Giants’ D-line hopes to become bullies again

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Of all the indignities the New York Giants’ once-mighty defensive line endured last season, from insult to injury to ineffectiveness, Barry Cofield(notes) believes he and his linemates saved the worst for last.
Having already squandered a 5-0 start, the Giants were 8-6 and on the brink of cheap nfl jerseys playoff elimination last December. Playing its final game at Giants Stadium after 34 seasons, the home team was rightfully booed during an embarrassing 41-9 defeat to the Carolina Panthers. To coach Tom Coughlin’s chagrin the men up front got manhandled, a trend that continued in a season-ending defeat to the Vikings in which New York gave up 40 points or more for the fifth time in the season.
“There were a bunch of low moments, but the lowest one had to be walking off the field after the final game,” Cofield said Monday night after the Giants, in their first appearance at their yet-to-be-named new stadium, scored a 31-16 preseason victory over the Jets, with whom they share the $1.6 billion concrete castle at the Meadowlands. “It’s a stadium that was built off tough defenses, and we contributed to that in past years. But we got torn apart, and for our last memory of that stadium to be that … it was terrible.”
The fallout from an 8-8 season that owner John Mara told reporters “felt a lot more like 2-14 to me” was dramatic. Coughlin, two years removed from a Super Bowl victory fueled by a relentless pass rush, fired one-and-done defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan (replacing him with Perry Fewell, who served as the Buffalo Bills’ interim coach for the final seven games of last season) amid reports that he could lose his job without a strong showing in 2010.
In April the Giants spent their first two draft picks on defensive linemen – South Florida pass-rushing end Jason Pierre-Paul(notes), who beat Jets tackle Damien Woody(notes) around the edge to sack Mark Sanchez(notes) late in the first half of Monday’s game, and East Carolina tackle Linval Joseph(notes). The rookies joined a unit already loaded with talent such as former Pro Bowl defensive ends Justin Tuck(notes) and Osi Umenyiora(notes) who are driven to restore the unit to the elite status it earned in ’07 and ’08.
“That’s our goal,” says fifth-year defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka(notes), who may be deployed at linebacker on some occasions because of Buccaneers #99 jersey the team’s glut of gifted linemen. “We know we have a lot of talented pass rushers, guys who can play multiple positions. If we all go out and do our jobs, we should be unstoppable.”
Led by future Hall of Famer Michael Strahan(notes), the Giants’ line became dominant late in an ’07 season in which they had 52 sacks. New York’s rush was even more relentless in the playoffs, pounding Tom Brady(notes) repeatedly in its shocking Super Bowl XLII upset of the New England Patriots.
Though Strahan retired after that game, the Giants still managed 42 sacks en route to a division title in ’08. Last season, however, that number fell to 32, one of many unsightly statistics for a defense that gave up 427 points – third-most in the league behind the Lions and Rams, and the second-highest total in team history.
“Our defense wasn’t very good, and it wasn’t just our line,” Coughlin says. “We didn’t cover anything deep. We didn’t get the passer in trouble at all. A lot of times teams would block up with eight people and send two [receivers] out – and they had success doing it.”
Sheridan, a former linebackers coach who’d replaced Steve Spanuoulo after the highly successful and popular “Spags” got the Rams’ head-coaching gig, installed a more reactive scheme that caused problems as early as last summer, when Umenyiora stormed out of training camp after clashing with the coordinator during a team meeting. It was the start of a conspicuous downward spiral for Umenyiora, who was burned after being out of position on several long running plays and lost his starting job for the final five games.
After the season Umenyiora, a two-time Pro Bowl selection with one of the quickest first steps in the NFL, threatened to retire if he wasn’t a starter; he has since backed off from that statement and has impressed teammates with his intensity and attitude this summer.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the business side of things,” Cofield says. “We’re a team. We play a game. But sometimes this is a business. We have families. We have stresses. It’s hard to separate business and personal life. Osi has definitely made a conscious effort to change that, to block out all the business stuff, and I think he’ll be much improved this year.”
Last Friday Umenyiora described his current mentality to the Newark Star Ledger’s Mike Garafolo, saying, “I wish you could be in my mind. I can’t really put it into words. It’s an eff-it mentality. I don’t really feel like I have too much to lose right now. And I like it.”
Umenyiora had seven sacks in ’09, one more than team leader Tuck, who began the season as one of the league’s premier defensive linemen but fought through a painful torn shoulder labrum he suffered in a September victory over the Dallas Cowboys. Tuck believes the team-oriented approach that allowed the unit to thrive in previous years was missing last season.
“I think our mentality this season is just to play together as a unit,” he says. “Last year was an opportunity for us to look in the mirror and understand that we’re not just going to go out and dominate because of nfl jersey sale our individual abilities. We got frustrated and relied too much on our individual talent, instead of playing off one another. That’s what made us great in the past – me, Stray, Osi and everyone else played well together and played off each other. This year we’re going to get back to that.”
They’ll have some reinforcements, thanks to general manager Jerry Reese’s decision in April to draft Pierre-Paul and Joseph, a pair of moves that, Coughlin says, “just fortified our belief that, for us, it’s always going to be up front that matters most.” The coach thinks Tuck’s return to health, along with contributions from oft-injured tackles Chris Canty(notes) and Rocky Bernard(notes), will help trigger pronounced improvement.
“Collectively, they’re one of the best groups in the league,” Pro Bowl center Shaun O’Hara(notes) says of his defensive line counterparts. “They make us better as a line, because they challenge us every day in practice. I’d put those guys up against anyone in the NFL. They’re scary.”
They’re also motivated by fear of failure, from their embattled head coach on down. As Umenyiora said earlier this summer, “We’re all in this together. Every one of us is in an identical situation. If we don’t get it done, we’ll all suffer the consequences.”
Not surprisingly, with so much at stake, Coughlin plans to lay it on the line. Cofield believes he and his position-mates are up to the challenge.
“We definitely plan to be better,” he says. “We brought in some new guys and we’re definitely confident. We can come at teams in waves. It’s a different mentality, a different defense. We definitely got a wake-up call last year. Sometimes you ride too high and need to get knocked down a peg. Now we’ve got an infusion of nfl jerseys youth and we’re going back to basics.”