Yeah sure I am getting way ahead of myself, but how can you not be excited about what this rookie has shown. Followed up two good games versus divisional rivals Washington and Philly with a second half that 1) helped turn the game around 2) clinched the victory. And all that after being benched for the first half by Coughlin for an undisclosed team violation.
First, with the Giants trailing 24-21 and the Jets driving for a potential game deciding score, Ross picked off a badly thrown Pennington pass in the end zone (well in the end zone I thought anyway). Two things here. First, he caught it, something Giants DB’s haven’t been able to do in a long time. Although it was a bad decision by Pennington, Ross was in position to make the play. And he looks confident doing it.
Second, after getting the lead, the Giants defense again made a stand when Ross picked up Pennington again and returned it for a touchdown and end the game. It looked briefly that the Giants would go back to their bad habits. After Butler dropped what should have been an easy and clinching interception, Pennington converted a 3rd and 16 to the Jet 36 yard line play to keep things alive. That’s until two plays later when Ross faked a blitz, fell back into coverage, then neatly broke on an out pass that he returned for thrilling touchdown.
The last DB we had who appeared to have Ross’ ability was Jason Sehorn, who never returned to that form after hurting his knee in the 1998 preseason.
Some other notes: the defense had just one sack and generally wasn’t able to get to Pennington, but they were only responsible for seven points. Eli Manning did his best Phil Simms imitation by playing a bad first half and followed it up with doing whatever was necessary to get the team in position to score points in the second half. You love to see that out of your QB. Plax has been simply incredible this season and only Randy Moss is keeping him from being the NFL’s #1 WR so far.
