These are my brief, uncollected thoughts having been drinking for most of the game and existing in a bitterly disappointed state, currently. I think these things are best analyzed with the benefit of a night's rest but, whatev.
- Whoever was the Giants defender who was injured on the last play of the game, I hope he's ok. The result was obviously decided by the time whomever that was started favoring their injured parts and the last thing I want to see, even against a division foe I hate to lose to, is someone get injured on a meaningless play. Chris Samuels looked sufficiently contrite.
- Jason Campbell didn't play so hot. I felt he held on to the ball too long or else made the wrong decisions. The only time he, and the team, were able to move the ball was consistently was in desperation time when the opposing defense was giving up space.
- I don't think the offensive line was horrible but they were definitely below average. JC was rushed a few times and the penalties are a problem.
- Defense exhibited what felt like a bend but only enough to break after wasting a bunch of clock time. The few times I remember us pressuring Eli Manning he did something horrible, which raised the obvious question; why weren't we pressuring more? I recall Doughty getting a hand on Manning during a safety blitz and him completing a long pass but, beyond that, I can't recall Manning doing anything right when we pressured him. Our interception came on a pressure play. This is not rocket science, if you scare the opposing quarterback, he'll screw something up.
- Speaking of turnovers... we won that battle and lost by 9 points. Sad fact is we're not going to escape a dramatic majority of games with the turnover lead and we certainly won't have 0 turnovers for even a simple majority of our fights. If you can't keep it close when you win that crucial +/- turnover scuffle, you aren't playoff bound.
- Defining moment of the game was Jacobs plowing over LaRon Landry. That's one of our best against one of their best and they won.
- Good news! I forgot how many weeks (months?) it took us to score a touchdown with a wide receiver last year and we did it in week one this time around. Drinking to not having to listen to ESPN repeat that gruesome statistic every day.
- We lost 16-9 against the Super Bowl Champions in their house filled with nearly 90 thousand motivated partisans. Is that really so horrible? I don't know that it's any worse than losing to the Giants 24-17 in our own house, which is what we did early last season and still managed to make a success out of the entire affair.
- Looking back on the score, as pissed as I was at the defense for much of the game (50% third down defense won't cut it, period) we can win if the other bastard only scores 16 points. Eli was held to 6.1 yards per pass, meh, with a pick and no touchdowns. Their 4.8 yards per rush was troubling but not terrifying.
- Terrifying was our useless offense. 3.5 yards per carry sucks. Clinton Portis looked ok but not good (sometimes he did look great, though). We didn't reach the line of scrimmage on 4 rushing plays or, put differently, 1/6th of the time.
- Rock Cartwright is awesome.
Good way to end it. Let me sleep with nightmares on this one and leave it at that, before I get sore on Jim Zorn's clock management or Jason Campbell's future. Way too early to indict either of them.