david dieHl - New York Giants

Another lame effort by NY Giants defense adds defensive coordinator Perry Fewell to fire
By Ralph Vacchiano
New York Daily News
Dec. 24, 2012
BALTIMORE – Asking for answers at this point of the season was probably pointless, because all
the beaten players on the Giants’ scorched defense can do now is shake their baffled heads. So
many missed tackles. So many blown coverages. So little semblance of a pass rush.
So little energy and passion from a unit that returned nearly everybody from last year’s
championship run.
“That’s not us,” said Mathias Kiwanuka, moments after the Giants’ latest defensive horror show,
a 33-14, season-killing loss to the Ravens. “We knew coming in that we had the talent to be one
of the top-ranked defenses. We didn’t get it done, especially the last couple of weeks. But
what’s done is done.”
What’s done now is the Giants, thanks in large part to Perry Fewell’s defense, which was ranked
26th in the NFL one year ago and now has disintegrated before our eyes. What the Ravens did
to them – 533 yards of offense, 224 yards on the ground – was hardly an aberration. This
defense, in crunch time of the season, has given up 67 points in the last two games.
They entered the game ranked 28th in the NFL, and surely are headed lower. They didn’t sack
Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco once, and they have just two sacks in the last four games.
The Giants have won four Super Bowls in their history and each one has been powered by the
pass rush and the defense. But these Giants don’t play championship defense anymore.
“Not up to our standards by any means,” said safety Antrel Rolle. “For whatever reason we’re
just not going out there and being successful.”
It’s the “for whatever reason” part that’s most mind-boggling at this stage. The Giants were a bit
shorthanded on Sunday without defensive end Justin Tuck, but he’s been a shell of his old self
for most of this season. They also didn’t play cornerback Prince Amukamara much, but that
hardly mattered as Flacco virtually ignored rookie corner Jayron Hosley and targeted veteran
corner Corey Webster – who is owed a whopping $7 million next season, by the way – like a
duck in a carnival shooting game.
Webster has two championship rings and is in the midst of a disastrous season. Osi Umenyiora
and Jason Pierre-Paul were once part of one of the NFL’s most feared pass rushes and they’ve
mostly disappeared. Fewell, sensing the seemingly limitless limitations of his players, tried to
mix things up, substituting wildly, and even using a 4-4-2-1, linebacker-heavy scheme.
But it reeked of desperation. It didn’t work. And the Ravens turned out to be the better
schemers in the end.