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GIANTS DEFEAT REDSKINS, 16-7

SEPTEMBER 4, 2008

The Giants turned popular opinion upside-down Thursday night and came away with a big season-opening victory.

Throughout the summer it was widely assumed that the offense, with every Super Bowl XLII starter returning, would be ahead of the defense, which has five new players in its first unit. Those assumptions proved incorrect. The offense sputtered for much of the game, but the defense was dominant as the Giants began the 2008 season with a 16-7 victory over the Washington Redskins.

"We came in to win," Coach Tm Coughlin said. "We wanted to start fast, we did start fast, we weren't as productive as we would have liked to be in the green zone. ...our defense played well. Our defense kept the opponent out of the end zone."

All of the scoring was in the first half. Eli Manning scored on a one-yard run and 44-year-old kicker John Carney had a successful Giants debut with field goals of 24, 25 and 47 yards. The Giants also benefitted from big performances by Brandon Jacobs (116 rushing yards) and Plaxico Burress (10 receptions for 133 yards). Manning completed 19 of 35 passes for 216 yards and an interception.

But it was the defense that powered this victory. Washington gained just 209 yards, including 51 in the first half and 93 in their final two possessions, when they were in desperation mode. The Redskins had 11 first downs, 84 rushing yards and owned the ball for only 24:17.

"We did a lot of great things tonight," said defensive end Justin Tuck, who had the Giants' only sack of Jason Campbell - an eight-yarder on Washington's first offensive play. "But you have to remember that it is still the first game and we have to go back and watch a lot of film. We did a good job of keeping them out of the end zone except for that one breakdown at the end of the first half. Barry (Cofield) and Fred (Robbins) did a great job tonight. That is one of the things that we wanted to do, take away their run game. We felt that they would try to run to take pressure off their quarterback. We kept their running game at bay tonight. They hit us with a couple of draws, but for the most part we took them out of what they wanted to do.".......READ MORE