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Perry Fewell paused a moment before the answer came to him.

How does a defensive coordinator react to a defense that finishes 31st in total defense?

How do you move on from being No. 28 against the pass (254 yards/game)? How do you forget about being No. 25 against the run (129 yards/game)?

Analytical sites ranked their pass coverage among the most suspect in football. Sack numbers dropped as injuries mounted. The Giants gave up more than 30 points four times and surrendered more than 300 passing yards on three occasions. Needless to say, Fewell remembers.

"It never goes out of my mind," he said. "You never want to be ranked last or near last in anything you compete at and as a professional, you want to improve each and every year. We’re very motivated to erase that number and be a top defense in the league."

Enter Dallas on Sunday, a team that registered a season-high 415 passing yards against the Giants in a 29-24 shootout win for Fewell and Co. last year.

In both matchups against their division rivals, they gave up more than 430 total yards. In one, they gave up 18 catches to tight end Jason Witten, the most in the modern era for a player at that position, and the third-most for one player in NFL history.

Throughout the offseason, he’s watched the team load up the defensive line, adding Cullen Jenkins, Shaun Rogers, Mike Patterson and Johnathan Hankins to stop the run. They brought back Aaron Ross and Terrell Thomas on defense and snagged a safety late in the draft.

All of this in hopes that last year was an aberration.

"For us as a defense, it’s quite motivating," Fewell said. "We feel like we can definitely improve on that and we will improve on that."

From the inside, Justin Tuck could see the intensity fade after a bad game. One loss might spawn another. One negative story might linger longer than it should have.

"We need that first-game enthusiasm every week," Tuck told The Star-Ledger. "We let whatever parameters around the game, whatever was in the news for us that week, weigh on us a little more than it did in the past instead of going out and saying, ‘You know what? Whatever happened last game happened last game.’ "

Fewell, from his perspective, saw it both ways. Schematically, the Giants have experimented with more defensive fronts and formations this preseason.

Tuck has been used as a stand-up linebacker in some looks, and Keith Rivers has hugged the line in others, mimicking a traditional 4-3 under look.

Mathias Kiwanuka was moved back to solely playing defensive end, and the coaching staff has toyed around with more effective ways to mix in their new reserve of big-bodied tackles alongside their speed rushers.

"We’ve got bigger butts," Fewell said. "Shaun Rodgers is in there. Cullen Jenkins. The butts are a lot bigger. So yeah, it looks different."

All of it, in an effort to avoid feeling the way they did once the season ended, as unforgettable as that might be.

"We have to do better than we did last year," Tuck said. "Good or bad (against the Cowboys) we have to focus on Denver, we can’t focus on what happened in Dallas. We can’t be focused on what happened in New England two weeks ago."

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The New York Giants finished 31st in the league in defense a season ago. Perry Fewell aims to change that this season.


Blitz? New York Giants' defensive coordinator Perry Fewell doesn't know what the word 'blitz' means, does he? At least that is what you would believe if you listened to the constant moaning and groaning from Giants' fans who have long seen Fewell as too conservative in his defensive play-calling.

From what the Giants displayed in the preseason, and from what Fewell said on Thursday, it sounds like the blitz might be a bigger part of the Giants' defensive arsenal this season.
'We've got bigger butts. Shaun Rogers is in there. Cullen Jenkins ... The butts are a lot bigger.' - Perry Fewell

"We have some good blitzers on the edge. We believe that not only just the guys up front, but our guys at linebacker can help us improve on those (sack) numbers. We’re not just putting that on the front guys. We’re putting that on the whole defense to improve those numbers," Fewell said. "We just want to be aggressive. We want to take the fight to our opponent and we'll use all the weapons we can possibly use in order to be an aggressive defense."

The impression has long been that Fewell prefers to rush four and uses the blitz only as a last resort. Do the numbers back that up? The Giants rushed four 68 percent of the time in 2012, according to the Football Outsiders Almanac. There were 11 NFL teams who did so more often, but that is still a high percentage of the time. They rushed three 5.7 percent of the time, meaning they blitzed only 26.3 percent of the time.

The Giants fell to 33 sacks (22nd in the league) in 2012 after registering 48 sacks (3rd in the league) in 2011. Overall, the Giants -- usually one of the better defensive teams in the league -- placed an embarrassing 31st in yardage allowed last season.

Fewell admitted that last season gnaws at him.

