Cue the Critics

The Giants were absolutely humiliated in Cincinnati on Sunday. The tone was set on the opening drive of the game when Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green waltzed into the end zone untouched. The opening blown coverage was the first of many mistakes during a long afternoon of pain for Giants fans. The offensive line got blown off the ball on every snap, the offense didn't protect the ball, and the defense was a joke to start the game. To make matters worse, the Giants had several opportunities to change the momentum of the game and failed to seize any one of them.

Getting into the details of the loss is painful for me, but there's a few things I have to address: 1) David Diehl was a complete joke. The entire line as a whole struggled, but Diehl was downright disgraceful, and as a result Eli took some abuse. Sean Locklear is clearly a better option for the Oline. 2) Running back Ahmad Bradshaw for some reason still has no idea when to protect the football. In a crucial situation, with the Giants knocking on the door of a turn around score down 17-6, Bradshaw initially had eight yards on a carry and decided to fight for more yardage. His toughness is an admirable quality, but an eight yard run on first down is nothing anyone will complain about. Instead, Bradshaw tries to carry three men on his back, and while doing so he shows no regard for the football. It was forced out immediately, and the drive was ruined. Andre Brown deserves to start. 3) The receivers played terribly as well. The only one with a credible day was Hakeem Nicks, aside from that nobody showed up to play. Martellus Bennett failing to get his feet down at the end of the half to reel in a score was infuriating. It was a big time pass from Eli as the clock was winding down with no timeouts, and all he had to do was drag his feet a second earlier. That's a lazy play, and it cost the Giants big time. Cruz was out of it as well, he did virtually nothing the whole game, and failed to reel in a touchdown in the fourth quarter after a picture perfect pass from Manning. You can read an accurate breakdown of the Giants passing woes here. 4) To defend the Bengals passing game A.J. Green has to be double teamed on every play. Because aside from Green, there is no passing threat on the Bengals worth sweating about. On the embarrassing opening drive, it appeared Corey Webster was anticipating safety help from Stevie Brown in a cover 2 type situation but never got it. It's a big time blunder on the young Stevie Brown, but cover 2 is also a risky play call against a seriously valid deep threat in A.J. Green.

That was a painful recollection of an utterly awful football game for the Giants, but now it is time to look ahead for the Gmen. The Giants will limp into the bye week with a record of 6-4. There once very comfortable lead is now much closer, and the Giants still have to play the Falcons, Saints, Packers, Ravens, Eagles and Redskins. As usual for the time of the year, the Giants have made it much harder on themselves and the critics will begin to sing their song as the pressure piles up for the team. This is a routine the Giants are all too familiar with, and for some reason seems to happen almost every year with this team under Tom Coughlin. Over the years of brilliant first halves and sub par second halves, the Giants have blundered so much that they've missed the playoffs on a few occasions, and they've also bounced back so well they've won two Super Bowls.

Is this year any different? The Giants have real concerns (listed above) but the answer is no. The Giants will gear up and play their hearts out for the best competition against teams like the Falcons, Packers, and Ravens, but the margin for error is officially much smaller than it was two weeks ago. This week the Cowboys play the Browns, and have a chance to gain some ground in the division race with the Giants on a bye.  As Giants fans, we are used to this dance of the ups and downs of a regular season. But due to a New York media market that is hungry for any controversy whatsoever, the murmurs of choking and the criticism of Coughlin will now be cued once again, as they do every year.

The latest controversy came from that of no other then Giants quarterback legend Phil Simms. Wonder-Phil is known for arguably the most impressive stat ever, and that's 22/25 completed passes (with 2 dropped passes) on the path to a Giants victory in Super Bowl XXI. But for some reason the same stupid question about whether Eli Manning is an elite quarterback or not came up and Simms flat out said he doesn't think so. Simms explained that he felt elite quarterbacks have the ability to win games purely by themselves, no matter what. He explained he felt players like Brees (a player on a team without a winning record), Rodgers (another example of a team that's struggled a bit), and Brady (the player Eli out dueled on the worlds biggest stage twice), are more elite than Eli Manning.

With Simms' "winning quarterback" logic, the NFL's elite quarterbacks consist of Jay Cutler, Matt Schaub, and Matt Ryan. But he failed to mention any of those names. The point is, why do all these ex-giants (Toomer, Barber, Shockey, Strahan, Warner and now Simms), choose to criticize the Giants after they've left? Yes, they are in sports media fields and are entitled to say whatever they want, but there's just no coincidence as to why this keeps happening. It's because controversial stories, especially those involving ex-players, are big news and therefore big money! I'll go as far as to say it's a complete conspiracy and an attempt at media coverage, by making a story out of virtually nothing.

Heck, the passing game has struggled. That can't be denied when Eli hasn't thrown a touchdown pass in almost 100 attempts making it a career low for him. But any Giants fan will tell you the passing game is struggling as a group, as a TEAM. Pointing out Eli and bringing up the elite/non-elite garbage is just ridiculous, especially from Phil Simms. Eli quite frankly is a better quarterback already then Simms was in his entire career. It's all pish posh man. Another example of the media world trying to meddle with the purity of sports teams, instead of telling the stories as they happen for the public. What a crazy concept.

As Giants fans, it should be our duty to tune out stupidity like this and stick to what we know: the football. So what we should take out of this game is the Giants have some work to do in this bye week, but quite frankly it's nothing they can't handle. After a week of rest, expect Eli and the offense to come out guns hot against the Packers. Because Eli's taken enough senseless criticism throughout his career, but he's always just cared about one thing: THE FOOTBALL.

So Giants fans, in the wake of the teams recent struggles, the adversity that has followed, and the unnecessary criticism that Eli Manning knows far too well, just try and remember it's about the freaking football man. The Giants have been down this road before. It's tough to go an entire season without a breaking point where the team begins to struggle. But now the Giants have an opportunity to do what they do best, and that's to overcome the adversity that's been laid upon them. Forget the fact that it's a Giants legend and complete garbage, just remember that if there's one thing the Giants have done under Coughlin it's that they've embraced the critics.

Because the Giants, especially Eli, feed off that doubt. That total disregard for the respect the Giants truly deserve. The Giants will turn things around, there's no doubt in my mind.

But until then, cue the critics. Because the Giants don't need love from the media, just from each other.