FanHouse AnthonyMix

In a somewhat surprising move, the New York Giants waived wide receiver Anthony Mix this afternoon. With the extra roster spot available, the team signed wide receiver Domenik Hixon, who was released by the Denver Broncos yesterday.

Mix, a 6-5 receiver out of Auburn, really turned some heads during the preseason. His size gave him a distinct advantage over most cornerbacks in the league, and his agility was as great as his stature. With the injury to Steve Smith and the lack of progression shown by Sinorice Moss, his release seems highly questionable.

The addition of Hixon appears to be an attempt to upgrade the teams return units. The kickoff return combination of Ahmad Bradshaw and Reuben Droughns has been average at best, while R.W. McQuarters has been anything but spectacular returning punts. However, Hixon's return numbers (22.8 per kick return and 4.6 per punt return) aren't that impressive either. Then again, his Bronco's teammates thought highly of him, and he may bring more to the Giants than is being let on.

"I'll tell you what, man, he's a guy that we could have used last year," Bailey said. "He's got great ability, great talent. You wonder how it's going to translate to games, but he looks good. He looks as good as most of our receivers. He has the ability to start. I just hope he fights for it."

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Update: The Giants have re-signed Mix to their practice squad.

To get you ready for week 4, FanHouse is previewing all 14 NFL games. Here is the Philadelphia Eagles/New York Giants preview.

2007 Records:

Philadelphia Eagles: 1-2 (t-3rd in NFC East)
New York Giants: 1-2 (t-3rd in NFC East)

Last Game(s):

Eagles 56 - Lions 21
Giants 24 - Redskins 17

When the Eagles have the ball: What Philadelphia does on Sunday night will be decided by the status of running back Brian Westbrook. If he's able to play, the Eagles will no doubt turn to him as their primary offensive threat. If he's not, the onus will be on Donovan McNabb and the wide receivers. And although McNabb really lit it up last week, he did so against the league's worst secondary. Then again, the Giants secondary hasn't played much better.

Defensively, the Giants will gameplan as if Westbrook is playing. Their main objective will be stopping him, and should he sit out, they'll be forced to adapt on the fly. Luckily for them, that would be the ideal situation. But in either case, they must play like they did in the second half versus Washington, and not the way they did for the first 10 quarters of the season.

The New York Giants got a little good news and a little bad news yesterday. The good news was that star wide receiver Plaxico Burress returned to practice on a limited basis after re-injuring his ankle last weekend. The bad news is that he may not be ready for tomorrow's game against the Washington Redskins.

"He was limited," Tom Coughlin said. "He did some things. He didn't complete the full practice, but he did a few things and we'll see. It's going to be one of those deals depending on how he feels on game day."

If Burress is unable to go, that would leave the Giants with Amani Toomer, Sinorice Moss and Anthony Mix as their wide receivers. In addition to those three, David Tyree may also be activated for the first time this year. He returned to practice this week, and appears to be fully healed from his wrist injury.

Keep in mind, the Giants will also be without rookie receiver Steve Smith who fractured his scapula last week.

The field presence of Eli Manning made no difference today, as the Giants secondary was picked apart for the second week in a row. Despite having as many offensive injuries as New York, Brett Favre was able maneuver a near back-up squad to a 35-13 victory.

The Giants now fall to 0-2 on the season, and have to be left wondering if defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo was the answer. While Tim Lewis didn't fare much better last year, New York's secondary is almost laughable. Through two games, they are by far the worst in the league and showed no indications that they are improving. They were scorched for 286 yards today, and once again, their achilles heel was the tight end -- something the Packers rarely use. On the plus side, their defensive tackles, Barry Cofield and Fred Robbins, played quite well this afternoon.

Offensively, the Giants were all over the place. They looked good early on, and then completely fell apart toward the end. All Giants fans can do is take solace in the fact that Manning played decent outside of his pathetic interception, Derrick Ward looked good, Anthony Mix performed well in garbage time and the offensive line appears to be much more capable than people expected coming out of preseason.

Things started fast and ended strong for the New York Jets tonight as they handed the Giants their second loss of the preseason. Although they hit a rough stretch after their first offensive series, back-up quarterback Kellen Clemens (6 of 8 for 122 yards and a rushing touchdown) was able to revive the team in the second half and eventually lead them to victory.

While Jets fans can be thankful for Clemens, they have to be questioning their faith in Chad Pennington after his second straight poor performance. Although he had one nice completion (79 yards) to Leon Washington on the first play of the game, it was all down hill from there. Over the next seven series, the Jets managed a total of zero yards. To Pennington's credit, the Giants first team defense was absolutely dominating the line of scrimmage and their blitzes were well disguised.

Another plus for the Jets would be the performance of undrafted rookie free agent Danny Ware, who managed 57 yards and a touchdown on the ground. Although he was playing against defensive substitutes, he showed great field awareness and some rather impressive and crisp cuts.

Giants Training Camp Notebook is a cliff notes style post aimed at giving Giants fans up-to-date news about the most recent training camp practices.

- Today's biggest story was the return of wide receiver Plaxico Burress, who had been out since August 2nd with a sprained ankle. Perhaps even more encouraging was his performance on the field. Plax caught a nice hook from Eli Manning in front of R.W. McQuarters, and later put a move on Corey Webster that nearly broke his ankles.

- Back-up tight end Kevin Boss also had a big day with quite a few spectacular grabs. His most impressive catch came on pass from quarterback Jared Lorenzen which sailed through the hands of wide receiver David Tyree.

- Coach Tom Coughlin, who has battled it out with Tiki Barber for about two years, seemed pleased with Eli's response to Barber's latest criticisms.

"I think he thought about what he was going to do and decided he'd say exactly what he felt. More power to him," Coughlin said.

You know deep down Coughlin was chanting "Eli! Eli! Eli!"

Giants Training Camp Notebook is a cliff notes style post aimed at giving Giants fans up-to-date news about the most recent training camp practices.

- Sam Madison has had an odd training camp to date. Some days he resembles the Madison of old, while other days he resembles a Madison a year older and a year slower than the 2006 version. Today saw a bit of both, leaving more questions about his ability to start on this team.

- The Giants continued to suffer from their yearly injury onslaught this afternoon. Back-up tight end Darcy Johnson was the unfortunate victim today when he went down with a right knee injury. He had to be carter off the field, but late reports suggest that it "isn't serious."

- After having one of his better practices yesterday, Eli Manning came out and had a rough morning. Quite a few of his passes were sailing to no one, but he did end on a high note, tossing a touchdown in the two-minute drill. And, for the record, he came back and had a pretty good night practice.