Giants Week 2 Recap - "The Heart Attack."

Manning threw for 510 yards and is still so handsome.

I don't even know what to say about that roller coaster ride of a football game, but I do know that I dodged a near heart attack. After being down nearly the entire game, the feisty G-Men, that we all have grown accustomed to, showed some of their resiliency that helped them win a Super Bowl last year. The 41-34 victory in this shootout was full of big plays both on offense and defense and might have been just what the doctor ordered for this team.

If you want to know what happened in this game, you have to look no further than the play of Eli Manning. His first half was highlighted by 3 interceptions and a bunch of failed opportunities in the red zone resulting in a bunch of field goals and the Buccaneers up 24-13. In the fourth quarter, Manning led the Giants to another one of his patented fourth quarter comebacks by throwing for 243 yards and two touchdowns and 25 points. His final stats were 31-51 and 510 yards with 3 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Take away the picks and that is a ridiculous game.

Obviously if Manning is throwing for all of these yards, someone has to be on the receiving end. Like nasm30 mentioned earlier, the dynamic duo of Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz combined for 21 catches, 378 yards, and 2 touchdowns. They totally rose to the occasion after the new Cowboys secondary had their way with the two of them last week. Martellus Bennett made up for his horrible first three quarters with a huge 33 yard touchdown catch late in the game. Bennett needs to be more of a factor on third downs because with teams now starting to respect Cruz, the middle of the field will be wide open.

The final positive of the day individually for the Giants, was the emergence of backup running back Andre Brown. Many people, including myself, didn't expect much out of anyone not named Ahmad Bradshaw and David Wilson in the run game this season. Today, Bradshaw went down with a neck injury, and Wilson has been virtually ineffective so far, so Brown had an opportunity to get some carries. He made the most of them. The explosive back ran for 71 yards on 13 carries and a touchdown, while also providing a much needed spark to a nonexistent run game.

The defense looked horrible once again as Josh Freeman exposed the weak secondary over and over and over again. The pass rush that has been the backbone of the defense still is not there and for some reason Michael Coe is still allowed on the field. How many more times can this guy get burned before Coughlin realizes he should not be in the NFL? Prince Amukamara, the highly touted former first rounder needs to play next week, and show that he wants to be on the field. He has been hurt, but it's football and everyone is hurt in one way or another.

With everything being said about the defense, the most concerning part of today's game was definitely the injuries. Running back Ahmad Bradshaw (neck), guard David Diehl (knee/ankle), wide receiver Domenik Hixon (head) all starters, left the game due to their injuries. Hopefully none of these are serious and can be back Thursday despite the short week.

One Last Thing: This really could be a spark for this team. The first three halves of this season can be forgotten, and it's now a 14 game season. Eli needs to be the Eli of today's second half for the whole game for now on. With a short week coming up, the Giants will be headed down to Carolina on Thursday to face the Panthers and dual threat quarterback Cam Newton who looked really good today. The defense is going to have to play better than they have so far this year because if you give Newton enough time, he will find the open receiver, or he'll abuse you on the ground. Either way, we won this week, hopefully this is just the beginning.