Week 14 Post-Game: Giants-24 Packers-22

[BF004]

Did MLF call these stupid WR reverses so much when AR was around? It hadn't worked since the first quarter and you call that asinine play on the 2 point conversion???

No, but we also didn't have a player who was good at it like Reed. I get why he likes it, but 2-3 times is the maximum or as we saw the defense will learn.

He actually tried them quite a bit with slow guys like Lazard lol. Tonight it was just an obsession tho. Strange.

I think it was a little panic playcalling, not really trusting Love and WRs without Watson, Wicks and Musgrave. When you know Love isn’t on his game and he has to throw to Toure and Heath, hard to have confidence.

[BF004]

#1 Dolphins lost at home to the Titans.

&%$@ happens in the NFL.

[Drj820]

No, but we also didn't have a player who was good at it like Reed. I get why he likes it, but 2-3 times is the maximum or as we saw the defense will learn.

He actually tried them quite a bit with slow guys like Lazard lol. Tonight it was just an obsession tho. Strange.

I think it was a little panic playcalling, not really trusting Love and WRs without Watson, Wicks and Musgrave. When you know Love isn’t on his game and he has to throw to Toure and Heath, hard to have confidence.

Which is why not even having Dillon in the backfield for most of those plays late was so triggering

[Pugger]

No, but we also didn't have a player who was good at it like Reed. I get why he likes it, but 2-3 times is the maximum or as we saw the defense will learn.

He actually tried them quite a bit with slow guys like Lazard lol. Tonight it was just an obsession tho. Strange.

I think it was a little panic playcalling, not really trusting Love and WRs without Watson, Wicks and Musgrave. When you know Love isn’t on his game and he has to throw to Toure and Heath, hard to have confidence.

Then MLF should have trusted his running game instead.

[BF004]

Glad for Love to hit this after coming up short against LV and Pitts.

[Crazylegs Starks]

It sucks that two of Loves few good throws came up incomplete:
- Reed lost the ball in the corner of the end zone
- Defender made a very good play to push Doubs out of the end zone

They got those plays the last three weeks. Tonight, no bueno.

[Pckfn23]

Gave up over 200 yards rushing… again.

Masterclass

Dom teaches it

[bud fox]

Poor play calling at inopportune times, poor play from all three phases, too. Clutch plays to take the lead but ultimately let one go, deservedly so you could argue.

Let’s hear it. I know those pitchforks weren’t put away too deep in the closet.

I thought the play calling was good as it has been recently.

[Pckfn23]

[Pckfn23]

[texas]

This stuff happens with a young team like ours. Should have been able to blow these guys out, it really was a team effort in finding a way to lose.

This will cool down the Love franchise QB talk I suppose; some of those 1st half throws were probably worse throws than any Rodgers has ever made. But I still expect him to continue to improve and be the franchise QB we are all hoping, he just isn't there yet.

As disappointing as he played (and he did enough to win, he was just disappointing based on his recent play), the defense really let us down. They couldn't stop NYG in the 2nd half at all, they just moved the ball at will on us, with no-name Devito no less (who btw is annoying af, I hate that guy, idk why (probably because he beat us with dumb QB runs that don't require any talent)). I'm probably the biggest Barry defender around (by merely taking the stance that he shouldn't be fired), and I am scratching my head about that game. NYG sucks ass and we lost to them. Yuck.

[musclestang]

That was tough to watch. The Giants are not close to a good football team and we played worse. Love was not good. a lot of the same old that plagued him earlier. Slow to read, bad read, bad throw. He got better later, but that has to stop. you can have a series to start the game to settle down, but not 3/4's of the game.

I thought our young pass catchers were up to the task. Love made them make a lot of tough catches to even have an offense early on. Very disappointed to see Toure still hasn't learned to go get a ball. Still just waits for it. Thought after not seeing the field for a few weeks because of it might change it. But given the chance to make a big play, he stayed the same.

Our Oline wasn't that good tonight. I saw Runyan with help get run over like he wasn't even there.

I'm very disappointed in our defense. It was a race to get passed the QB and give him 20 yards of green to run to it seemed like. They should have dominated that Oline and played the run on the way to the QB all night and made life difficult for him. instead they made it easy. Yeah, they had some nice run stops. Not exactly difficult against such a limited offense, but overall they didn't really make any plays on defense. Yeah, they handed us one late, hardly a forced error by the defense. The Gmen were driving for another score when they inexplicably gave us the ball back.

We take the lead, and then our defense doesn't even stand in the way. Not one win on one play and the Giants were in chip shot FG range in no time. Didn't even put up a fight.

