Re-Focused: Giants @ Packers, Divisional Round

| 2012/01/16

Green Bay became the first 15-1 team in league history to go one-and-done in the playoffs when they fell to the red hot New York Giants at Lambeau Field on Sunday.  The Giants never trailed and ended the game going away from the Packers who only briefly threatened a comeback in a game they were unquestionably second best in.

Aaron Rodgers missed some uncharacteristic throws in the game and only his running kept the Packers from allowing the game to slip out of hand as their defense could never really derail the Giants.  Rodgers’ job was made even tougher by drops from Green Bay receivers, something they have struggled with all season, but which really cost them in this game, one in which they needed every play that was there for the making.

The Giants are now as hot as any team in the league and are riding a win streak that has some remarkable similarities to their Super Bowl run of 2007 (which also ran through Lambeau Field), and also to the close of Green Bay’s season last year.  The playoffs are all about getting hot at the right time, and right now the Giants are that team.  

 

New York Giants – Three Things of Note

You can’t spell elite without Eli

The word elite causes more than its fair share of arguments when discussing NFL players, and Eli Manning (+6.3) finds his way into a few of them.  Right now, there isn’t a quarterback playing better football than Manning, and doing it with less help from his offensive line.  While Rodgers and Brees were smashing records and getting the media attention, Eli has caught fire in a way very similar to the five-game run in 2007 that ended with a Super Bowl MVP trophy.  The Giants QB was 21-of-33 in this game for 330 yards and three touchdowns, but it was the crucial times he made big plays that really made his grade.  While Rodgers was struggling to keep the Packers in the game, Manning was making crucial play after crucial play, eventually pulling the Giants clear and even running down the clock with a key conversion late on.  Can history repeat itself for Manning as he attempts to be the first Manning with multiple Super Bowl rings?  If he plays this way the answer is absolutely.

 

O-line struggles

What makes Manning’s performance even more impressive is that he is doing it with some extremely poor play from his O-line.  David Diehl (-3.1) surrendered a sack, a knockdown and two pressures in the game, but none of the five graded well, and each lineman allowed at least two pressures.  The real negative standout in the game though was left guard Kevin Boothe (-6.0) who has been arguably the best player on the Giants’ line this season.  Boothe had a torrid time in this game, being beaten for a knockdown and four more pressures, but also repeatedly finding his man disengaging to make tackles close to the line of scrimmage in the run game.  Somehow the Giants are managing to play well above the quality of their blocking, which would be something to keep an eye on going forward in the playoffs, because there are not many sides that can sustain that.

 

Hakeem Nicks back on the radar

Between the spate of drops and the emergence of Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks was able to drop off the radar a little bit, but he has burst back onto the scene with his performances in the playoffs, earning a +3.2 grade for his work against the Packers.   Nicks was thrown at eight times, hauling in seven balls for 165 yards and a pair of touchdowns, including a Hail Mary to end the first half and give the Giants a 20-10 lead.  Nicks picked up receptions in the coverage of five different players in this game and Eli Manning had a 118.8 QB rating when throwing towards his top target. Nicks brings a physical ability that none of the rest of the Giants receivers have, and the series of quick passes that the Giants gave him allowed him to make yards after the catch against soft cushions from the Green Bay corners.

 

Green Bay – Three Things of Note

A beast on defense

If you were to pick an outstanding player from the Packers defense it probably wouldn’t be Desmond Bishop, but he was a constant standout in the game, and in a telling problem for Green Bay, was their most effective pass-rusher in this game.  On just nine pass-rushes Bishop was able to generate three pressures and two knockdowns of Eli Manning, but also made defensive stops on four of his five tackles.  In a game in which none of the other Green Bay linebackers really stood out, Bishop was able to consistently make an impact, and deserved more help from the rest of the Packers defense.  His +7.2 grade for the game was exactly three times the combined grade of all of the other Green Bay linebackers, and comfortably the best graded player on defense for the Packers.

 

Coverage confusion

Green Bay spent much of their time in this game in nickel formations but it was their starting pairing of Charles Woodson (-3.0) and Tramon Williams who (-3.5) couldn’t contain the Giants receivers and ultimately surrendered most of the catches that mattered.  Williams was thrown at eight times, allowing seven receptions for 125 yards and two touchdowns, and while Woodson allowed just four of five targets into his coverage, he was also at the center of a busted coverage from the Packers with 10:18 to go in the 4th quarter.  On 3rd and five, Woodson was unable to get the correct coverage arranged with Sam Shields and Charlie Peprah, allowing the Giants to pick up an easy conversion on an uncovered route.  The Packers’ secondary has been a problem all season but it was badly exposed in this game against a receiving corps that has been hitting its stride in recent weeks.

 

Turning the ball over

Green Bay was +24 in turnover margin this season, but in this game they turned the ball over four times and generally couldn’t keep a handle on the football in the tundra of Lambeau Field with  Ryan Grant (-1.3), John Kuhn (-2.0) and Aaron Rodgers (+2.8) each losing a fumble.  Rodgers lost the ball on a strip-sack that may have turned the game with 10.36 to go in the 3rd quarter.  With the Packers trailing by ten, Greg Jennings killed Aaron Ross on a slant and go route down the left sideline, and as Rodgers was pulling the trigger on a certain touchdown, he had the ball knocked out of his hands by Osi Umenyiora.  The Packers were also a horrible review decision away from yet another fumble as Jennings lost the ball before his knee hit earlier in the game.  As much as people look for statistics to judge games, no number remains more important than turnovers, and the Packers gave the ball away too much in this game to win.

