Giant fans can put a feather in their cap and say how they beat the Jets in last nights’ preseason game meaning that they are still New York’s #1 Football Team. However in reality nobody cares at all about the final outcome of a preseason game. The only thing that matters is how the first team offense and defense’s looked last night. The Jets offense looked pretty good; they showed some signs of flash and were able to move the ball up and down the field with relative ease. With the exception of the one interception on a tipped ball, there wasn’t really anything at all that the Giant’s defense could do to stop the Jets O.
This was best shown on the Jets second drive. They got the ball and instantly began driving up the field, getting first down after first down. It didn’t matter that the Jet’s got a few penalties called against them. Faced with a 2nd and 23 the Jets simply say no problem and on two plays they got the first down and the ball all the way to the two yard line. The reason why, because that washed up running back who is now the best 3rd down running back in the league did exactly what the Jets picked him up to do. He caught a ball on 3rd and long, made one move to beat a defender and then out ran the rest to beat them to the first down marker. The Jets didn’t give the ball too much to Shonn Greene because they didn’t need to, but when they did he looked awesome averaging 5.2 yards per carry. So the moral of this story is that the Jets offense outplayed the Giants. However that isn’t what I really want to talk to you about. The best part about last night was how absolutely dominating the Jets defense was.
They were all over the place making great plays. I think it is safe to say that Antonio Cromartie is back to playing the way he did circa 2007. He made a few outstanding plays and the only catch I saw him give up was on a play that he had almost perfect coverage and required an almost perfect pass from Manning. Which brings me to my next point, how beautiful was it to see Calvin Pace come racing in around the corner and rock Eli so hard that is helmet came flying off and his head smashed into the chest of Jim Leonhard, (who would have put a big hit on him himself if he could have beat Pace to the prize) causing Eli to gush blood from his forehead and have to be taken out of the game. Sure the Jets didn’t register an official sack in the game, but that doesn’t change the fact that they had 5 vicious hits on the quarterback. One these hits came from Eric Smith, who seems to have no problem changing the Kerry Rhoades Special into the Eric Smith Special. For those of you who aren’t aware what the Kerry Rhoades Special was, it was the play that made him famous, him coming around the corner on a safety blitz and knocking the crap out of the QB and often causing a fumble.
There was however one downside to the Jets onslaught of blitz’s last night and that is that Kyle Wilson never got the chance to be tested in a real game situation. However the Jets pass rush wasn’t the only strength of the Jets Defense last night. The run defense looked great; with the exception of a few plays they seemed to stuff everything. They even came close to holding the Giants to a field goal on a goal line stand after the Sanchez interception, but the Giants were finally able to punch it in on 3rd down. In reality the Jets first defense seemed to stuff pretty much everything the Giants could throw at them. With the exception of one long run or shuttle pass or whatever you want to call it, the Giants didn’t make really any good plays at all against the Jets 1st D and even on that play they simply got lucky. The secondary had great coverage downfield and the pass rush was about to crush the Giant’s QB yet again when he noticed that his running back that had stayed into black happened to be open 4 feet away from him and just flicked him the ball. With the exception of this one play the Jets Defense looked unstoppable.
So Giant’s fans and the writers for Giants websites can go around talking about how they beat the mighty Jets in this preseason battle but I just want you to know one thing. That had this been a real game, you would have gotten your asses kicked. Your offense couldn’t do anything and your defense couldn’t stop us. You also couldn’t even get a punt off in the shadow of your own end zone (another stellar play by Eric Smith). Oh and on top of that your precious quarterback got cracked so hard that he was gushing blood from his face.
Now I would just like to send one message to Darrelle Revis, please sign a contract and get into camp because with you on board the Jets could be one of the greatest defenses of all time, if not the best. However if you don’t come to camp we may still settle for having yet again the best defense in the league because as a wise man said to me last night, we still have “ Cromartie Island Yo.”
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