
The Giants defense is confident heading into the Super Bowl. It should be.
The last Super Bowl win doesn’t matter, but the Giants defense put up a dominant effort against New England for three quarters back in November.
New England’s first eight possessions in that game included zero points, a missed field goal, three turnovers, and four punts. The Giants had Tom Brady scrambled.
“He thrives on mismatches,” Tuck said of Brady on Tuesday via ESPNNewYork.com. “And I think we match up well with them. With those tight ends and Wes [Welker] and [Deion] Branch, they can pretty much go with any route that they want to go with creating mismatches. The people that we have in our secondary, we have safeties that play like corners and we can pretty much match up with those guys.”
It’s a great point. The Giants are fairly well equipped to deal with the Patriots tight ends because of Kenny Phillips, Antrel Rolle, and Deon Grant. All three did a nice job in coverage against New England in the first game. They were very physical.
“I think we match up extremely well. We have a great group of guys on our defensive side of the ball and they have a great group of guys on the offensive side of the ball,” Rolle said.
The Giants mixed coverages well against Brady. Their pass rush wasn’t dominant; they just played sound defense. Brady missed some throws until he figured out what the Giants were doing late in the game. New England exploded for 17 points in the fourth quarter.
We agree with the Giants defenders; they match up well.
They just have to hope that the first three quarters of the regular season matchup told us more than the last quarter.