Shuttle Bus-ted

Football is becoming baseball. The football fan is getting dumped on. It comes in small doses. But it is like the erosion of a beach. Slow, insidious, relentless.

1) You can vote with your dollars and walk. Or take the shuttle bus. Seasons tickets holders with 1-5 seats are getting the 'right' to buy a parking pass for 10 games x $15 = $150 while Xanadu and the new stadium get built. The rest of us get sent to park in Osh Kosh and take the shuttle bus. Tailgating is a thing of the past, and getting home after the game will become a true joy.

2) "Flex" games sound like a great idea because they give the national audience a much better game. Problem is that these are tv concessions where the (overpaying) networks begin to ask for everything. And then, like dominoes, the other networks that lose those competitive games want better games too. So more games get flexed from 1pm to 4pm. Football keeps drifting to later starts which are not nearly as good to attend as the traditional 1PM game.

2) Flex games run amok. Out of 8 home games last season, THREE (38%) were moved. 3 x 77,000 fans = a lot of people whose schedules were bumped around. This is simply disrespectful of the paying audience. Mara remembered how the tickerholder paid the NFL's bills. Now TV pays millions, Mara is dead and the ticketholder is less important.

4) Eagles fans were greeted with $5,000 dollar ticket licenses per seat when they got a new stadium. What will be the over/under on how much the Giants will be charging for theirs?

Insidious? Rules keep the game clock rolling more so that the same 3:00 hour game has more "tv timeouts" that disrupt the flow of the game. This is a great game but we are losing it to the Snyders of the world who want every dollar out of their investment now with no future for the sport. I laughed when Snyder started charging $10 to fans for attending preseason camp practices. What a total f'g jerk. And the joke was on him when that meant that other teams could now 'pay' to attend and scout his team! But the lesson is that you need to speak out about these practices or else we are going to lose this great sport.

Poll: How many wins do we get this year?

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yet another voice heard from

The Lewis-trashing continues. Add Cofield.

First it was Pierce late last season saying he could not improvise/freelance when he KNEW the play the defense was calling. If there is anyone on the defense who 'knows,' it is Pierce.

Then we heard from Webster (and Madison) that the CBs were made to play off the WRs. They had to read and react, and play softer zone coverages instead of the more aggressive man-to-man at the line of scrimmage.

Then we heard from Wilson that the Safeties too were unable to be aggressive, that Lewis had them playing a conservative style which limited their playmaking.

Now we hear from Cofield, that Lewis had him playing NT with even less chance for performance because of his lack of any previous experience at the position. Cofield contends that he has the natural athleticism for his size that enables him to get in the backfield quickly... something the NT does not get to do (since NTs are to occupy both a C and G).

I am skeptical. Could ALL of this be true? Could the coach have been the reason why ALL of these players were underperforming? The only thing that supports such a conclusion is that Wilson and Pierce were performers before and became less so after. That would lend credence to these claims. Cofield as a rookie was actually extremely impressive. He got the snot beat out of him every game and his presence was still felt (altho by year end he was playing on fumes). We'll see. The one thing I do know is that Spagnuolo will be more aggressive, and that suits me fine. The best defenses always try to take the game to the offense. Whenever I hear Read-n-React I think of Rod Rust, the man who singlehandedly set Giants defense back 20 years until Fox could repair the damage many years later.

the glass is three quarters empty

Before the sugar-coated one-sided pr pieces come out on how wonderful every player is through minicamp and preseason, let's list objective reasons for why we are going to suck this year.

1) You cannot teach accuracy. There is plenty of room for Manning to improve, but the studies show that QB ratings start leveling off in Y3, and Manning's was FLAT. Unfortunately we are not going to see a serious jump in his production.

2) Jerry Reese's plan for Left Tackle is a bust so far. He has been trying to get Cleveland's LT, but even that would be yet another "stabilizer." Speaking of stabilizers...

3) LB Kawika Mitchell, DT Marcus Bell, DB Michael Stone, QB Anthony Wright, K Marc Hickok, P Cory Ohnesorge.

4) We still do not have a kicker. Another stabilizer coming.

5) There are still medical questions about lisfranc foot injuries in terms of Strahan's ability to come back at the same pro-bowl level of play. He is 36.

6) There are no medical questions about ACL injuries- Toomer will not be 'effective' in his first year back. Considering his age, he is headed toward being cut or becoming that classic "third-down" possesion receiver.

7) You lose something when you take your most recent #1 (Kiwanuka) and try to change his position. Dialing up this guy's weight like a video control and making him into a different player is rarely pulled off at the level of the NFL. I agree that it would be good to have Kiwanuka and our pro bowl ends on the field at the same time but Kiwanuka is not likely going to be a pro bowl LB, certainly not this year. In fact, he is going to make a few mistakes during games that will cost us.

8) Gilbride and Palmer are retreads. Gilbride deserved a promotion after being part of the problem in Manning's lack of improvement? Someone explain to me how THIS GUY is going to help Manning. Was Hufnagel the root of all evil and Gilbride blocked from succeeding? I doubt it highly.

9) Coughlin is a retread in a retread year. No one wants to play for us this season because we are dead Coughlin walking. I do not think he motivates his players properly. He treats them equally and that is a mistake. His undoing will come in the latter part of the season when he has them out in pads yet again in practice, sucking whatever energy they have so that they can get the first score and pack the rest of the game in.

10) We still have the same problems at LB and Secondary that we had last year. We are getting the 2006 history lesson that the Lewis system was truly a harm to Webster (and Pierce and Wilson) making plays. I am hopeful this can be the case and that our new coord will make a difference... but either Webster is going to make big improvement or he is gone.

Please note that I specifically did not list the departure of Tiki... I am very bullish on Brandon Jacobs. Of course he will not be able to fill Tiki's shoes but he will do a very good job wearing down defenses.

Randy Moss + Keyshawn Johnson

What does it mean when a former #1 Pro Bowl WR gets cut? What does it mean when another #1 Pro Bowl WR gets traded for a 4th round draft choice? IT MEANS WRs ARE A DIME A DOZEN. The Giants tried to pickup Star Johnson last year but were outbid by the Panthers. The fact that Johnson is all of a sudden available right after we used our #2 for a WR comes as a complete shock to me... I am shocked to find gambling in this establishment!

While I am the first to admit that the game has changed and the NFL's rules encouraging passing has put more demands on teams to have more CBs and more WRs, I will still firmly state that WRs are fringe players who you cannot build your franchise around. Calvin Johnson is a "can't miss" WR. Give ME a can't miss Left Tackle. Matt Millen the genius Lions GM has now picked FOUR (?) HIGH first round WRs... and he has built a house of garbage. Last year the Jets drafted Ferguson and Mangold. They could be anchored by those guys for 10 years! In 1997, we took a WR, Ike Hilliard at #7 in the first round. The Seahawks took Walter Jones (#6), the Pro Bowl LT who had a mildly larger impact on his team. The WR is the hare, and the Tackle is the tortoise. The tortoise almost always wins.