they beat Tampa Bay showed no hint of the game ever being in jeopardy. It was obvious to the point of being dull, but it’s a dullness that Giant fans will happily take.

Call it magic if you want, I’ll just call it defense.