D-MINUS: Jason Pierre-Paul, chasing down Saints QB Drew Brees last week, and the Giants’ pass rush have not been as dominant this season as they were was during recent Super Bowl runs. (
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This Golden Age of Giants football has been built most notably and impressively on two overwhelming ingredients: huge plays in the passing game from Eli Manning and his receivers and a ferocious, relentless pass rush.
Neither asset has been great this season. The passing game has been compromised by nagging injuries that Hakeem Nicks cannot shake, but four Manning touchdown passes in a 52-point eruption against the Saints is a promising sign of things to come.
It is the pass rush — or lack thereof — that will determine in the final three games if the Giants finish up in style, hold on to first place in the NFC East and surge into the playoffs as a forceful presence. That should cause the Giants and their fans to take a deep gulp, because what was ballyhooed as the best defensive line in the NFL has not lived up to the hype, making this the Last Roundup for the Big Three.
They can look to the right and to the left, but it is the face in the mirror staring back that is the key to what comes next for Justin Tuck, Jason Pierre-Paul and Osi Umenyiora. The word coming into the season was no team in the league could unleash three defensive ends capable of wrecking a game as destructively as the Giants. No doubt Falcons coach Mike Smith and quarterback Matt Ryan will highlight containing that trio as the key to Sunday’s game inside the Georgia Dome.
Consider Pierre-Paul, the Giants’ leader with 6 1⁄2 sacks, is tied for 30th in the league. Umenyiora, with six sacks, is tied for 35th. Tuck has just three. There has been helpful production from defensive tackle Linval Joseph (four sacks) and hybrid Mathias Kiwanuka (three), but it’s the 3, 4 and 5 hitters in the lineup that have to be the big boppers, and the heart of the Giants’ order has swung and missed too often.
Umenyiora has been solid and, more importantly, healthy, but the two-year deal he agreed to was created to get voided after this season, and it widely is believed this is his final season with the Giants. Tuck has one year left on his deal, paying him $4.5 million in 2013. He has considered himself underpaid for a few years, but no salary drive is augmented with a five-sack (and injury-slowed) 2011 season followed by this year’s lack of production.
Pierre-Paul is signed through 2014, but after last season it looked as if the Giants would seek to lock him up for several more years. The urgency to do so is not as immediate. JPP, who last week accused the defense of at times being “soft,’’ is down, dramatically, across the board.
In his All-Pro 2011 season, he was a one-man terror with 88 tackles, 23 tackles for loss, 29 quarterback hits and 16 1⁄2 sacks. He is on pace to finish this season with 66 tackles, 13.5 tackles for loss, 8.6 quarterback hits and eight sacks. Sure, he now is a marked man, but the drop-off is glaring.
All three have stayed on the field, and with Kiwanuka spending more time on the line, the rotation has allowed the Big Three to stay fresh. The pass rush, though, hasn’t been the living, breathing force that was so suffocating in last year’s Super Bowl run.
This past week, though, there was some buzzing around Drew Brees. Although Umenyiora got the only sack on 44 Brees dropbacks, Pro Football Focus had JPP with nine quarterback “disruptions,” and Umenyiora and Tuck with four pressures apiece.
“I think a lot of times everyone gets so caught up in the number of sacks and quarterback hits,” Tuck said. “We had a term about keeping the quarterback’s feet hot, and I don’t think Drew got too comfortable in that pocket. With a guy like him, you can’t expect to get to him because he’s so smart about getting the ball out of his hands.”
It’s an oft-repeated refrain from the Giants — crediting the quarterback for avoiding sacks. The opponent isn’t stupid — there’s extra attention and protection on the Big Three. It is not all about sacks, but it is all about the terror that quarterbacks feel when they look across the line and know they can’t ground all three Giants missiles about to be launched.
It has been a magnificent run for Tuck and Umenyiora, first teaming with Michael Strahan, then JPP joined the band in 2010. If the end is near, there still is time for a few showstopper numbers before the final curtain. If this cast can still hit the high notes.
‘Wild’ berth is in cards
All the Giants’ focus is on maintaining their one-game lead in the NFC East, and it certainly looked as if the only route for the Giants into the playoffs was to capture their division title.
That might not be the case, thanks to a free-fall by the Bears, who were once sitting pretty at 7-1 before losing four of their past five games. Just like that, the Bears have the same record (8-5) as the Giants, trail the Packers by a game in the NFC North and are no lock to even gain an NFC wild-card berth.
The Giants (7-3) have a better conference record than the Bears (5-4), giving the Giants any tiebreaker advantage.
The surging Seahawks (8-5) also are in the mix, and their NFC record (6-4) also is worse than the Giants.
Revenge coin flips this week
If you don’t think revenge can be a strong motivator, you didn’t catch a down of last week’s annihilation of the Saints.
“I was going for the gusto,” Antrel Rolle said yesterday on WFAN. “That was definitely a game I was going for ‘get-back.’ ”
Oh, the Giants got it back, all right, erasing the memory of last season’s defenseless 49-24 loss in New Orleans with a tidy 52-27 drubbing of the Saints in rainy New Jersey.
With that in mind, just think what the Falcons are feeling, facing the Giants for the first time since they were humbled 24-2 in last year’s divisional playoff round, getting eliminated by the Giants in punch-less fashion.
“We kind of beat them pretty good,” Victor Cruz said on his weekly WFAN spot. “They’re going to have that picture very vivid in their minds.”