Up to Speed- NY Giants

LAST SEASON
If the way a team finishes up the season before is an indicator of the way they will play the next season, then the Giants are in a lot of trouble in 2007. After a 6-2 start that had people talking Super Bowl, the Giants fell apart, losing 6 of 8 to close the season. They snuck into the playoffs with an 8-8 record thanks to a very bad NFC, and predictable exited in the wild card round despite throwing a scare into the red-hot Eagles in a 23-20 loss.

In fairness to the Giants, Tiki Barber announced midway thru last season that the 06 season would be his last, and the team seemed to tank after that. However, in reality the Giants' struggles had everything to do with a terrible defense that ranked 25th in the league overall and 28th against the pass, and little if anything to do with Tiki's surprising announcement.

The Giants' problems on defense stemmed from a lack of a pass rush and a terrible secondary. They hope that getting Michael Strahan (7 games missed DTI last year), and Osi Umenyiora (5 games missed DTI) healthy will solve the pass rush problem. Umenyiora should be OK, but Strahan has now missed significant portions of 2 of the last 3 seasons, and being that he'll turn 36 this season, counting on him to be healthy is a risky proposition.

OFFSEASON
So we know the Giants think that injuries were the cause of half of their defensive problems last year. To shore up the other issue, the secondary, the Giants used their first round pick on University of Texas corner Aaron Ross. Ross will probably be expected to step in and start immmediately, but again, on one hand you're counting on a 36 year old pass rushing specialist who has spend most of the last 3 seasons being injured, and on the other you're counting on a rookie corner. I don't think you want to be doing either of those things.

Other than Ross, the only other new addition to the defense is former Chiefs LB Kawika Mitchell. Mitchell stays healthy and is pretty good against the run. He's nothing to get excited about though.

Meanwhile, with Tiki's departure, running back has become a major area of concern. Brandon Jacobs has served as the goal line back the last couple of years, but now he will be relied on to carry 15-20 times a game.

The Giants signed Reuben Droughns with the thought in mind that Droughns and Jacobs can combine to give the Giants a decent percentage of what they had in Tiki Barber. Droughns had more fumbles (5) than touchdowns (4) as Cleveland's running back last year, and averaged an anemic 3.4 yards per carry. At 29, he appears to be on the downside of his career.

So with the running game going from being the engine of the team to a huge question mark, the burden falls on Eli Manning to become the focus of the offense. Eli was squarely in the middle of the pack of NFL quarterbacks last year, his 77.0 passer rating was better than Matt Hasselbeck, Michael Vick, Ben Roethlisberger, Rex Grossman, and Brett Favre, but it was also worse than Jon Kitna, David Garrard, David Carr, JP Losman, Chad Pennington, and Mark Brunell (?!?). For the Giants to have any chance this year, Eli is going to have to be a top 10 quarterback.

This team is in a lot of trouble. They were blindsided by the Tiki Barber retirement last year, and they really did nothing to address that. They also have a very shaky defense that is too old at some spots and too young at others. The angry mob will have its pitchforks and torches out, chasing Tom Coughlin all season, and chances are this will be the year they finally tar and feather him. Now you're up to speed on the Giants.