Why not panic? Everyone seems to be doing it, including fellow writer Rich Resch who called this one of the most embarrassing losses of the decade, and that is what Andrew Bernard would call an OVER – RE – ACTION, settle down Nard dog. Take some advice from one of the greatest Giants coaches EVA…”you are what your record says you are.”  At 5-3 the Giants are slightly above average, but it’s quite clear the last 3 games have exposed some major weaknesses. In fact this weeks game led me to have this exchange with my friend Faz (an NFL scout) about their biggest weakness.

Faz: They need to get CC out of the game.

Me: And replace him with Rouse?

Faz: G-D no, play with 10 , you’d be better off.

Not what you want to hear from a pro scout. So the secondary is an issue, a huge issue, and other then Aaron Ross there is no help on the way. That said, there are corrections elsewhere that can be made. Perhaps defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan will replace his hybrid 5 man fronts with the fire zone defenses he agreed to use when taking the job. Sheridan has been running a lot of  5 man fronts, where the extra rusher does not disguise the blitz, where as Spagnuolo’s fire zones or cover 3′s kept quarterbacks guessing, with constant safeties in and out of the box. With Sheridan’s schemes he is allowing quarterbacks to slide protection, in fact against Philly it seemed as though he were running Tim Lewis’s read and react defense (just mentioning Lewis makes me want to punch my b#lls off). Most importantly the players seem confused, especially the secondary. Condense the defense, run the schemes that you do well, more often. Before I completely kill Sheridan remember this, he has been playing without a starting backer, corner, safety and tackle and the offense/ special teams has put his unit in horrible field position for three weeks now.

Offensively the Giants are number one in the league in total yards. Shocked? So was I. Yes they did it against some poor opponents, but the talent is there, they simply have to stop turning the ball over and go back to what they are, a power running attack. One other shocker, Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw are on pace for 1000 yards each. Hakeem Nicks is showing why he was a first round pick, Mario Manningham has struggled with drops but altogether he has made huge strides this year. Steve Smith has shown he can be a number one and Kevin Boss may be the toughest TE in the league.  So what’s the problem lately? It’s hard to kill the guy but Eli Manning has been atrocious for three weeks. You can put some of the Arizona game on the wide outs, but he looked like a rookie against Philly. 86% of the time a team wins the turnover battle they win the game, STOP TURNING THE BALL OVER. While everyone wants to blame his heel it could simply be a bad stretch. It’s time for Eli to get out of his funk and this week against the team that drafted him seems as good as any.

While everyone is panicking the Giants, as usual, are not (just listen to the post game interviews).As usual fans have started to kill the Giants for their lack of fire, which is like fans overlooking David Eckstein’s OPS due to his grit/fire/desire/want/meaningless drivel (let it go).  Other then the safety play things can be corrected, and they may even get a boost from Canty and Boley who will practice fully on Wednesday. Settle down, half way through the season big blue has it’s issues, but as we all know you need to be playing your best football at the end of the year, not the beginning or middle, sorry Denver.