New York Giants

One of my favorite things to watch this season has been the route running skills of Victor Cruz. Most wide receivers make the majority of their yards from their athleticism and natural physical ability (think Calvin Johnson here), but Cruz has bucked that trend, especially for such an inexperienced player, by taking defensive backs to task with his routes and fakes.

That’s not to say Cruz is without athletic talents himself–some of his best plays on the season have come from combining both those talents with the route running–but it’s such a rare thing to see a player with such precise, slick, and disguised routes, it needs to be highlighted.   Read the rest of this entry »

Dominance.

It was the theme and most memorable attribute of Super Bowl XLII. Even more so than the game-winning touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Plaxico Burress, and the New York Giants victory over the New England Patriots. The unstoppable juggernaut grounded by a defensive front having its way with the opposing offensive line.

It was the manifestation of an age-old theory that pressure trumps everything when it comes to stopping a passing offense. The Giants brought that pressure and the vaunted Patriot offense simply couldn’t match the form it had shown all season to lead New England to perfection. Read the rest of this entry »

As the playoffs have progressed and the number of still-breathing teams has dwindled, we’ve offered more and more observations about each that remained. Our focus has again narrowed, for the final time this season.

In this Super Bowl XLVI edition of the 32 Observations, the Patriots and Giants rightly get all of the attention as we tack on another 16 quick statistical looks at each. Mentioning both stars and role players, it’s a good mix as we continue the countdown to kickoff.

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Few areas of the New York Giants’ team have come under more pressure this season than the offensive line, which has seen a precipitous decline in its form, having been one of their strengths the last few years.

Quarterback Eli Manning has faced pressure on 38.9% of his dropbacks over the course of the regular and postseason, second most of any quarterback in the entire league. The entire offensive line has been poor in pass protection; no Giant offensive lineman grades higher than -3.9 (William Beatty) for their play in that area this year. The two players most culpable for this pressure are the two covering the tackle spots this Sunday in Indianapolis, David Diehl and Kareem McKenzie.

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The next installment of our Analysis Notebook preview series for Super Bowl XLVI sees us take a look back at this season’s first encounter between these two squads, all the way back in Week 9. In a postseason that has been littered with rematches, we’re treated to another on the game’s grandest stage.

The Giants won on that day and here we’ll inspect some of the key plays that not only helped decide that game, but also set a tone for the upcoming title bout–some things both teams need to do and some they need to avoid to ensure that they are the side raising the Lombardi Trophy.

Each team mounted a late charge for victory (both will feature in this article) and if the last two meetings between these two squads are anything to go by, this Super Bowl will be decided in the final quarter, possibly the final minutes. Both offenses finished strong last time around, neither defense made a play in the last two minutes this time around. The offense that had the ball last with a reasonable amount of time to do something with it walked out victorious.   Read the rest of this entry »

Following Sam Monson’s piece from yesterday, PFF Analyst Ben Stockwell takes another look at how the Super Bowl teams match up in critical aspects of the game.

His task: compare the Patriots’ offensive strengths and weaknesses to those of the Giants’ defense. His table below breaks down how they’ve looked so far this season and which team should have the edge in each area when Sunday comes. One of these games-within-the-game will decide the outcome. Which will it be?

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Editor’s note: Here’s a look back at how things went down in the regular season meeting between the two Super Bowl participants. Re-posting our Re-Focused article for that game for an interesting look back to a critical time in the season for both teams. 

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The Super Bowl XLII rematch started slowly, but both teams saved their points for the second half, leading to an ending that was eerily similar to the 2008 encounter. Eli Manning led the New York Giants to a go-ahead and game-winning touchdown in the fourth quarter, trumping Tom Brady’s last minute heroics. Brady, like Manning, saved his best for last as the New England Patriots scored a touchdown to take the lead with 1:36 to go in the game. Ultimately though, Manning turned around and drove the Giants down the field with the help of a 20-yard pass interference penalty as well as tight end Jake Ballard’s best David Tyree impersonation. Read the rest of this entry »

We begin our week of Super Bowl previews with a side-by-side, unit-by-unit look at who has the edge in key facets of play. In this table, PFF Analyst Sam Monson explores how Manning and New York’s O should fare against New England’s D, whichever direction they go and however they try to get there. Make sure you check back in tomorrow, as PFF’s Ben Stockwell will flip the table and look at how things should shake out when the Patriots’ offense is on the field.

And, if you’re up for kicking off the week by subjecting your Super Bowl-crazed brain to numbers-overload, check out the passing game preview PFF Fantasy’s Mike Clay posted. He’s dug deep into the PFF database to assemble the figures and present you with a stat-packed piece that’ll take you the rest of the week to digest!

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Welcome to Super Bowl Preview Week at PFF! To kick off our look at the Giants and Patriots, we’re going to break out the Analysis Notebook and check out three key plays from the New York Giants’ season.

New York’s season was a real roller coaster ride from the outset. They lost their opening day contest on the road to the Washington Redskins (the only team to beat the Giants twice this season), but then rebounded to win five of the next six games en route to a 6-2 start. From that point, the wheels fell off the wagon, and the Giants fell to 6-6, losing at the death in a close game to the undefeated (at the time) Green Bay Packers. Read the rest of this entry »

The NFC East’s all division team almost perfectly reflects the final standings. The three top teams (the Giants, Eagles and Cowboys) are all well represented while the cellar dwelling Redskins had just five players make it.

It’s a testament to the talent level in the division that so many quality players missed out. Even scoring double digit touchdowns from the receiver position (Laurent Robinson) or coming close to breaking the sack record (Jason Babin) wasn’t enough to guarantee you a spot on an all division team which features some of the league’s best receivers and pass rushers.

Enough about those who didn’t make it though, let’s take a look at those who did …

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