• The Giants got handled last night by a much better team from soup to nuts.
• The Colts obviously prepared for a chess match with the Giants, and they delivered on a game plan that for whatever reason the Giants did not adapt to. Joseph Addai ran all over the Giants defense — who left in their nickle and dime packages for the majority of the first half. Whether it was because of the Colts fast paced no huddle offense that they simply were not able to substitute, or whether Perry Fewell wanted to take his chances with the run instead of Peyton’s passing in that scheme… I’m not sure at this point. But the fact is the Giants could not adapt to the Colts setting the pace of play. It was clearly much more than they bargained for. When the Giants brought their linebackers back into the game, the run stopping did improve but Peyton Manning still was able to pick apart the defensive weaknesses of the Giants.
• No pressure, no push, no run stopping, no clue what was coming next — how can you expect your defense to keep you in a game let alone get off the field? Disgusting performance on defense that made each and every Colt look like NFL All-Stars.
• Kenny Phillips hit his head on the back of his head by the knee of another Giants player while making a tackle on Joseph Addai — and had to be helped of the field for a play or two. During that span of time, Michael Johnson replaced him – bit up on a play action fake designed by Manning to exploit is over-aggressive tendencies toward the run, and Peyton hit Dallas Clark over the top for a 50 yard score. UNBELIEVABLE. How critical is Kenny Phillips to the Giants you ask in terms of not giving up these huge passing plays for touchdowns? Extremely. The Giants cannot afford for Johnson, who was ranked the 3rd worst safety in the league last year, to make these same mistakes again in 2010.
• Brandon Jacobs disappointed a lot of people last night. Not only did he run the ball poorly statistically (4 runs for 8 yards) he was benched for throwing his helmet that somehow ended up in the stands 10 rows up. I’m sure we’ll hear a little more about this in the coming days, but he’ll probably blow it off as usual and refuse to talk about it. Coughlin reportedly screamed at his after the incident and it looked like he was benched thereafter. But his lousy Ahmad Bradshaw impression on his last carry where he tried to cut back all the way across the field for a 3 yard loss didn’t exactly earn him the confidence to leave him in.
• Ahmad Bradshaw came on strong in the second half to the tune of 90 yards and 5.2 yards per carry, and he looked great with several cutbacks for big gains and first downs to move the chains. One must wonder what if here…. what if the Giants started off running the ball more effectively and staying with it early instead of resorting to the pass. Eli was simply pressured too much and the offensive line was too inept at stopping Dwight Freeny and Robert Mathis for Eli to do anything at all in or out of the pocket. He had less than 3 seconds to throw the ball all night. Pitiful.
• One nice play from the Giants passing game is basically all I saw — the 1-1 outside to Manningham in short yardage to start the second half. Manningham showed great quickness and break away speed to beat his man down the sidelines, stay in bounds, and go in for a much needed TD. It’s amazing Eli could get that ball off to begin with… but that was it for nice pass plays. The Hakeem Nicks garbage time TD does not count after the Colts had basically given up.
• Kevin Boss — would his chipping and blocking have really made a difference? Certainly would not have hurt… Travis Beckum nearly got Manning decapitated by turning around to hear the snap count and completely missed his block when Eli snapped the ball — Manning barely got the pass off to Manningham for the score. OC Kevin Gilbride looked as mad as I’ve seen him when Beckum came to the sideline.
• Coaching – why can’t the Giants make adjustments mid-game? The Colts made every adjustment they needed to from snap to snap, and stayed in complete sync doing so. It was as surgical a performance by the Colts offense as I’ve ever seen and the Giants did an awful job trying to keep up.