Simms joined Francesa on WFAN.  He goes around the league and talks about plenty of teams and plenty of QBs.  A reminder to follow us on Twitter during the Miami game.     

1. SD-NYJ last week.  Jets secondary made it much harder for the SD WRs.  This affected Rivers.  Rivers could have protected the ball better, but he did a good enough job otherwise and it was more a story of the Jets defense than Rivers falling off.  The story here is that the NYJ have made some nice adjustments (such as not blitzing as much) and gotten back on track. 

2. OAK.  Flat last week.  Palmer was put in a bad position.  Simms would not have pulled Boller.  Re Palmer's ascension in Oakland, there are no miracles in the NFL.  It takes time.  Palmer did not have his fastball.  Yes, it is good for Oakland to have the bye, but even that will not be enough to immediately transform Palmer.  They need McFadden back.

3. Tebow.  He had ~7 opportunities and needed the on-sides kick to pull it out.  Tebow fits their team.  Simms ask- if you give Tebow credit for turning around the game, why not give the same (or more) credit to the other QBs in this league, mentioning Sanchez by name.  Is the glass 1/4 full with Tebow's leadership or is it 3/4 empty with his QB skill deficiencies?  Technically, Tebow has a strong enough arm, stronger than Luck's.  He will need to change and improve his mechanics, but it can be done.  Simms reiterates how both Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers changed their throwing mechanics and were not the same QBs that they were when they came into the league.     

4. Matt Schaub.  Big guy, moves around well.  The Texans leverage that by using play action and bootleg passes often.  The problem for the Texans is on 3rd and 10 when he is forced to be a dropback pocket passer.  That is when the offense is weaker and has some trouble.  On the other side of the ball, Wade Phillips has changed their defense and helped changed their identity.  There is much more confidence in the defense.     

5. NE-PITT.  If you have the personnel, you spread out the Pitt defense (with the spread offense) and throw the ball.  A good LBer, even if he is All Pro, cannot cover the TE.  The Steelers will have their OL together in back to back games for first time all season.  Steelers WRs have improved dramatically since the beginning of Week 1.  They are running better routes.  They run across the field.  They will test this NE defense.  Can the Steelers OL give Roethlisberger enough opptys to THROW the ball?  The Steelers are not a running football team.  They are a passing FB team.   So the question is whether they can keep up with Brady and their offense.  Roethlisberger looked excellent, like a big dancing bear back their vs the Cardinals.  He turned the ball over 7x in Week 1 so his #s won't look good for the whole season, but he's improving there.  He is "painting the corners," throwing the ball well.  Familiarity hurts the Steelers defense, since Brady and Belichick have seen all of the Lebow blitzes.  

6.  BAL-JAX last Monday night.  Not shocked about the Jacksonvllle win.  Their defense is a lot better than most people realize.   

7.  DAL-PHL. Cowboy defense can matchup vs Vick and give him problems.  They have a very good front 7 that can do that.  Rob Ryan had the perfect defense 3x vs the Patriots in that final drive.  One player makes a mistake, Brady finds it and makes Dallas pay.  So Simms was as complimentary of both Ryan brothers as he could be. They have their defense in a position to win each week, so expect Rob Ryan to give Dallas a good shot vs Vick and PHL.  Dallas offense is not daring in big spots, need to be less vanilla.        

Gilbride and Fewell spoke to the media yesterday and dropped some hints about what to expect from the Gmen after the bye.  They also acknowledged some corrections/adjustments that need to be made from their first 6 games.

Full Disclosure- I do not like Bleacher Report.  So I am biased.  I feel they are 'the rag' of blogs, putting together any story to catch eyeballs.  I was forwarded one of their posts by a friend, which lists "9 reasons the Giants will make the playoffs."  After walking through their 9 reasons, I whittle it down to 3.  The motivation for discussing this is not to undermine Bleacher Report (they do a good enough job of that on their own), but to objectively look at where this Giants team is at the bye.    

Here are the "9 BR reasons" and our responses. 

Carl Banks checked in on WFAN yesterday and touched on the #1 pick of the Giants in 2004 along with a quick comment about their upcoming game after the bye week.  In Part II, Belichick, Pompeii and Bruschi talk about the spread offense.  Click 'Read More' to continue.

Here is where the Giants are out of 32 teams in the following Defensive categories (ranking is 1 best/desirable to 32nd worst)..

Yards/game allowed- 22nd
1st downs allowed- 20th
3rd down %- 8th
Penalty Yards allowed- 23rd
Sacks- 1st
Turnovers- 7th
Pts allowed per Game- 24th
Rushing Yards per game- 27th
Rushing Yards per Attempts- 18th
Passing Yards per game- 18th
Passing Attempts per attempt- 19th
(QB) Passer Rating- 14th
Completion %- 18th  

Next, we need to normalize all of the stats above.  If you take the OFFENSIVE ranking of the 6 teams the Giants have faced, this is what it looks like:

Yards Gained Per Game
WAS 344 (15th)
STL 301 (28th)
PHI 442 (3rd)
AZ 339 (17th)
SEA 263 (31st) 
BUF 379 (10th)
Average 345 (which would be 15th in ranking)

So what this says is that the Giants defense played against a typically ~average offense thus far, making the numbers at the top fairly representative.  There is enough to glean from the data:  as we all implicitly understand, the pass rush is outstanding.  And as we know from last year, Fewell gets those turnovers.  But the problem is that overall, this is still a pretty mediocre defense.  By allowing yards per game and pt per game that are in the ~ in the bottom quartile of the league, this is not a stingy defense in any sense.  When you consider the turnovers that the team creates, it means when it is not turning over the ball, it is giving up even more points.  So what that means is that it is going to live and die by the turnover- when it faces a team that can protect the ball, the Gmen will have trouble.   

The Giants are 27th in Rushing yards allowed per game, giving up 128 yards per game.  Where is the NY Giants identity?  This may be a passing league, but if you cannot defend the run, what that means is that you are vulnerable to any playcall.  

Let's also look at the rankings of the "offensive" teams the Giants face in the last 9 games: 

MIA20, NE1, SF27, PHL3, NO2, GB4, DAL6, WAS15, NYJ29, DAL6

That is an average of the ~11th ranked offense.  If you wanted to be utterly simplistic and say that the below average defense of the Giants will lose to single digit ranked offenses and win vs double digit ranked offenses, then the Giants will win vs MIA, SF, WAS and the NYJ and they will lose to NE, PHL, NO, GB, DAL and DAL.  That would make the NY Giants 4-6 in the post bye, and 8-8 overall.  Life is not a script.  The Giants rate to win a few games they would normally be expected to lose (PHL Week 3) and lose a few games they would normally be expected to win (SEA Week 5).  So much depends on health and other factors, but the Giants still control their own fate in a significant way.  As an example, the Patriots, Packers and Saints all have defenses that are for the most part ordinary.  If Gilbride and the offense can step it up and take on more responsibility, the Giants can win a couple of shootouts with some of the better teams that they face.  If they take care of business vs the lesser teams, they can turn 8-8 into 10-6 and win the division.  That is still a big "IF."  Defense wins championships and we have yet to see in ANY game the Giants play 60 minutes of strong defense.  At the end of the day, we know Gilbride's offense will leave a few points on the field, but how tight will the defense play?  Here are three questions: (1) Can this secondary come together?  (2) Can Tuck play the rest of the season? (3) Can Jacquian Williams improve in the second half of the season or will he tire like many rookies?  If Fewell can provide some answers, the Giants can provide a few more wins.