Heading into Sunday’s opener, the biggest question facing the Giants—the secondary.
Could they handle Dallas’ high-octane offense? More specifically, how would the safeties manage the Cowboys’ passing attack—very likely a top ten unit this season?
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Romo’s 356 passing yards seem to indicate they struggled mightily, but I’m not so sure. The corners were impressively tight in coverage, and the two longest Cowboys’ receptions came from running backs Joseph Randle (25 yards) and Lance Dunbar (24 yards), which is more an indictment on the Giants’ linebacker play rather than the secondary.
The safeties prevented the big plays from Dez Bryant and Terrance Williams, which in my eyes was their number one job. Brandon Merriweather helped generate a turnover, and the unit had a few nice open-field tackles. Overall, a decent performance—definitely better than most expected.
As for Landon Collins specifically… well, I thought he had some nice moments, highlighted by his second down tackle for a loss on Darren McFadden. He also had a nice open-field tackle on a Lance Dunbar first down reception that could have gone for much more. The Giants drafted Collins as a sure-tackler with some holes in his coverage game, and that was on display on Sunday. But he gave the Giants what they needed—a strong tackler at safety—so he did a good job playing to his strengths.
As for those two touchdowns people are crushing him for on Twitter—I think he made two correctable mistakes that he’ll be able to fix over time. On Witten’s first touchdown, Collins blew his coverage, but it looked as if he was trailing Witten because one of two things—either he thought a linebacker was going to switch coverage onto Witten and no one did, so he fell behind him, or he thought Witten was going to sit over the middle but he actually cut outside, leaving him wide open.
And on Escobar’s touchdown—Collins was sitting fine in coverage until Escobar cut to the near side—at which point Collins went to chase him and got caught up with linebacker Jonathan Casillas, leaving Escobar wide open. Yes, they’re two preventable plays that shouldn’t happen, but when you have a superstar quarterback like Romo facing a rookie trying to develop his coverage skills, he’s going to get picked on a little. I think overtime as Collins gets more comfortable with the defense and starts taking more of a leadership role, those types of plays will become less and less frequent.
I think the play I was most critical of what his missed tackle on Cole Beasley late in the fourth that led to Witten’s first touchdown. Collins’ number one job right now is to execute those tackles and prevent extra yards. I know Beasley’s shifty, but he can’t let receivers bounce around him and pick up five extra yards. That led to an easy touchdown for Witten, and it’s one of those things that Collins just can’t let happen.
Collins’ debut wasn’t sexy (4 tackles, no turnovers), but it wasn’t terrible either. As long as he continues being a strong tackler, I think his coverage skills will develop overtime. Then, the Giants could be looking at a real difference-maker at the back end of the defense.