The Good, Bad and Ugly of the Giants-Jets Game

Giants roll as Jets offense remains a rumor in preseason action

We're considering a name change for this staple of Monday mornings during the football season.

Instead of Good, Bad and Ugly, we might go with Good, Bad and Wayne Hunter. The Jets' right tackle was perhaps the worst starting offensive lineman in the NFL last season and, based on his performance Saturday night against the Giants, he's shooting for the worst starting offensive lineman in the history of the NFL this time around.

Jason Pierre-Paul didn't even slow down while making his way past Hunter for two sacks of Mark Sanchez in the Giants' 26-3 win over the Jets on Saturday night. It's actually a wonder that Sanchez hasn't suffered a debilitating injury after more than a year playing in front of the human turnstile wearing a Jets jersey and an even bigger wonder that the Jets haven't even tried to upgrade the position.

It boggles the mind to try to figure out how general manager Mike Tannenbaum looked at Hunter and convinced himself that his team could win with such a player in the starting lineup. The only attempt was a trade for Jeff Otah, a former Panthers stud who has barely played in the last two years because of serious injuries and whose injuries led the trade to get voided a week after it went down.

The Jets will have to go dumpster diving for other possibilities at this point, which, needless to say, isn't where you want to be so close to the start of the regular season. If it were the only problem with the offense, perhaps you could accept Tannenbaum's unwillingness to do his job this offseason.

It isn't, though, and that means blame can't come strongly enough.

UGLY: The Jets offense was so ghastly on Saturday night that it is hard to know where to start after dealing with Hunter, but the skill position players short on skill is a good place to start. It's nearly impossible to understand how the Jets plan to generate points on offense this season given the almost empty vault of talent on that side of the ball.

GOOD: No such problems for the Giants, even if they didn't do much against the Jets starting defense. Everything is comfortable on the Giants offense even as they sort out who will wind up in spots like third receiver and backup running back.

BAD: The performance of the Jets quarterbacks wasn't good, but it is hard to lay ugliness at the feet of Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow when they were hanging out there pretty much naked. Both have hideous flaws, but we'd love to see Manning survive with this group around him.

GOOD: If the Jets are to have any success this season, it will be because the defense is really good and that is likelier to happen if LaRon Landry can stay healthy at safety. Landry had a pick and a huge hit on Victor Cruz on Saturday, two things that give some reason to hope the Jets defense can carry things long enough for the offense to get a clue.

GOOD/BAD: Rookie corner Jayron Hosley took an interception 77 yards for a touchdown, but seems to share the Giants injury curse since he left the game in a walking boot with what the team is calling turf toe. Last year conditioned us to write off the significance of injuries with the Giants, but they say lightning doesn't strike twice, so we're still a bit worried that this year's wave of wounded players will catch up with them.

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.

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