Prince Amukamara had 2 tipped balls last week in practice, will he play Sunday?

In my gut I think Prince Amukamara will play Sunday against the Patriots. With the injury to Justin Tryon, the pressure to have Prince play is greater. Even with the Prince on the field the Giants will only have 3 legit corners, and cant play a legit dime, though the Giants will be able to play a legit nickel package. Most teams we face carry 5 or 6 corners on the roster, and our thinness at the position is extremely concerning.


Perry Fewell has been playing safeties in place of corners, sometimes Deon Grant will play down low, or Antrel Rolle will play corner on a slot receiver. Having Justin Tryon on the field meant Perry Fewell could have 3 legit corners line up with 2 or 3 safeties over the top in nickel and dime packages, and he could throw some different coverages out there to try and confuse the offense, and keeping the quarterback guessing as to weather he'll be throwing into man or zone coverages. This issue is part of the reason the Giants secondary has given up some big plays. On the other hand the secondary has shown that second half of the last 2 games.


I think we will see Prince Amukamara plat against slot receivers, especially in Nickel and dime situations. Coach Fewell likes that 4-2-5 alignment, and the Prince being on the field means Fewell can have his 4-2-5 and it can be effective.






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Justin Tryon suffers broken arm vs Miami

The young 4 year cornerback the Giants picked off of the Colts waiver wire Justin Tryon broke his arm while tackling Reggie Bush on Sunday. I'm guessing Tryon made an impact with Perry Fewell, enough so that the Giants signed Tryon and released 10 yr veteran Brian Williams. Tryon has been an undersized but solid corner for Washington and the Colts, playing man and zone coverage as well as being a gunner on special teams. In the 2010 Colts Jets game Tryon had 3 tackles and a pick for the Colts. Justin earned the trust of Perry Fewell and saw significant snaps in his 2nd and 3rd game with the Giants. Against Miami Justin had a very nice batted ball early in the game, before the injury.

From the Star Ledger:

"The gunners, as you know, in that situation have not always come through for us, and this kid did,” Coughlin said. “The other thing I appreciated and I take my hat off to him is I was standing close by as the doctors were showing him and talking to him about his injury, he didn’t want to hear about it. He said, ‘When can I play? Can I play again? Just put a cast on it and I’ll play.’ That was something to hear a young man talk like that, how badly he wanted to play.”

Coach has to love this guys attitude. And it gets better, Justin tweeted a picture of his x-ray at about 7pm EST. And at about 8pm he tweeted again.

2weeks to heal this bs... 1week get my legs back underneath me. I'm COMING BACK. Can heal doing the offseason not now! SORRY just not me!!

https://twitter.com/#!/JTryon30/status/131166904332201984

So Gaints fans, Justin Tryon is saying he'll be back in 3 weeks! And Justin the Giants need you back. Most teams carry 5-6 CB's on the roster, currently we have Aaron Ross, Cory Webster and Micheal Coe. Coe plays specials. Which means we cant play nickel or dime packages without moving Safeties into corner positions. And as good as Antrel Rolle is, hes not a corner, neither is Deon Grant. IF the Giants are going to make a playoff run we have to have 4 legit corners, so if Tryon comes back, the Prince will probably play in 2 weeks, we will have 4 corners the last month of the season.

Yes I know, the Patriots released Leigh Bodden and he cleared waivers. But according to Evan @WFAN the Giants are about 30k under the cap and Bodden signed a 4 year 22 million dollar contract in 2010. Can the Giants restructure enough money (maybe 2.2 million just for this season) to sign Bodden and stay under the cap. The Giants can go over the cap but will be penalized in the outgoing years. Bodden is solid corner and would give us depth.


Justin, get healthy, see you in 3 weeks.

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Justin Tryon plays larger roll vs Buffalo

I traded emails with Mike Garafolo of the Star Ledger concerning Justin Tryon. Mike told me that the play Tryon was credited with a tackle was a blown coverage by Antrel Rolle in corner roll, Rolle had the inside receiver, Tryon had the outside receiver. Tryon saw the throw going to the inside receiver, left his man and moved in to tackle the receiver right after making the catch, for a 14 yard gain. Justin saved some run after the catch, a heads up play by Tryon.

From Mike Garafolo.....Final 30 seconds of the first quarter:

As for the 60-yard TD pass from Fitzpatrick to WR Naaman Roosevelt, the Giants were trying to show man coverage and then rotate into a reverse Cover-2 look. By reverse, I mean Rolle jumped down to the cornerback spot in the flat and CB Justin Tryon became the safety. 

I missed seeing that Tryon was in the game this early, and as Mike Garafolo points out Perry Fewell was moving him around, this might be more responsibility than Brians WIlliams was given before being let go. This may speak to a higher level of trust, that Tryon is a smart guy and generated some trust right away with Perry Fewell.

The defense found trouble early on when they tried to mix up the looks. On one play, they showed Cover-2 and then rolled into Cover-3. It didn’t work. Later, they showed man and converted into a reverse Cover-2. It was a disaster. (See below.) Finally, Fewell trusted his DBs and allowed them to play tight, aggressive man coverage, even on the final drive when teams often drop back and play soft zones.