"It never goes out of my mind. You never want to be ranked last or near last in anything you compete at and as a professional, you want to improve each and every year. We're very motivated to erase that number and be a top defense in the league," Fewell said. "We feel like we can definitely improve on that and we will improve on that."

An intent to be more aggressive appears to be part of the plan to make that happen. There are also the changes at linebacker, where there will be three new starters -- Dan Connor, Spencer Paysinger and Keith Rivers.

There are also massive changes at defensive tackle, which the Giants hope will lead to improved run defense. Chris Canty, Rocky Bernard and Marvin Austin are out. Cullen Jenkins, Shaun Rogers, Mike Patterson and Johnathan Hankins are in. That led to this classic quote from Fewell.

"We've got bigger butts. Shaun Rogers is in there. Cullen Jenkins ... The butts are a lot bigger," Fewell said. "I think it's a huge factor in helping us be a better run defense. The mass, the size, the strength is noticeably different for us."

The secondary lost Stevie Brown to injury, but has gained veterans Aaron Ross and Terrell Thomas. There is also veteran Ryan Mundy, signed as a free agent, who will take Brown's spot. Thomas will play the nickel spot, allowing Antrel Rolle to play a true safety position.

"We think he's ready," said Fewell in regards to Thomas, who has missed two season with knee injuries. "We're not going to shy away from putting him on the field. We believe that he's going to go out and prove himself and we like the way he's looked in practice as well as the preseason games."

The development of third-year man Prince Amukamara, a 2011 first-round pick, could also be instrumental in helping the defense.

"We really believe that he has benefitted from going through an OTA and being healthy during the OTAs and going through an offseason and going through training camp taking a lot of reps and not missing any practices and we've seen him improve more and more every day," Fewell said. "We've seen his confidence get better and better every day. We think in the preseason games he's responded extremely well, so we just look for him to keep growing and developing into the player that he can be."

There were positive signs during the preseason. The Giants allowed 85 points (21.25 per game) and had a +26.0 rating from Pro Football Focus, 10th overall.

We begin to find out on Sunday if Fewell's promises, the changes in personnel, and the preseason success translate into a better 2013 performance.

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IRVING, Texas — The stage definitely is set for a big night by the Giants’ running game Sunday.

It looks as if Big Blue will only have themselves to blame if the ground game fails to take off against the Cowboys in light of what injuries have done — and are continuing to do — to the Dallas defensive line.

Backup defensive tackle Ben Bass dislocated his shoulder in practice yesterday and will miss up to four weeks, only adding to the list of bruised and battered linemen on that side of the ball for the Cowboys.

Bass’ injury came just moments before standout defensive end Anthony Spencer revealed his ailing knee had suffered a setback last weekend. Spencer didn’t practice Thursday and might not be ready to play again until Week 3, at the earliest.

The developments with Bass and Spencer only added to the Cowboys’ line woes. They already were having to face the Giants on Sunday night without top defensive tackle Jay Ratliff, who is on the Physically Unable to Perform list due to a groin injury.

As a result, the Cowboys — who also will be contending with a switch to the 4-3 under new defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin — could end up having journeyman George Selvie make his first career start at left end.

Giants safety Antrel Rolle predicted this week Cowboys tight end Jason Witten wouldn’t be allowed to repeat his epic, 18-catch performance against them in a 29-24 Dallas loss last October. Rolle found a co-signer Thursday in Witten himself.

“I probably won’t [repeat it],” Witten said. “That was an interesting game. We were just on a roll, feeling good, and it felt like regardless the coverage, we could find a completion.”

Witten said he benefited that day from soft coverage by the Giants after they jumped out to a 23-0 lead. He ended up setting the NFL single-game record for catches by a tight end.

“You got to use that tape and say, ‘OK, how are they going to play us?’ ’’ Witten said. “Because obviously they did a lot of [soft coverage] because they were ahead so much. We got a lot of respect for them on defense.”

Dez Bryant assured a Cowboys victory over the Giants to The Post Thursday, but coach Jason Garrett is acting as if Big Blue’s 4-0 record in Dallas’ new stadium doesn’t even exist this week.

Garrett said he hasn’t mentioned the Giants’ Dallas winning streak to his players and has no plans to do so before Sunday night.

Cornerback Brandon Carr agreed, saying (unconvincingly): “You bringing up [the streak] is the first I’ve heard it mentioned this week.”

