Giants camp report: Season depends on receivers stepping up

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- Seven months after the 2009 season ended, the New York Giants are still looking for someone to replace wide receiver Plaxico Burress. Now they are also looking for someone to replace Amani Toomer, and please stand by.

The auditions are about to begin.

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"Right now," said quarterback Eli Manning, "we're receiver-by-committee a little bit; a lot of guys working in to see who can be a playmaker for us, who can make some of these big-time plays and who can change the outcome of games. That's what Plaxico did on several occasions."

The importance of finding that playmaker cannot be overstated. A year ago, the Giants won 11 of their first 12 games and were the best team in football. Then Burress disappeared from the scene, and the Giants limped home -- dropping four of their final five, including a 23-11 playoff decision to Philadelphia.

Without Burress, the Giants lacked a playmaker to intimidate opponents. So where defenses might have double covered Burress, they switched gears and single covered his replacement, Domenik Hixon -- which, in turn, allowed them to bring another defender down low to check the NFL's top-ranked rushing attack.

The results speak for themselves. In three of their final four games, including the playoff loss, the Giants failed to produce a touchdown from the red zone. Manning's completions went down. So did his touchdown passes. His interceptions were up. And the rushing attack that flattened opponents suddenly was vulnerable, averaging 108 yards in the final four losses.

In short, the offense unraveled, and blame it on Burress.

"There were some plays that we always depended on that we were all of a sudden unable to run," said Manning. "You go back to the [2007 NFC] Championship Game vs. Green Bay, and we ran the same play to Plaxico about eight times. It had a different outcome sometimes, depending on the coverage, but we hit it a bunch of times.

"It was something we call a fade stop, where the outside [receiver] releases, I throw it high and on his back shoulder and it's a mismatch. It was just a play we practiced so much. We had five years of doing it, so we knew every in and out of what to do. We were getting completions and first downs and moving the ball."

I don't know if the Giants would have returned to the Super Bowl had Burress been around, but I do know that opponents would've had more trouble defending them. Now, however, things are supposed to be different, except when you look at who is most likely to wind up starting outside it's Steve Smith and Hixon, the same two wide receivers who finished last season.

But that doesn't mean things can't change. The Giants spent two of their first four draft picks on wide receivers, with North Carolina's Hakeem Nicks the receiver most ready to step into the lineup immediately. That's good, but this is not: He missed much of training camp with a hamstring injury and is behind the learning curve. Way behind.

That's not the case with third-rounder Ramses Barden, a 6-foot-6 pass-catching machine out of Cal Poly. Barden has been a hit in training camp, and Manning singled him out when he talked about guys who caught his attention. It was Barden, for instance, who made a leaping catch of a deep pass at last Wednesday's morning practice, out-jumping cornerback DeAndre Wright to pull down the ball. It was just the sort of catch Burress might have made a year ago.

"He's picked up on things really fast," Manning said of the third-round draft pick. "It usually takes weeks, months, a year to understand. But he understands. You can talk to him, and he talks back to you like he's been in the offense a while. I've been really impressed by that. I think he watches and has learned, and I think he has a pretty good feel for what's going on. The game doesn't seem like it's too fast for him, which is nice to see from a rookie."

It's nice to see from anyone here. The Giants have Nicks, Barden, Mario Manningham, Sinorice Moss, Derek Hagan and David Tyree battling to win the four spots behind Smith and Hixon. Of that group, Barden has people talking partially because of his size, partially because he's physical and mostly because he's making plays.

"Barden's made a lot of plays, hasn't missed a lot of time and is going through a lot of things all the young ones go through," said coach Tom Coughlin. "He goes down, and he goes up. But he's made some plays for us, too.

"I just think it's a matter of getting better and getting better because he's made some nice plays in the green zone -- where you throw it up high to him and he goes up and gets it. And he's done that."

That is critical for the Giants because, frankly, that is the role Burress served. The most memorable catch in Super Bowl XLII was made by Tyree, but the winning catch -- the touchdown that finished New England -- belonged to Burress in the corner of the end zone. The Giants must find a replacement and find one soon. Otherwise, we're looking at last year all over again, and that could be a problem.

"Do you have that guy in camp?" I asked general manager Jerry Reese.

"We'll see," he said. "We're still searching. I think we have a couple of guys who might be that guy, but they'll have to step out of the shadows and do it. The jury's still out on that.

"Do we have some good receivers? I think we have some really good receivers. Will one of these guys develop into what you'd call a No. 1? Time will tell. But, if not, there have been plenty of Super Bowls won without No. 1 receivers. I mean, plenty. Most of them, as a matter of fact."

Maybe, but I can't see the Giants going to the Super Bowl if they don't alleviate a problem that buried them last year. Over the first 12 games of 2008 there was nobody better. But over the final five, there were few who floundered as much -- with the Giants' only win an overtime victory over the Carolina Panthers -- and their troubles began when Burress bowed out.

Heck, in their first loss to Philadelphia, Manning found Hixon in single coverage on a bomb down the middle. He was open, the ball was perfectly thrown and a touchdown awaited. Hixon dropped the pass, a mistake that came to symbolize the team's travails down the stretch.

"I took my eyes off the ball," said Hixon. "I looked up before I secured it. Live and learn from that situation, and that's something I've put behind me. It's something you don't want to happen again, and I'm working hard to make sure it doesn't. Everything happens for a reason."

Something better happen with these receivers. We know the result when the Giants couldn't replace Burress a year ago. The ripple effect wound up suffocating them. Now they try to repair the damage, and let the games begin. Somebody has to emerge at wideout.

"Don't get me wrong," said Reese, "Plaxico Burress did give us a presence out there. But we beat Carolina without Plaxico Burress, and they were one of the best teams in the league. So you can slice it up however you want to.

"There are a lot of guys we like out here. People talk about the Giants' receivers, and say, 'Well, [Hixon and Smith] only had 500-and-something yards [each] and a couple touchdowns.' But they were both part-time players. Burress and Toomer were the starters. Those guys played part-time. If they were full time, and you double that they're both 1,000-yard receivers. We expect those guys to do well."

Somebody better. Somebody must.