Theres a few things going on here, in the past we've gone into the nickel by having Antrel Rolle leave his deep safety spot and move to corner, lining up on the line of scrimmage. A linebacker goes out, and safety Deon Grant comes in.

Thats whats on film, teams know we do this, so we to try to confuse the opposing offense. This is what I thikn Garafolo is describing. Rolle comes to the line of scrimmage, but no LB comes in, Justin Tryon is in and plays deep. Rolling from a cover 2, to a cover 3 means somebody rolls out to deep cover so there are 3 deep safeties instead of 2.

Cover 3 in a nickle situation leaves 2 players up front and 3 deep, so the underneath throw might be a better choice for the QB. Unlike the standard Cover 2 nickle where you would see 3 corners up close and 2 safeties deep.

Hopefully what happens is you bait the quarterback to throw to an area he thinks has coverage he can take advantage of. And instead the quarterback throws into the strength of the secondary, possibly for a pick. Well it didn't work, so Perry Fewell went to man coverage.

And so early in the 3rd quarter, Rolle playing out of position, just like against Seattle when Aaron Ross and Antrel Rolle had a miscommunication, Rolle lets the receiver past him, the quarterback saw it and threw for a completion but Justin Tryon saw the throw and moved over to make the tackle, preventing some serious run after the catch.

I think Perry Fewell is liking what we've seen from Tryon, that 1) we can trust Tryon to perform to confuse coverages, and 2) maybe Tryon should be the standard nickle back, not Rolle. This keeps Rolle at his natural position safety, and allows the Giants to line up 3 competent cornerbacks at the line and bump and run in man coverage while keeping the Kenny Phillips Antrel Rolle tandam over the top, where both are excelling. The 4-2-5 cover 2 might, for some defenses, leave a vulnerability deep. But Kenny Phillips and Antrel Rolle are fast and make good reads. Having these 2 guys deep for the Giants might be as good as a cover 3 for other teams that dont have 2 quality safeties, because our 2 guys can cover a lot ground.

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Not the Prettiest Win, but we'll take it

What can I say about Cory Webster? Webster had what is probably his best game as a 7 year pro. 3 batted balls, 4 solo tackles and 2 picks. Aaron Ross had a quite day, 1 pass defense and 2 solo tackles. I saw Justin Tryon play early in the second half, he was covering the outside receiver, saw the ball being thrown to the inside receiver and moved over to make the tackle. IIRC I saw him play in at least 2 more plays.

And what can I say about Jake Ballard? Ballard has 15 catches for 273 yards, on track for over 800 yards and 6 touchdowns. Ballard has averaged a stunning 18.2 yards per catch, and has started to draw comparisons to Mark Bavaro as far as Ballards ability to carry 1-2-3 defensive players for extra yards.


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Flurry of roster moves for Giants

The Giants signed 4 year veteran cornerback Justin Tryon, Jim Cordle was moved from the practice Squad to the active roster. Receiver Brandon Stokely was released with an injury settlement while QB Sage Rosenfels was also let go. The Giants then signed 2nd year OT Selvish Capers to the practice squad.

This leaves the Giants with 54 players and they need to get down to 53 tomorrow.

I might regret going out on this limb by Wednesday, but here goes. At the end of preseason Coach Coughlin kept 2 tight ends, Travis Beckham a 3rd year pass catching TE and 2nd year TE Jake Ballard who is a sound blocker. Some Teams like to use a 1 RB, 2 TE set, some teams like the Giants last year used a lot of 2 RB sets, and if the blitz comes, the 2 RB's protect, if not at least one will go out for a pass route. If the Giants had wanted to run a 2 tight end set, I think Coach would have taken at least 3 true tight ends, Bear Pascoe is a good blocker, but more of a H-back slash tight end.

So if Coach is good with the single tight end set, Travis Beckham is expendable considering Jake Ballards production of late. In Arizona Ballard caught 3 passes for 33 yards and a touchdown catch in the corner of the endzone. Ballard almost had 2 touchdowns, if you remember the play- his knee was down and the ball was a foot or 2 short of the goal line. Ballard is on track for 28 catches and 480 yards, Kevin Boss like numbers, Boss last year had 30 catches and 500 yards.

If my logic holds true thru to Wednesday Beckham will be released.

Jim Cordle Played center at Ohio State and was on the Giants practice squad last year, so he's a known quantity and is a true center vs Kevin Boothe who filled in against Arizona when David Baas left the game. Boothe is a guard who can play center, so Cordle gives the Giants better experience at the center position should David Baas nor be able to go on Sunday.

 Justin Tryon is a 4 year veteran cornerback. He's 5'9" has 4.41 speed and a 35 inch vertical leap who has played for Washington and Indianapolis. The Colts waived Tryon last week. Tryon gives the Giants some sorely needed depth and can play nickel probably against a slot receiver. Tryon is just too short to go against taller outside receivers.


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EDIT: Veteran Cornerback Brian Williams was released Wednesday monrning. This makes sense after the Giants signed a younger corner Justin Tryon.