Lessons to be learnt from the Giants' Superbowl Victory

2nd rounders has to stop. Mario M will be a free agent after this year, maybe a nice pick up? Even though he can frustrate the heck out if everyone with the easily drops. The giants secondary is mediocre is due to Terrell T being lost in the preseason. Prince A missing time along adjusting to the speed of the game. A nice rotation at both the dend and Dt would be very nice.

pass rush should be the number one priority. I hated seeing other teams qbs have all day to throw on us. I wish we had the cap room to bring my man Mario Williams back home…. :/

I would also include the phase of turnover reduction into this. It goes without saying but if you reduce the amount of turnovers it would increase the scoring opportunities. We know that the offense can move the ball, without turnovers they would be practically unstoppable. At the same time it would greatly assist our subpar defense.

I was happy to see a team with such a strong defence win the super bowl. The packers, saints and patriots have turned this league into a passing, unimaginative series of shootouts. The giants victory is a morale victory for how football is meant to be played. Its a team game and the giants have been excellent on offence, defence and special teams. That punt was a thing of beauty.

I assume the writer meant ‘berth’.

Here’s my take on the Panthers next season.

Step 1: Get back the players they lost to injury. Jeff Otah instantly makes the line good to great again (and it wasn’t too shabby anyhow). Question is if he can ever stay healthy a full season. Getting Ron Edwards and Jon Beason back should instantly make the defense better.

Step 2: Get another big offensive weapon in free agency. Yes. The defense was the worse unit. But y’know… defense doesn’t get you to the playoffs anymore. New England went all the way to the SB with the worst defense. Green Bay and New Orleans had horrible defenses, and the Giants were in the lower third of the league. Get the best non-diva receiver available as a free agent. I would actually go for Robert Meacham if he’s not resigned by New Orleans, but Mario Manningham or Wes Welker would be good too.

Step 3: Add defensive help in the draft. And if there’s a guy you want, jump up to get him. If you think Morris Claiborne will be a great pro, then go get him. But make sure he will be. Don’t pull another Armanti Edwards move… Alternatively, go get Justin Blackmon if you have the firepower to do so in the draft room (I don’t think they do). Adding Blackmon would make the offense truly scary, and as I mentioned.. the defense probably gets better just by getting injured players back, and offense is what gets you to the playoffs now.

I know that people will argue that “defense wins championships” and while the Giants defense was better than the Patriots’ defense, it still wasn’t a great (or even good) defense most of the season. They may also point out that many of Carolina’s games were lost after Carolina had a lead, and therefore it was the defense’s fault. I have a different view. Early in the season, the coaching staff and Cam Newton didn’t know how to “go for the jugular”. They would come out strong, open up a lead, go into halftime and then suddenly they looked conservative as if playing not to lose. Either they didn’t trust Newton early in the year, or something else, because it would happen like clockwork. Innovative, daring offense in the first half. Get the lead. Then go conservative. In today’s NFL you have to keep piling on the points unless you have a truly dominant defense. By the end of the season it looked like they’d figured that out. So my preference is for them to make SURE the offense is as good as you can make it for Cam Newton, and then spruce up the defense.

Pass rush: Agreed, and wholeheartedly so. I still feel that it isn’t entirely the fault of the DEs, though — we never enjoyed any real success when it came to pressure up the middle, so it’s little wonder Johnson, Hardy and the rest had so much trouble trying to get pressure on the QB. I still don’t feel comfortable with our defensive tackle situation, but I’m at a loss for what to do there. I’d say look at free agency, but I don’t know if anyone worthy is available, let alone have an idea of what we’re looking at in terms of cap space for once free agency begins.

Get receivers who demand attention: I’m torn here. The fan-boy in me wants to see the talent we have show something that will make them truly a complimentary WR #2 to Smitty (if not find a potential replacement in-house for when Smitty does retire). The practical side, however, admits that we don’t have that luxury nearly as much as we’d like. Even having the Shockey/Olsen TE tandem didn’t really help Smitty much, nor did J-Stew’s receiving, so I can agree that we need a WR to be that true #2 (or better yet, a #2 who can graduate to #1 when Smitty hangs up his cleats). As with DT, though, I don’t know that we can do much of anything here in free agency.

Improve special teams: This, I’ve been preaching for the last few weeks. If there’s any real criticism I have of Rivera’s first year as HC, it was how much we lost from our special teams in preseason cuts. That, plus our abysmal injury luck, really killed us this season, and it was only towards the end of the season that the second- and third-string guys who suddenly found themselves on the field (when they weren’t pulling double-duty on defense) finally seemed to gel together. If all else fails, we need to find some special teams specialists (either through the later rounds of the draft or some inexpensive acquisitions via free agency) to bolster things, and at least give AE one last chance on punt returns to either really wow us, or finally put an end to the AE experiment (even though I do want to see him compete for #3 QB, but that’s me wanting to see the pick be worth at least a little something before we seriously consider parting ways with him).

Final thoughts: Just at a glance, we need help at a number of positions. Defensive tackle, offensive line (on the Otah side, because I don’t have faith that Otah can actually make it all the way through a season without injuring himself yet again, and I definitely lack faith in Bell right now), secondary (mostly safety, if only to give Godfrey and Martin some competition for their jobs, because I actually think CB is pretty well-covered), a little LB help (especially if we lose Connor, and some effort should go into trying to keep Senn on the roster), and a #2 WR. I don’t feel like we can meet all those needs this draft and free agency, much as I wish we could, but every little bit will help.