CHICAGO — It was unseasonably cool and predictably breezy by the shores of Lake Michigan, 63 degrees at kickoff as autumn made a surprise appearance at Soldier Field.
It’s a good thing for the Giants the calendar says it’s still summer, as last night they looked nothing like a team ready to get on with their real season.
Dominated on both sides of the ball, their starting units were brutalized to the tune of a 17-0 deficit to the Bears. Tom Coughlin belabored the point all week that his club didn’t have enough time to prepare for the second game five days after the firs t and his words rang true in a dreary 17-3 preseason loss.
This was bad news at every turn. The Giants first-unit defense — minus four injured starters — did not distinguish itself, allowing 17 points in the first 20 minutes. There was no sign of a pass rush, shoddy run defense and a glaring inability to prevent big plays.
Coughlin assessed the damage by stating, “There isn’t one phase I thought played well,” and sounded the alarm that this week leading up to Saturday night’s game against the Jets must be a time of reckoning.
“If we get people recognizing it’s the third preseason game and we just played very poorly — quite frankly got embarrassed — and the season is very close to being upon us, we certainly should get full attention now,” Coughlin said.
The offense, playing without starting guards Chris Snee and Rich Seubert, was dismal. Eli Manning completed 7 of 10 passes for 62 yards, but he got nothing accomplished. His four possessions ended with four punts and the middle two series ended with sacks.
On the first, defensive end Alex Brown blew by left tackle David Diehl, causing a fumble by Manning that right tackle Kareem McKenzie recovered. The next series ended when defensive end Adelwale Ogunleye bull-rushed McKenzie and dropped Manning. Before that, Manning was pressured and called for intentional grounding.
Coughlin said the offense had no continuity. “All you’re seeing is a bunch of throwing darts at the wall,” he said.
Manning blamed himself for a third-down throw on the first series. Mario Manningham was open but Manning laid the ball out too softly and safety Kevin Payne broke up the play.
“That was me,” Manning said. “Mario ran a good route, I just got to put it a little further out near the sideline.”
As badly as the offense performed the Giants defense might have been worse.
The first Bears drive featured a 26-yard pass from Jay Cutler to Devin Hester, who was able to isolate Mathias Kiwanuka dropping into coverage. That led to Robbie Gould’s 44-yard field goal.
The second drive was a five-play, 80-yard surge mostly fueled by running back Matt Forte (9-58). He made a sharp cut to elude cornerback Kevin Dockery on a 17-yard run and later burst through a huge hole untouched on a 32-yard scoring burst, made possible by guard Frank Omiyale’s wipeout block of linebacker Chase Blackburn, subbing for injured Antonio Pierce.
Possession No. 3 for the Bears was more of the same. Optimism is rampant with the arrival of Cutler from the Broncos but he did little in the first preseason game; clearly the Bears wanted him to get on track in his first home game. He did. A 23-yard pass interference penalty on safety Michael Johnson paved the way for Cutler’s pinpoint toss to Devin Aromashodu, who made a fingertip grab behind rookie cornerback Bruce Johnson for a 38-yard reception to the 1-yard line. Cutler (8 of 13, 121 yards, 1 TD) then hit TE Desmond Clark to make it 17-0.
“They were physical and we weren’t, it’s as simple as that,” defensive end Justin Tuck said. It’s back to work up in Albany for a few more days before the Giants break camp after a Tuesday morning practice. No doubt Coughlin will have plenty of talking points.