The Giants (1-0) beat the Redskins (0-1) 17-6 Thursday night. They have now won 11 of their last 16 against Washington.
New York dominated the first half on both offense and defense, but was unable to pull away because they were held to three field goals. John Carney was called on to hit 24 yard field goal in the first quarter, a 25 yard field goal in the second, and a 47 yard field goal also in the second.
Eli Manning and Plaxico Burress were on the same page all night. Burress had 10 receptions for 133 yards, while Manning passed for 216 yards and went 19/35.
Steve Smith was Manning’s go-to-guy on third down, but didn’t see much action other than that.
Kevin Boss wasn’t involved in the passing game at all, which has me a bit worried. Boss only had two catches during the preseason, too.
New York’s offense started the game off sharp, scoring on their first four possessions. They were sluggish after that and started calling plays conservatively and didn’t score again.
Brandon Jacobs looked very strong. Just ask LaRon Landry, who took a huge hit and had to take a play off just to catch his breath. Jacobs rushed for 116 yards on 21 carries. However, Jacobs picked up where he left last year and struggled catching the ball. He had at least three drops in the first half. Derrick Ward also played and had 9 carries for 39 yards. Interestingly, Ahmad Bradshaw didn’t receive any carries after struggling a bit during the preseason.
The defense looked very sharp. Justin Tuck broke into the backfield to take down Jason Campbell for the sack on Washington’s first offensive play of the game. So much for the defensive line being weak without Osi and Strahan. By the way, the introduction by Strahan was simply amazing. It was great to see him lift the Lombardi trophy.
Mathias Kiwanuka was injured on the last play of the game, but it’s reported that he will be ok. Chris Samuels grabbed Kiwanuka’s leg when Kiwanuka was in pursuit of Campbell. It looked like an unnecessary play by Samuels and Justin Tuck agrees.
“I wish I could repeat the words that were coming out of my mouth, but you can’t put them on TV,” said Tuck. “The last thing we can have is a very important guy like Kiwanuka go out. To see him up and walking around was encouraging.”
Jason Campbell was completely shut down in the first half. Campbell completed his first pass of the night with 1:19 left in the second quarter on a 13 yard pass to Antwaan Randle El.
Aaron Ross was great in coverage. He ran step for step with Santana Moss in single coverage downfield and was able to swat away a long pass from Campbell.
Clinton Portis was held to 84 yards on 23 carries, which I consider a great accomplishment with the way he was played against us in the past.
The Giants will play the St. Louis Rams next week on Sunday, September 13th at 1:00.
