Giants Game 5 Recap - "The Shootout"

Bradshaw's huge day helped the Giants come away with a big win

If you would have told me that the Giants would have been losing to the Cleveland Browns 14-0 just 5 minutes into the game, I would have laughed and thought you were crazy. However, that is exactly what happened.

After receiving the opening kickoff, the Giants first play from scrimmage was a fumble by running back Ahmad Bradshaw that the Browns quickly turned into a touchdown. Next possession by the Browns resulted in a 62 yard passing touchdown and boom it was 14-0.

Either way, the Giants ended up coming away with a 41-27 victory improving their record to 3-2. There were many key players that stepped up in this game and I just want to highlight them really quickly.

Stevie Brown got thrown into the fire this week with the injury of Giants safety Kenny Phillips went down with a knee injury against the Eagles. Brown rose to occasion providing the Giants with the turning points of the game through turnovers. The tired Giants defense was getting destroyed by Trent Richardson and the Cleveland ground game until Stevie Brown picked off a pass that led to a touchdown. Next on the ensuing kickoff, Brown recovered another fumble which led to another touchdown and the Giants never trailed again.

Victor Cruz was huge in the red zone today, with 5 catches for 50 yards and 3 touchdowns. Cruz made the Browns secondary look silly more than once, catching all of his TD's without a defender in sight. Eli Manning returned to his old self adding 259 yards to his 3 TD's and he made good throw after good throw into many tight windows. Manning also made sure to share the wealth. Reuben Randle (6 catches 82 yards), Domenik Hixon (5 catches 55 yards), and Cruz as I mentioned before all had 5+ catches for 50+ yards which is huge without stud wideout Hakeem Nicks who missed his fourth of five games.

Finally, the player of the game was Ahmad Bradshaw. Although he did have a costly turnover early in the game, Bradshaw held himself accountable and exploded for 200 yards and a touchdown on 30 carries. The usually nonexistent run game kept the Browns at bay all game, which allowed Manning to exploit them with the play action for big plays. 

Next week, the Giants head to San Francisco setting up a rematch of last year's NFC Championship game against the 49ers. The run game will be very key against the 49ers if Bradshaw can have another game like today because the 49ers have the top run defense in the league. It should be another back and forth game like last year, but hopefully the Giants can carry over their offensive production from today and get Nicks back to earn a big W on the road.