The Giants have to love this statistic: The Cowboys are 1-9 on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” since the start of the 2010 season

Quote (xnozx. @ Sep 6 2013 03:05pm)

Being athletic has nothing to do with running a fast offense lol, no idea what you're talking about 

Gilbride has to get the plays in A LOT sooner.... Eli is always looking over to the damn sideline for the play call.



...................Drives me nuts!!!

Quote (Grizzy_Green @ Sep 6 2013 04:56pm)

Not talking about athletic ability lol..I played quarterback myself so I understand that. I was just making a joke that Eli's kind of out there.

Quote (xnozx. @ Sep 6 2013 04:57pm)

Oh lmao yea didn't know what you were referring to haha

Quote (Grizzy_Green @ Sep 6 2013 04:58pm)

I mean look at him in that commercial gif thing...looks high as fuck in that last part rofl

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Dez Bryant is tired of seeing the Giants win in Dallas and plans on doing something about it Sunday.

The Giants have owned the House that Jerry Built ever since it opened, running up a 4-0 record at AT&T Stadium (formerly Cowboys Stadium). Eli Manning has his signature on the visiting locker-room wall, and Jason Pierre-Paul has put together a highlight reel of plays on the turf there.

And Dez Bryant has had about enough of that. The one Cowboy who just may have a right to talk trash to the Giants finally broke his silence on Thursday, when he said that the Giants’ streak of wins at Dallas will end Sunday night in the teams’ season opener.

“We’ll see,” the receiver said. “From the looks of it, it’s not going to happen. We’re ready to roll.”

Just in case everyone forgot how fierce this Giants-Cowboys rivalry truly is, Bryant delivered a powerful reminder. Yes, the Giants have completely erased the Cowboys’ idea of a home-field advantage in Arlington, and they’ve won seven of their last 12 games overall against Jerry Jones’ team. Plus the Giants have won two Super Bowls since the 2007 season, while Dallas hasn’t come close.

You’d think that might shake the Cowboys’ confidence just a bit, right? But it hasn’t over the last two years. There was big-mouth owner Jones last summer, telling fans at a training-camp rally that they should come watch Dallas “beat the New York Giants’ asses” in Texas, only to watch his team fall again, 29-24, on its home field when the two teams faced off in October.

And even before Bryant’s rant, there was quarterback Tony Romo on Wednesday, insisting that the Cowboys “don’t talk about” the Giants’ dominance in Dallas because “it’s a brand new football team that we have” and “we feel strongly about our football team this year,” and even daring to take a shot at the Giants over their entire approach to the 2013 season.

The Giants’ home field, MetLife Stadium, will be the site of February’s Super Bowl, much like when the Cowboys hosted the big game during the 2010 season. But while the Giants are keeping one eye on the prize this season — a fact underscored by the Super Bowl countdown clock in the locker room — Romo advocated a different approach (although he stayed away from a question about the clock).

“I think more than anything, if you’re already thinking about January or February right now, you’re probably not doing what you need to do for September,” he said. “I think for us, you put your head down and you go to work.”

Not that Romo’s approach actually worked, of course; the Cowboys missed the playoffs that season, finishing 6-10.

The thing about Bryant’s promise, however, is that he just may be good enough to help Dallas back it up. He manhandled the Big Blue secondary last season, racking up nine catches for 195 yards in two games.

And in that last game on the Jerry World turf, he nearly played Giant killer, catching a long TD pass from Romo while falling out of bounds. The play was at first ruled a touchdown, giving the Cowboys a 30-29 lead before the point-after, but replays showed that the fingers on Bryant’s right hand had landed out of bounds first, and the play was overturned. The Giants won, 29-24.

Bryant said that play is “out the window now,” just like the Giants’ dominance on Dallas’ home field is “in the past.” And he called the Giants secondary that he torched “well-experienced” and “great.”

He never mentioned the fact that the Giants’ secondary just may be vulnerable, and that Big Blue will try to cover him with a young defensive back (Prince Amukamara), a cornerback who is coming off back-to-back seasons lost to ACL surgery (Terrell Thomas) and another cornerback who was burned throughout 2012 (Corey Webster).

But he did say that if the Giants do have weaknesses, the Cowboys will find them.

“Wherever they’re lacking, you’ve got to take advantage of it,” he said. “I think we’re going to continue to keep trying to figure that out, and that’s what we’re going to go after.”