It’s hard to believe that the Patriots haven’t beaten Eli and the Giants since they clinched 16-0 in December 2007. I remember that night especially well because the next morning my wife and I found out we were going to have our first kid. Yes, that was quite the 24 hours.
Now that zygote is a seven year old and has never been on the Earth for a Patriots win over the Giants. Crazy.
We all remember the Super Bowls, and I think Eli phrased it well this week when he said they just caught the Pats on the right days. Let’s be honest, the 2011 Patriots probably didn’t have much business winning the Super Bowl, especially with Gronk on one leg, so it’s still amazing to me how close that team came when you consider just how bad their defense was.
It seemed though like everything had lined up for the 2011 Pats. First they knocked off the team that ended their season in 2005, the Broncos. Then they got revenge on the team that ended them in 2009, the Ravens. Finally came a chance to beat the team that killed their perfect season. It just seemed like fate that Brady and Belichick would get their fourth against the the Giants. But alas it unfolded in almost the same exact excruciating fashion as Super Bowl 42.
I’ve only seen Tom Brady
lose two games live in person, and the 2011 regular season game against the Giants was one of them. We had a great pregame tailgate with Nick Stevens (aka Fitzy), Erik Frenz and the mystery man himself @PatriotsSB49. It felt like we were exercising some demons that day, but again it was the same kind of result with Eli tearing our heart out with a last minute drive.
None of the Patriots will say it this week, but I’ll say it: A win over the Giants this weekend means something. Yes, they are almost completely different teams than the last time they met, even if the quarterbacks and coaches are the same. Yes, winning Super Bowl 49 took some of the stink off of SB42 and SB46, but still, beating the Giants in their own stadium will put a final nail in those losses, at least until we see the Giants in the Super Bowl again, which I’m not holding my breath for.
Here’s the gameplan to finally take down Eli and Coughlin.
Offensive Gameplan
Now things are starting to get a bit interesting. The last few weeks I slipped into a “just do what we do” mode with the offensive gameplans, but now, with injuries to Sebastian Vollmer and Dion Lewis, there has to be some management going on.
You look at the Giants defense and it’s a shadow of what it was in those Super Bowl years. Yes, JPP is back and should help their pass rush but if you turn on any of their games this year, especially the Saints one, they’re just getting torched.
That might lead you to think this is a ‘spread ‘em out and eat ‘em alive’ gameplan, which is probably what they’ll do, but that begs the question of how will they replace Dion Lewis?
Let me start by saying Brandon Bolden is a valuable player to this team. He is an excellent special teams player and that shouldn’t sound like a backhanded compliment because the Patriots have built their dynasty on great special teams as much as (almost) anything. However Bolden is not a playmaker as a running back. He’s going to get what’s there and then he’s going down the first guy who tries to tackle him.
So I think James White
plays a ton in this one, at least early on. He’s not going to be as good as Dion Lewis was, but can he be a close proximity to what Shane Vereen was? Yes. Can he develop enough confidence and experience over the last eight regular season games to do what Vereen did in last year’s playoffs? Yes. He just needs the chance, but I think just as Lewis defined the new evolution of the offense in the first half of the season, White can define it in the second half. He’ll just need some time and experience to really find a groove, but the Pats really have no other options at this point and he does have the talent to make the plays necessary in this major role in the Pats’ offense.
The other issue will be at tackle, where I’m guessing Bryan Stork
gets the start at right tackle? Yes this is scary, and he’ll likely have Michael Williams next to him to help on many downs. But what about Cam Fleming at left tackle? How much help is he going to need? Does that mean Gronk has to stay in to block more, thus limiting the Pats offense even further?
I still hold out hope that Cannon and Vollmer will be back soon and the offense can find some continuity down the stretch to the playoffs. But for now it’s just about surviving. That means doing whatever is necessary to help give Brady enough time to carve the Giants secondary, which he should do.
Maybe the answer is to use more empty sets, reducing White’s role at least in this one so that two guys can be kept in to protect the edges, but still keeping three wide receivers in the game to challenge the secondary matchups.
