New York Giants defensive end Justin Tuck is already trying to work the referees prior to Sunday game against the Pittsburgh Steelers as he wants them to be on the lookout for holding by the Steelers offensive line.
“I hope we get some holding calls because they have gotten away with murder,” Tuck told Rachel Nichols of ESPN on Thursday. “They\’ve done a very good job protecting Ben (Roethlisberger) — they don\’t hold on every play. But we\’ve seen a whole lot of it.”
Tuck, who only has one sack to his credit through the first eight games of the season, is probably looking to point a finger at something or someone else right now instead of taking the blame for his slow start. I am sure every defensive lineman thinks that he is held on every play that doesn\’t result in a sack.
This isn\’t the first time that we have heard the Giants use the “getting away with murder” phrase this season either, as their offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride used it three weeks ago prior to the Giants game against San Francisco 49ers. Gilbride claimed prior to that game that 49ers defensive end Justin Smith was breaking the rules with his holding of opponents offensive linemen during twist stunts. “Smith is a beast on the inside,” Gilbride said to the New York media prior to the game. “He’s strong, he does as good a job of grabbing a hold of offensive linemen and allowing those twists to take place. He never gets called for it, so he gets away with murder.”
Tuck must be too busy rehearsing for his Subway commercials to notice that the Steelers offensive line has been flagged seven times for holding in their first seven games of the season. That included left guard Willie Colon hitting the hat-trick in the game against the Philadelphia Eagles back in Week 5.
On Sunday Tuck will be going up against rookie Mike Adams, who has played well in his first two starts at right tackle. Adams hasn\’t been called for holding in nearly 250 snaps this season, nor should he have been. Should Tuck come out of the game Sunday with yet another poor showing, I am sure that he will fall back on his pre game accusation as the reason why.
The Giants signed Tuck to a five-year, $30 million contract extension back in January of 2008. $3 million of that deal is available to him through incentives in the final two years based on sacks and Pro Bowl berths. This season is the first of those two final years, so you can clearly see now why he is chirping so loudly about other teams holding him with just one sack to his credit through eight games.
Tuck is being paid a salary of $3.7 million in 2012. That is a mighty expensive sack. While the Giants seem to like to run around and accuse other teams of crimes such as murder when it comes to holding, maybe they should look in their own backyard instead. If they did, they would see that Tuck is stealing from them and there is statistically evidence to prove it.
