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EDIT: Figure this will work well as a game thread since it's on point...

What a huge break if the suspension stands...

A yearlong ankle injury could not keep Plaxico Burress out of the New York Giants’ lineup last season. The lack of a telephone call this week apparently is going to cost him a game and more than $235,000.

Less than a month after handing the man who caught the winning pass in the Super Bowl a new $35 million contract, the Giants on Wednesday suspended Burress for a game for missing a practice and not calling to explain his absence.

Burress’ agent insisted the nine-year veteran had an undisclosed family emergency on Monday and will appeal the ban to the NFL Players Association.

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/26868096/

if you want to be the best gotta beat the best

well tall receivers are a weakness of ours with our DB's. Can't wait to see a healthy team for us, too.

Tall receivers definitely concern me, so I'm happy that one of the best ones in the league is going to be sitting on his ass instead of destroying our secondary.

Speaking of WRs, it appears Branch and Engram will be in for half the snaps for the game. Will they hit the ground running or will this week be merely a chance for them to get their feet wet and be more decoys than anything else?

What a huge win this would be if the 'Hawks can pull it off...would sort of put everyone on notice that the 'Hawks are not only the team to beat in the NFC West, but also a legit Superbowl contender.

I'm still getting over that we're not 2-1. That 49er loss still smarts.

So...maybe the Seahawks can do something completely unexpected, even shocking to me, by winning a game on the east coast, on a Sunday morning, against the Super Bowl champions, and make up for that 49er loss.

Doubtful. I'm all but expecting a loss here. Very low expectations. Meaning I won't get too p*ssed off when they lose. The only exception being if they take me right to the edge of winning, and then kick me in the nuts by losing on some freak play, penalty, defensive breakdown, or late in the game turnover.

Come to think of it, that's probably what will happen. LOL

Great...Hass goes down holding his knee in the first series! Hopefully it's not serious if he's back up walking around the sideline.

KingInExile wrote:Great...Hass goes down holding his knee in the first series! Hopefully it's not serious if he's back up walking around the sideline.

Yeah, and the ball was away. And the Giants had a guy hit him high, and one hit him right in the knee.

Kelly Jennings gets **** burned again deep. And no one can tackle Jacobs. Bring on the ass kicking.

Engram looks fine, but Branch looks like he's protecting his right knee a bit.

Ugh...this is not looking pretty. Hmm...what else do I have to do today?

No kidding. Manning has all the time in the world back there. And no one appears able to tackle Jacobs.

Another deep pass completed. Wilson freaking bit on nothing and had no help deep.

Yet another early east coast game where we look completely incompetent, even half asleep in the first half. We can't seem to put an end to this unpleasant phenomenon.

I can't believe how ineffective the Seahawks' linebackers have been today. Peterson has missed a few tackles, Tatupu has repeatedly been taken out of plays, and Hill has been very quiet. No wonder the Giants have been able to get yardage in such big chunks.

Sweezo wrote:What a huge win this would be if the 'Hawks can pull it off...would sort of put everyone on notice that the 'Hawks are not only the team to beat in the NFC West, but also a legit Superbowl contender.

Reality bites back. The Hawks D is nowhere near Superbowl worthy. Team to beat in the NFC Worst? I doubt whichever team ends up winning this pathetic division will be serving much notice to the rest of the league come playoff time. Still, I’d take it. When do we play the Rams again? Dare to dream.

oh man fox switched to a "more competitive game". Sad.

Initial thoughts: Engram looked good, we missed our grinding running game in favor of letting Billy Mcgrocerybagger drop about 4 passes. Branch looked gimpy.

And....
Our secondary sucks badly. Oh man.. I would keep Trufant and Babs and thats about it. Ruskell's undersized secondary really sucks.

I don't know what to think about a defense that has all but a split personality depending upon whether they are playing at home or on the road? There's just something psychologically weak about that. Most of the time a team is more dependent upon their defense on the road than at home. You want to keep their crowd out of the game, try to keep them from establishing a rhythm, keep it close so that your offense can eke out a win against a decent team.

Contrarily, it seems to be our defense that folds on the road. I don't have a plethora of statistics to bear this out, but I would be somewhat shocked if they didn't bear out this impression of mine this year and the previous two seasons, by and large.

All's not lost here. I'm much more down at the 49er loss. I feel we gave that game away, and should be 2-2 here. If we were so, given what we've had to deal with this year, I'd say things weren't too bad. But being 1-3 now, I have that impression that we're going to be struggling to be an 8-8 or 9-7 team that barely misses the playoffs, or enters the playoffs from a pretty hapless division as the 5th or 6th seed at best. Certainly not a contender.

I've got that half-step-above-mediocrity, or somewhere between slight-to-dramatic-implosion range pretty firmly fixed in my mind as the possible expectation range. I mean, what dramatically improves here?

Also, it seems to me (I could be wrong about this statistically) that we seem so hopeless on 3rd down and passing situations the last few years. I just never feel like were going to complete a pass for a first down in these situations. It seems like a small miracle when we do.

Ugh...

we missed our grinding running game in favor of letting Billy Mcgrocerybagger drop about 4 passes.

The Giants didn’t have to punt in the first half. How can you expect a running game under those circumstances?

Danny Darko wrote:oh man fox switched to a "more competitive game". Sad.

Initial thoughts: Engram looked good, we missed our grinding running game in favor of letting Billy Mcgrocerybagger drop about 4 passes. Branch looked gimpy.

And....
Our secondary sucks badly. Oh man.. I would keep Trufant and Babs and thats about it. Ruskell's undersized secondary really sucks.

Babineaux sucks. As a cover corner, he can't cover. As a safety, I have no idea what he really adds to the team. He has a knack for making big plays...but also has a big knack for giving them up, or making a mistake that leads to then having to make a big play.

Dick Tate wrote:

Sweezo wrote:What a huge win this would be if the 'Hawks can pull it off...would sort of put everyone on notice that the 'Hawks are not only the team to beat in the NFC West, but also a legit Superbowl contender.

Reality bites back. The Hawks D is nowhere near Superbowl worthy. Team to beat in the NFC Worst? I doubt whichever team ends up winning this pathetic division will be serving much notice to the rest of the league come playoff time. Still, I’d take it. When do we play the Rams again? Dare to dream.

Unfortunately. I can't say I expected them to win today, but I did expect them to be competitive. Which was rather foolish, apparently.

Dick Tate wrote:

we missed our grinding running game in favor of letting Billy Mcgrocerybagger drop about 4 passes.

The Giants didn’t have to punt in the first half. How can you expect a running game under those circumstances?

How does that have anything to do with our running game? If anything it shows that instead of giving up 30+ in the first half, we could have tried to control the ball longer and keep the Giants offense off the field. I saw Jones look like he could get the job done, and I think this is a case where Duckett could have been useful.

Jones ran 9 times in the 1st half, it wasn't like they were ignoring him. Didn't look like much was happening with him to me (on one series, he had a run on first down that was for a loss of a yard). Are you suggesting he should've been used on some of the many 3rd & 5+ situations? They tried him once on 3rd & 4 and he came up short. The Giants pretty much put the game away after that series.