 

Game Notes

- The Giants were in their base defense for just four snaps in this game.  Three more plays saw them in a heavy-personnel package, and everything else was some form of nickel sub-package

- Aaron Rodgers saw pressure on 16 drop-backs in this game, and on those snaps he had a 59.0 QB rating.

- These two sides combined to force three missed tackles in the run game.  Willis McGahee forced six on his own against New England for the Broncos.

 

Game Ball

The throws Eli Manning is making off his back foot and under pressure behind a line hemorrhaging pressure are remarkable.  He was comfortably the better quarterback on the day in a battle of Super Bowl MVPs, and outshone the player likely to be the league MVP this season.

 

  • motorcycle

    What an awful end to the season for Green Bay. Congratulations to New York. I’m going to live under a rock until September. See you then (:

  • alexrrodriguez

    Tom Brady isn’t playing better football than Eli?

    • drgarnett

      I’m pretty sure Drew Brees was playing a lot better than Eli the past few weeks also, except maybe for that game against the 49ers. But what do I know?

  • ClayMatthewsLikesHGH

    Funny, the authors on this site have been making excuses all year for the clear drop off in Clay Matthews’ play, even going so far as to track an unofficial stat (QB hurries), to make up for Matthews’ low sack numbers. Well the cover up didn’t work. Matthews finished the season with 6.0 sacks–which ranked 49th in the NFL, and was nowhere to be found on Sunday, at home, coming off a bye week, in the Packers’ losing effort versus the Giants. Funny we don’t see any breakdown regarding Matthews’ impact (or lack thereof), on the Packers’ one-and-done performance. How funny indeed.

  • http://www.profootballfocus.com Sam Monson

    Tackles are an unofficial stat too, everybody tracks them. We hardly track QB pressures just to make the self-evident point that there is more to a pass-rusher’s production than just sacks, but the point is born out yet again in Matthews’ play this season, which has been far better than his sack figure alone would suggest.

    As for the lack of a breakdown of his impact or lack thereof – the fact he wasn’t mentioned heavily in the article should tell you all you need to know about his anonymity in this game and lack of impact, which we agree, wasn’t good enough for a player of his caliber. He left the game with a rolled ankle at one point, but the Packers needed him to be huge in this game, and he wasn’t.

  • ClayMatthewsLikesHGH

    “Tackles are an unofficial stat too, everybody tracks them.”–Actually, tackles ARE recorded by the NFL, and Matthews ranked 216th in the NFL. See http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?tabSeq=0&season=2011&seasonType=REG&experience=null&Submit=Go&archive=false&conference=null&d-447263-p=5&statisticCategory=TACKLES&qualified=true

    “Matthews’ play this season, which has been far better than his sack figure alone would suggest.”–Yet Matthews finished 49th in sacks. Was he double/triple teamed? Perhaps, but then how did Ware and Allen rack up 20+ sacks? Seems better players perform despite extra attention from blockers.

    Don’t mean to hate soley on Matthews, or your site. As you’ve (appropriately) pointed out, BJ Raji finished the season with TEN tackles but still made the Pro Bowl. Astounding. Tramon Williams received a huge contract from Ted Thompson (last–and this?–season’s latest ‘genius’ GM), yet gave up more yards than any CB in the NFL in the last 4 years, as you also pointed out. On the bright side, Raji had two tackles in the Giants’ game, which is as many tackles as Raji averaged over any 3-game span this year. Ugly. Not much return on TT’s intvestment of two first round picks.

  • http://www.profootballfocus.com Sam Monson

    My point about tackles was that they are not an official statistic. They are kept by individual scorers and are vastly inaccurate, yet nobody is suggesting we stop talking about tackles. Our pressure statistics are more accurate than the unofficial NFL tackle statistics, and are a perfectly valid resource.

    Sacks can often rely on a little bit of luck. Regardless, trying to sum up a pass-rusher’s season using only sacks is ridiculous. If Matthews had gotten 16 sacks people would be saying he had a great season, but 6 he was terrible. The difference between those two figures is 10 snaps. That is 0.97% of the total snaps Matthews played this season, and not a sensible way to judge anything.

    The point we are making is that he generated a lot more pressure over the season than the figure of just his sacks would suggest. 6 sacks doesn’t mean he was applying no pressure at all. A play could be a sack 1 year and a hit or a pressure the next just with the QB getting the ball out a split second earlier, or throwing it at the ground as he’s hit etc etc. The same play by Matthews could be a sack or not depending on another player’s actions.

    Matthews played pretty well all seaosn and not very well in this game.

  • ClayMatthewsLikesHGH

    Sam, I understand the distinction you are making between 16 and 6 sacks from a statistical perspective, but in this case, it’s hard to agree with the conclusion that Matthews had a Pro Bowl-worthy season when he ranked 49th in sacks and 219th in tackles. Your argument is that Matthews impacted the game depsite not making many tackles or finishing with many sacks. If that’s the case, then the statistics that are official, and recorded, are significantly devalued if not (under your analysis) rendered meaningless. It’s like calling a basketball player the team MVP because he made a bunch of effective screens, instead of rewarding the guy who made the pass that lead to the bucket (assist) or actually scored the points. Matthews is by no means a below-average player, but at some point great players reach the QB (sacks) or bring down the ball carrier (tackles). Matthews official statistics show he was largely ineffective in both categories and thus, in my opinion, undeserving of a Pro Bowl selection.

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