The Giants really like digging a hole for themselves.
They trail 14-10 at halftime at the Meadowlands because they woke up on their last possession of the first half after getting thoroughly outplayed by the winless Dolphins for the first 27 minutes of the game. Eli Manning completed nine-of-10 passes, culminating in a touchdown pass to Mario Manningham with eight seconds to play to keep things from looking really ugly in New Jersey.
Other than that, there hasn’t been much to like about their effort. Brandon Jacobs backed up his complaints for more playing time by fumbling the first handoff he saw and then dropping a pass that couldn’t have been easier to catch. Hakeem Nicks also failed to reel in a nice looking pass from Manning in the second quarter and the Giants couldn’t get out of their own way with penalties on both sides of the ball. The offense helped kill the best Giants drive of the afternoon once they got into the red zone with a pair of flags that, along with a third-down incompletion, forced the G-Men to settle for three.
The first Dolphins touchdown came with help from a pass interference call on Aaron Ross and an inane unnecessary roughness penalty on Linval Joseph for piling onto a dead ball headfirst. The second score was aided by Antrel Rolle, who horse collared Reggie Bush at the end of a 38-yard run that featured a nifty spin move to help scoot his way down the field. The Giants defense also missed a slew of tackles, something that’s been a problem all season and one they apparently didn’t address during their bye week. Nor did they address their habit of putting themselves in a position to come back late in order to win games.
Miami’s second touchdown came on a one-yard run by Moore on fourth down, a welcome show of aggressiveness from Tony Sparano. He’s got nothing to lose by going all out to score touchdowns instead of field goals, so it was nice to see him realize that and make the call to go for the jugular when it presented itself.
He’ll need to keep up that level of urgency. This is a team that blew a 13-point lead in a matter of minutes to a Broncos team with a lot less talent than the Giants and the way Manning sliced through the defense before the half was a reminder of how easily this game can go the other way.