Preseason Wrap Up

Walter White's version of the Pistol Offense.

Disclaimer: This post has many Breaking Bad references in it and it may contain spoilers. I know some of you haven’t seen the show yet and some of you are planning to watch the entire series when it’s over. So if that’s the case, then maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.

So the Giants have finished their four preseason games and they look to be in midseason form, as far as injuries are concerned. David Diehl is out after thumb surgery, David Baas is out with a knee injury, Jayron Hosley has an ankle injury, Andre Brown has broken his left leg (no surprise there), but the biggest blow is the injury to Stevie Brown. Stevie Brown suffered a torn ACL. That stands for anterior cruciate ligament. That’s like, science, bitch!

 Besides the injuries, there were a few things that I am concerned about:
The secondary has more holes in it than all of Walt’s cover-up stories. This really isn’t a surprise, being that their pass defense has been adequate at best over the past couple of years.
Eli is constantly under pressure. It seems that the defensive line is in his face before he can finish saying “OMAHA!”.
At times their redzone offense is as useful as Badger talking about a pie eating contest story on Star Trek. The Giants have had problems with this for a few seasons and it looks like they might have the same struggles this year.

Brown's out but we still got Wilson. S'all good, man.

But here are a few things I am optimistic about:
David Wilson looks like a very effective running back. At times his future looks as bright as Saul Goodman’s shirts, which is good news considering he will be the workhorse for the next ten weeks.
The defensive line is starting to look disruptive again, and that’s without JP2 lining up. Then again, it would be tough to have a bad defensive line with about thirty players in that position.
Prince Amukamara is stepping up in a big way in his third year in the NFL. This could be the year where he plays like a first round draft pick, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. 

The Giants redzone offense doesn't look this bad, but it's close.

Just because some things didn’t work out well in the preseason doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an ominous kind of foreshadowing. These problems aren’t like the pink teddy bear or the fly buzzing around the meth lab. Case in point, the 2008 Lions were 4-0 in the preseason and then they went on to lose every game in the regular season.

The fact of the matter is it’s almost impossible to figure out how the Giants will do this year. You’d have better luck figuring out what’s going to happen with the Ricin. In fact, one could say that the NFC East is Kafkaesque. Any team can finish on top of that division with nine wins under their belt.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Now I’m sure the Giants will have a hard fought win that will convince me they are a playoff team. Then they will follow that game up with a loss so devastating that I’ll be as speechless as “Tio” Salamanca. Just give me a bell and I’ll be fine. But like I said before, it’s anyone’s division.

So what have I learned?

I’ll be confident with where this team goes as long as they have Eli and Coach Coughlin running things, even though the line protecting Eli breaks down more than Walt and Jesse’s RV.

The key to the Giants success this year will be their ability to score seven points instead of three when they enter the redzone. There were a couple games where those few extra points would have made the difference between making and missing the playoffs last year.

Right now the Giants are number twelve on the NFL power rankings. This is a good thing for this “us against the world” team. It’s true that they have a good amount of issues to deal with, but nothing motivates this team more than being counted out.

I hate it that the Giants are on Sunday night along with Breaking Bad. This Sunday night I'm going to be like Walt choosing between his meth business or his pregnant wife.

I am addicted to Breaking Bad. But I think I probably knew that...
 

"You're Goddamn right!"