Week 1 MNF: Pittsburgh Steelers @ New York Giants

[Giants4eva]

Just now, Go_Giants said:

We are just not ready to compete with the big boys just yet.

I seriously cannot believe he tried to throw that ball

[fattlipp]

Safety, looked over the line. Then went back...

[Giants4eva]

Leonard Williams got a sack. Yes i repeat Leonard Williams got a sack

[Giants4eva]

And now the game is just slipping away

[YogiBiz]

Ugh that was tough to watch after I got Saquon fifth overall. 

[Giants4eva]

My thoughts on last nights game. We are definitely an improved team. I liked what i saw overall. We have much work to do in many areas but as a whole this team is headed in the right direction. Jones wanted that 1 throw with Bud Dupree back so bad its killing him this morning. He is going to be fine for us. The positives for me last night was the WRs did a nice job minus Golden Tate not being on the field. Slayton is as close to a #1 as we have and he is showing he has pro bowl potential. Shep had a solid outing. Pass blocking looked heavily improved. Andrew Thomas is going to be a very good tackle for us. I had my eyes on him all game. There was a couple miscommunications with him and Will but once this guy got his hands locked on the defender it was game over. Defense as whole held on well until the 2nd half came around. To be honest i think the wind was knocked out of their sails the minute DJ had that INT in the end zone. To answer my #1 thought of do i think we are better team under JJ and are these guys buying what he is selling? Yes i whole heartedly do. 

On to what we need to improve. Numero uno for me is run blocking. Saquon with 6 yds on 15 carries is inexcusable. Marc Columbo is gonna be reigning fire and brimstone on his men to get their butts down and road grade thru defenders so Barkley can get his yds. Evan Engram played horrible. Im sorry but the drops, offensive pass interference, poor blocking, he really is gonna be in the dog house after this one. Kaden Smith did more for us last night than him. Engram is just an enigma to me. He needs to pick his game up big time. Defence has to play 60 mins. The 2nd half was as if they shut things down. They gotta bring the pain all 60 mins. 

[minutemancl]

Studs:

Darius Slayton- we have a #1 receiver, and his name is Darius Slayton. No other receiver had more touchdowns since week 5 of last year. He's a stud.

Blake Martinez- it feels nice to have an ILB who fills correctly, huh? Also, he made just about all of his tackles within 2 yards of the LoS, many of them at or behind it. 

James Bradberry- I'm not too concerned about the touchdown he let up at the end of the game. He did his best to work around the other, inexperienced CBs. He played well, including a huge PD on a third down.

Leonard Williams- guy looked really good last night. Had a sack and tons of pressures to go along with solid run defense.

Duds:

Corey Ballentine- I'm ok with this experiment being over now. We know what type of player he is, and it isn't a good boundary corner. Has a lot of trouble in man coverage and looks like he is about to fall over out of his backpedal.

Nick Gates- This Nick Gates as starting center experiment might be over already. He was on his butt a bunch of times last night, and combined with the next guy, was why our run game was dismal.

Cam Fleming- Too many mistakes by Fleming. He's not a starting RT. Peart better come along quick. Or, the better option may be to have Pulley move to Center and Gates move out to RT, where he showed a hell of a lot more last year than he did last night at his new position.

Evan Engram- Was actively a detriment to the team last night. Dropped more balls than he caught, and was penalized for an OPI on a drive that was moving until it happened. Whiffed on multiple blocks as well. Awful, awful performance. Everyone expected a lot more from him than that.

[minutemancl]

4 minutes ago, Giants4eva said:

My thoughts on last nights game. We are definitely an improved team. I liked what i saw overall. We have much work to do in many areas but as a whole this team is headed in the right direction. Jones wanted that 1 throw with Bud Dupree back so bad its killing him this morning. He is going to be fine for us. The positives for me last night was the WRs did a nice job minus Golden Tate not being on the field. Slayton is as close to a #1 as we have and he is showing he has pro bowl potential. Shep had a solid outing. Pass blocking looked heavily improved. Andrew Thomas is going to be a very good tackle for us. I had my eyes on him all game. There was a couple miscommunications with him and Will but once this guy got his hands locked on the defender it was game over. Defense as whole held on well until the 2nd half came around. To be honest i think the wind was knocked out of their sails the minute DJ had that INT in the end zone. To answer my #1 thought of do i think we are better team under JJ and are these guys buying what he is selling? Yes i whole heartedly do. 

On to what we need to improve. Numero uno for me is run blocking. Saquon with 6 yds on 15 carries is inexcusable. Marc Columbo is gonna be reigning fire and brimstone on his men to get their butts down and road grade thru defenders so Barkley can get his yds. Evan Engram played horrible. Im sorry but the drops, offensive pass interference, poor blocking, he really is gonna be in the dog house after this one. Kaden Smith did more for us last night than him. Engram is just an enigma to me. He needs to pick his game up big time. Defence has to play 60 mins. The 2nd half was as if they shut things down. They gotta bring the pain all 60 mins. 

I agree 100%. Andrew Thomas surprised me last night. I expected a rough game from him, but minus I think 1 play in the first quarter that led to that incompletion (that was actually a fumble), he was extremely solid. From the eye test, he looked like far and away our best OL. 

I agree on being more confident about this coaching staff than the last as well. There are a couple main reasons for that. 1, you could see the game planning was effective and reasonable on both sides of the ball. 2, the play calling was pretty solid all things considered. I loved seeing all the passes on first down, the 3TE sets, etc. Garrett did a really good job, surprisingly. 3, the players played as if they were ready. Little communication breakdowns and only a few missed tackles.

I did see some adjustments get made on our end, but the Steelers won the coaching battle in the end. Their transition to a passing game composed entirely of rub routes just killed us. Our young CBs were getting destroyed by it, and I'm assuming our coaches just didn't feel comfortable enough to transition to a total zone defense to combat it. We need to sign Prince Amukamara today. If the defense is going to be run in a manner similar to what we saw last night all year, we absolutely need a #2 corner who can play man. We don't have that yet.

I also want to say, for all negatives, I was still encouraged by Darnay Holmes. He was in on a handful of tackles and showed some really impressive effort. He didn't get burned at all, just fell victim to the natural picks the Steelers were running the 2nd half.

[Go_Giants]

I agree with everyone, I like what the coaching staff has done. Would have been nice if Jason could have thought to use the three tight end formation earlier in the game but at least he adjusted to it at halftime. Sadly though this is just not a good team yet. There is only so many weaknesses our coaching staff can cover up. 

At the very least  this game was not the blowout  most people were predicting it to be.  It just sucks that this was a game we could of won. Take away the DJ turnovers and if we punch it in the endzone to start the game, we win this game, then  we play a winnable game against the Bears this Sunday and could have start to get excited about this season.

I was not looking specifically at Andrew Thomas,  are you guys sure he did as good as people here are claiming? It seemed to me that Bud Depree was constantly harassing DJ and making plays.

As with everyone else I want to see the team get better as the season goes on. In particular I want to see if the coaching staff can get  Lorenzo Carter to play up to his potential.