Sam Donnellon: Hixon picking up slack for Giants with Burress out
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Off to the side, someone muttered disdainfully about the "incredibly ordinary receiving corps" in the room.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Off to the side, someone muttered disdainfully about the "incredibly ordinary receiving corps" in the room.
If you didn't see the blue all around, or the unfamiliar faces, it might have been the Eagles' locker room you were in. Because for most of the last three seasons, since Terrell Owens left and Donté Stallworth stalled, the rap on the Birds, made often by Donovan McNabb apologists (and guys like me sometimes), was that the Eagles had few or no guys who caught the ball consistently and/or created separation.
When Plaxico Burress put a bullet through his own leg Nov. 28, it initiated a similar refrain in the Meadowlands. Amani Toomer was steady, a nice No. 2, and Kevin Boss was a tight end you had to pay attention to, as the Eagles discovered the first time the teams played this season. Boss caught six passes for 69 yards and a touchdown in the Giants' 36-31 victory Nov. 9, but that was with Burress in the lineup, with a healthy Brandon Jacobs rushing for 126 yards and two touchdowns. Toomer also had five catches. Burress, the object of the Eagles' affections all day long, caught one pass, for a touchdown.
Then, the Giants looked every bit the team that oddsmakers still favor to win the Super Bowl. Too many weapons, impossible to game plan for all of them. Before the nightclub injury that led to Burress' expulsion. Before Jacobs started missing games because of recurring knee problems.
"That first game we were very fortunate," Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride was saying after practice yesterday. "We had a lot of success, we moved the ball very well. But whether Plaxico was there or not, I'm sure there would have been an adjustment in the second game. Having said that, certainly losing a premier football player is going to impact how people are going to look at you, how they try to defend you."
This rivalry, this series, has often been a tutorial in that. Scroll back to last season, when Brian Westbrook was missing and Tra Thomas was missing and poor Winston Justice was left all alone with Osi Umenyiora. Over and over again, McNabb found himself under one or several Giants, leading to one of the rare one-sided losses in this series.
Despite the 20-14 final score, Giants coach Tom Coughlin sees the Eagles' Dec. 7 victory as one of those games as well. "They had the ball, they had time of possession, they had everything," Coughlin said this week. "We didn't run, we didn't pass, we didn't have that many snaps."
They looked, really for the first time, vulnerable. Just a week before, and days after the Burress accident, New York had pounded the Washington Redskins, 23-7. Without Burress, Manning turned to Domenik Hixon, a third-year special-teams player, and turned him into an instant star that day - in much the same manner Boss became a commodity after Jeremy Shockey went down the season before.
But in the rematch, Hixon and Boss were incredibly ordinary, maybe even worse. Boss caught one pass for 5 yards. Hixon had three receptions for 30 yards but dropped as many, including one that would have undoubtedly led to a touchdown. In that game, he looked like the player the Giants picked up for free from Denver.
"Whether good things are happening to you or bad, you've got to kind of forget about them and move on to the next play," Hixon philosophized yesterday, and he has done a nice job of that. He rallied from a poor start against Carolina to be a key figure in the Giants' come-from-behind win.
"You'd like to make every play," he said. "That would be a perfect world. They'll probably not do the same stuff. Just like we're not going to do the same stuff . . . "
Well, don't bank on it. Jacobs started that second game against the Eagles this season, and there was no way the Eagles could game plan for his third-quarter departure after falling hard on the knee.
Hixon is likely to see similar schemes, similar coverage as he saw the last time around. Despite Jacobs' success in the first game, the Eagles have been burned far more often by big pass plays over the last few years of this rivalry, burned too by the ability of Burress and the attention he demanded on every play. It's a big reason why they signed Asante Samuel to all that money in the offseason.
Yes, the Eagles have to prove their Dec. 7 domination wasn't just because the Giants were distracted and possibly even a bit disinterested. But the Giants have to prove that they can still hit enough open guys to keep the upper hand they've had in this rivalry since they signed Burress in 2005. He was so often an Eagles killer, his big plays so often the difference in games often decided, Coughlin noted yesterday, "by the last snap."
"Obviously, losing Plaxico hurts," said Boss. "But we're confident in guys stepping up. I feel like I have to pick up some slack, too."
Either that, or continue to be dubbed "incredibly ordinary" by those who have seen your best - and worst. *
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