The Good, Bad and Ugly of the Giants Win

Very little went wrong for the Giants on Thursday night

There have been plenty of impressive performances by both New York football teams since we started doing these weekly posts, but few of them have been as impressive as what the Giants did on Thursday night. 

Finding a player in a Giants uniform worthy of being tagged bad or ugly is about as difficult as finding a 32 ounce soda in Michael Bloomberg's New York City. The team started out hot and only got better as the game went along, something illustrated quite well by the 36-7 final score. 

If you really wanted to dig deep for something to frustrate you about the night, it would have to be that a team as talented as the Giants doesn't put together performances like this as often as they should. The previous week against the Buccaneers is a perfect example of that as the Giants stumbled their way through three quarters before finally deciding to play their best football. 

Honestly, though, we don't mind that. Laughers are nice once in a while, but too many of them make it far less enjoyable to be a fan of a team. 

You want a little drama in your football watching life and the Giants are usually a good bet to provide it. That leads to complaints in the moment, but the net result is a bit more interesting than watching an overmatched team get eviscerated on their home field. 

That's the macro view, however. The specifics of Thursday night's game make it impossible to actually find something to criticize on the Giants' side of the ball. 

So we'll look to the other side for the bad and ugly while saving all the love for Big Blue. 

GOOD: Ramses Barden and Andre Brown were unknowns outside of Giant diehards heading into Thursday night's game, but they used the national TV stage to announce themselves to the world. Neither one may ever have a better night than this in their careers, which only makes it more remarkable that they did it on the same night.

GOOD: Neither one of those breakout games would have been possible without a totally dominant performance by the offensive line. Life's much easier when there are huge holes to run through and no pass rushers molesting the quarterback before he can deliver easy passes to open receivers. 

BAD: Giants fans are probably just fine watching Cam Newton do his thing in highlights, but it would have been nice to see just one play where Newton's otherworldly talent bubbled to the surface. It was a terrible game for the Panthers quarterback, though, and he'll have to wait for a second shot at the Giants to show off his talent.

GOOD: We had an Osi Umenyiora sighting! Jason Pierre-Paul remained the star of the Giants defense, but the previously silent Umenyiora came up with his first sack of the season.

UGLY: Panthers returner Joe Adams fumbled the opening kickoff of the game and added a muffed punt later in the second half to erase any chance of Carolina making this into a respectable game. He didn't even have Kyle Williams' excuse of not being the team's lead return man.

GOOD: Safety Antrel Rolle took a nasty spill into a camera, but the injury turned out to be nothing more than a cut on the knee. The Giants got through this game unscathed, which is nice even if injuries only seem to bring out the best in the team.

UGLY: Newton decided to play the "We Beat Ourselves" card after the game, something that happens far too often when teams lose to the Giants.

Josh Alper is also a writer for Pro Football Talk. You can follow him on Twitter.

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