Outside of giving up a touchdown on Jacksonville’s first possession, it’s been a pretty good night for the Giants.
They forced two turnovers of the Jags starting offense, saw D.J. Ware run well in his attempt to become the alternative to Ahmad Bradshaw and didn’t see any key players end up writhing on the turf with injury. They also saw their two rookies from Virginia Tech impress on returns. David Wilson had a long kickoff return and Jayron Hosley broke a couple of decent punt returns, one of which was called back by a holding penalty.
The strange thing about the penalty was that the replacement officials working the game called it on Hosley. To the naked eye, it seemed that Hosley was too busy returning the punt to hold anybody. It looked that way on replays as well and it would appear that the officials meant to call the penalty on Michael Coe instead.
Coe did look like he held on the play, so this is more amusing than a case of the replacements ruining the integrity of the game. Still, these are the kinds of mistakes that need to get ironed out if these officials are going to work actual games this season.
And, lest anyone get too carried away by Hosley, he muffed a punt inside his own five to set up a Jags touchdown just before the end of the first half.