I thought Dillon did ok when they used him. Kraft, Reed, Heath, Doubs probably deserve some notes of praise. other than that, a pretty disappointing performance last night.

[Labrev]

This game reminded me of the Favre days where he looked like he couldn't hit the broad side of the barn for whatever reason. Rodgers had some bad games in his career but they were different from Brett's bad days. This was more like a bad day from Brett than Aaron.

I thought Love looked scared from the very first pass play, and the O gameplan itself reflected fear of Martindale's blitz-happy defense. Love is outwardly calm but you can tell when he's internally flustered: it affects his throws. He was floating/lofting balls all night. That pass to Doubs in the end-zone is a TD if he rips that. Instead, it takes forever to get there and Doubs is too close to the sideline, can't get both feet in.

Defense, don't get me started. I'll save it for the D Expectations thread.

That said, this team is set up to go as the O goes, and since we can't run the ball well and Jones has been out most of the year, it all falls on Love, the OL's pass-pro, and skill players' receiving production. When that's off, we're toast.

We also really suffered from a lack of playmaking firepower. Jones and Watson are your biggest playmakers. Both out, but we still have some juice from guys like Musgrave, Reed, and Wicks. Okay, Musgrave also out, then Wicks left with injury at some point. We are literally just left with Reed. When there's no one else to worry about, it's not difficult for a defense to take away your slot receiver, even a really good one.

ST also looked poor and patience has worn thin for Rich "I want to be HC" Bisaccia. It is quite plausible that MLF does not commit enough time to ST practice for the unit to clean that stuff up; I could totally see that. Still, there are cases of guys seeming not to know the rules of stuff they need to know, questionable personnel moves like going back-and-forth between Nixon and Reed on punt returns (Reed should be PR, he catches it way more cleanly/reliably).

[Acrobat]

This is what made me more frustrating than anything. I just don't get what Barry (and I know he's not the only one) is thinking in that scenario. Rookie QB. Press him.

A lot of ugliness in the game but ultimately we had it won until Barry willingly decided to let the Giants march down the field.

[TheSkeptic]

Last week I posted that we would not really know how much of the recent success was due to a healthy Watson and how much to Love.

Now we know.

But the O still did enough to win. Fire Barry

[musclestang]

This is what made me more frustrating than anything. I just don't get what Barry (and I know he's not the only one) is thinking in that scenario. Rookie QB. Press him.

A lot of ugliness in the game but ultimately we had it won until Barry willingly decided to let the Giants march down the field.

it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. His famous mantras are basically give the other offense enough opportunities to make a mistake and survive the down. Weak, passive, baloney is all that philosophy is. It's pathetic, which is why we play pathetic defense most times the chips are down. it starts from the top.

I can't imagine playing under such a philosophy where we are just playing enough downs hoping for a mistake, rather than just forcing the damn mistakes. Perfect opportunity against an extremely limited offense and they crawl into their shell and $%@# wait to lose, again.

[Acrobat]

Last week I posted that we would not really know how much of the recent success was due to a healthy Watson and how much to Love.

Now we know.

But the O still did enough to win. Fire Barry

Watson for sure adds an element that opens up the field for so many other players. Love definitely did not have a lot of open guys to throw to.

And yes, Barry needs to go and that was the best thing that came from this loss. This false sense of "Barry is actually good" was bound to blow up in everyone's faces.

[packman114]

The key to success according to MLF and every other coach in the league is you have to be able to run the ball and stop the run. We will never know if we can run the ball because MLF gives up on it too fast. And Joe Barry's scheme to stop the run is to play 15 yards off the LOS and hope they pass instead of run!

[Madcity_matt]

Last week I posted that we would not really know how much of the recent success was due to a healthy Watson and how much to Love.

Now we know.

But the O still did enough to win. Fire Barry

It seems pretty clear that we are a very different team with Watson on the field. Question is if they can figure out a way to keep him on the field.

[Labrev]

it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. His famous mantras are basically give the other offense enough opportunities to make a mistake and survive the down. Weak, passive, baloney is all that philosophy is. It's pathetic, which is why we play pathetic defense most times the chips are down.

Yes, and on the other side of the field, we saw the opposite mentality. Wink Martindale always plays aggressive, because he wants to instill an attacking mindset into his players and the unit as a whole.

It also goes against the armchair GM narrative that actually this defense does not have good enough players or talent regardless the D-Coord. What great talent do the Giants have? You can count it on one hand: DL Dexter Lawrence, EDGE Kayvon Thibideaux, CB Deonte Banks.

That's it, three guys. Yet it does not stop them from playing with the right mentality. More to the point, it shows that D-Coords don't need THAT many good players to field a good defense... *if* the D-Coord is good.