Either way, getting by with a makeshift line is the key in this game and if they can keep it together like they did against the Redskins, the Pats should move the ball. If they don’t this game could look a lot like the Giants games we’ve become accustomed to the last three times.
Defensive Gameplan
Not much of a surprise here that it all starts with Odell Beckham Jr. One key thing I remember from Super Bowl 46 was that Belichick keyed on taking away Nicks and Cruz and forcing Eli to beat them with Manningham (and guess what, he did).
The question is whether or not you stick Butler on him or Ryan. I tend to think Ryan might be the better choice, as he can then get some help from Duron Harmon over the top. Of course the double team will be a rotating cast of characters, but generally I think Ryan/Harmon is the way to go. That leaves Butler for Rueben Randle.
The real x-factor is old pal Shane Vereen, especially if the sick Jamie Collins doesn’t play. Running back coverage is often how Collins is deployed and his familiarity with Vereen would’ve been helpful. There just isn’t another linebacker after Collins that is a favorable matchup with Vereen which means the duties may shift to a safety.
Eli has 19 touchdowns and is experienced enough to confidently attack the Patriots’ secondary. The Patriots just haven’t been able to put him on the “bad” Eli track early in their games against him. Now the remade secondary gets one of their biggest quarterback tests of the year and I think they still have something to prove.
Not to take away any credit from the solid job the overall defense has done this year, but it hasn’t been a murderer’s row like last year was. Roethlisberger and Luck (injured) are the only quarterbacks they’ve faced that I’d consider good. Tannehill and Fitzpatrick are okay and maybe capable of beating the Patriots, but more often than not the Pats will force them into game-deciding amounts of turnovers.
Eli has some really good weapons and he’s not going to be afraid of the Patriots. Plus he’s at home, so he should be turn in a good game. How the Pats shut him down this time will tell us a lot about them. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come down to one final chance for Eli to win the game again.
Five Points of Emphasis
1. Ball Security – The Giants lead the league in turnover differential (Pats are second). They’ve forced 13 turnovers in their last four games. So really, that’s as big a reason why they’re 5-4. The Pats ball security is very good. In fact it’s so good people think they’re cheating, but it’s just that they know how important not turning the ball over is and it’s a huge key this week.
2. Take Away Odell – It’s no secret what a dynamic player Beckham is and the Patriots always excel at taking away a team’s primary piece. Beckham will still make a couple plays (did you ever hear about that one-handed catch he made last year?) but the key is tackle him and prevent the yards after the catch. The Pats have been excellent at this in 2015, but this might be their biggest test yet.
3. Protect Tom – Maybe you do have to lean a bit more on Gronk as a pass blocker this week, but we all know what happens when the Pats’ offensive line has one of those games where they look completely out of sync. We all just assume that any offensive line injury can be overcome because the Pats have been doing it for so long, but this year’s tackle injuries are as bad as it’s ever been. Luckily the interior guys are in good shape at the moment and that helps but this will be a game if the Pats makeshift line isn’t on point.
4. Attack Deep – It’s hard to watch Drew Brees throwing downfield to wide open targets and not think the Pats can do the same thing. Maybe that means LaFell and Dobson on the outside, but Meriweather and Collins, the two Giants safeties, looked like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum out there, blowing coverages and playing clueless. Of course, throwing deep balls require good protection so that is what they’ll have to do first.
5. Win – This is a mental game this week. Yes, the Patriots can say all they want about this being a different Giants team, but I think a win over them still means a lot psychologically. I am hopeful that Cannon and Vollmer will be back soon, but until then the Pats must find a way to make their offensive line work on the edges. I don’t think it’s a lock that they just line up anyone at the tackle spots and everything keeps clicking. It could, but there will likely be moments where the offense sputters because of edge pressure. We’re on to the second half of the season, time to start defining who this Patriots team will be when the playoffs hit.
Prediction: Patriots 35, Giants 21
