Pats 27 Giants 20

Good: Ahmad Bradshaw.
Bad: Anyone in the secondary.
Ugly: Penalties galore, our second stringers.

Gentlemen prefer blondes

and so do Giants...

soup to nuts

1) You cannot make too much about preseason. What was the Giants' preseason record in 2003 when they went 4-12? What was it when they won the Super Bowl? The correlation between success in preseason and success in the reg season is very low. So when the Giants looked really bad against the Panthers and the Ravens looked really good their first game out, what happened next week? The Giants were much more focused, came ready to play, and the Ravens were busy coasting. Does the result shock you? A narrow Giant victory where the team executed does not mean very much + or -.

2) The uptick for Eli? Do you think that I am going to wave the Eli flag after the weakest link played well for 1 1/2 quarters in a preseason game? The only thing that proves is that ... Eli played well for 1 1/2 quarters in a preseason game! BFD! Pardon me for asking (well, not really): when have we ever seen Manning play a COMPLETE 4 quarter game? Name a game. NEVER. The best game of his career was against the Chargers early in 2005 and he did not play an entire game in that contest either.

3) Injuries are a part of football. Deal with it.

3a) When Reese cut Petitgout, who was going to take his place? Moving Diehl over is not considered a satisfactory (long term) solution. But also note that it reduces our depth at OL dramatically, because now we have Seubert starting instead of coming off the bench. So the injury game is going to be far more costly. Not only did we lose a LT, we also lost depth. Here we make the distinction between a costly injury and the administration's job to provide the talent that is available behind those who do get hurt as a statistical reality of the game.

4) I really like Tiki but he is starting to annoy me. When he was backstabbing Coughlin I loved it because Coughlin was not the answer and no one else wanted to take the coach to task for his ineffective and outdated methods. But lately Barber has been taking shots at anything and everything in his new job. Be nice to the people on your way up because you are going to meet the same people on your way down.

5) Ahmad Bradshaw got my attention. The Giants have 4 RBs. That is the most depth we have had at that position in MANY years.

Strahan speculation

A lot of discussion by the NBC Network crew et al on Strahan.

Reese- indicates that if Strahan comes back, the Giants will not be firm on the enormity of the accumulating fines.

Madden and Michaels- It is always about the money. (Where have we heard that one before?)

Kramer- Spoke to Strahan at length, Strahan indicated that it was more than just going back and playing DE, it is about the other responsibilities he has with this team.

THIS IS ABOUT THE HIDDEN COST OF COUGHLIN. Strahan knows that as a team leader he has to carry the water for his coach in the locker room. THIS is the mental part that Kramer is referring to. That playing for Coughlin is likely a dead end this season and that he has to mentally hold the locker room together for that. Barber did everything but say directly that Coughlin is why he retired when he did. If this team had a coaching staff that made it fun and put them in a position to win it all, do you think these guys would be retired? For Strahan, it is about the money, but it is also about the dead end of Coughlin. I think Strahan might have been trying to engineer a trade, but the Giants said nothing doing. If Strahan gets back to the team w/o hefty fines and spares himself the grind of 3+ weeks of camp, he figures he is slightly ahead. So be it.

Get me excited

Everyone knows this is dead year walking. With Coughlin at the helm, Manning the weakest link, and a secondary that is still a jumble, optimism is not great. So let's see some individual performances that can turn some heads. The last time we got that in preseason was two years ago when a kid named Brandon Jacobs started delivering punishment in his runs. Surprise us.

Can Dockery pick up where he left off and be a ball hawk?
Can Cofield build on his first season?
Can Webster or Ross show us they are our present?
Can Moss or Smith show us the same?

Youth is always served in the NFL. Forgive me for being impatient, but in the NFL patience almost always leads to BUST. Everyone is waiting for Strahan to magically show up and save this team, but in truth whether he shows up or not, it is going to be saved by rookies and second year players making impact plays. Youth energizes teams. The '86 Giants got a lot of help from a second year player named Mark Bavaro, who was the team's LEADING receiver that year. The '90 Giants went over the top with new guys like Jumbo Elliot and Dave Meggett. If we are not going anywhere this year, maybe we can at least get some new faces who will take us there in future years.

Fugly

Panthers preseason game a loss, and it is fugly. There were some bright spots, and many more poor performances.

The Good
1) Jared Lorenzen is playing hungry. At least his upside is not known, unlike other QBs on this team.
2) The Giant running game had some decent success.
3) There were some good special teams plays.
4) Mitchell looked ok.
5) Diehl looked ok in limited work.

The Bad
1) Manning once again was not consistent.
2) Kiwanuka is our #1 Defensive End draft choice and he is at LB because of the front office, not because of the coaches.
3) Our kicking and punting were not crisp.

The Ugly
1) Our defense was anywhere from shoddy to swiss cheese. Spagnuolo has a big job to make his players stay in their lanes.
2) William Joseph was given praise for effort in the offseason and camp, yet I saw little of it... with him not protecting the edge on run containment.
3) We could have lost this game 44-10 and it would have been just as accurate. The Giants run defense was manhandled, and when the Panthers were done w that they roasted our pass defense too.
4) That Coughlin mug of distress (as yet another thing goes wrong) is UGLY. You mean to tell me that I have to watch that man for another season pout in disgust at all the things that go wrong for the team? Give me a bag. No make that two. I'll use the first to put over my head so I do not have to see that face anymore. And I will use the second for reverse peristalsis.

This was NOT pretty.

the eve of our first preseason game

So many questions, so little time.

Offense
1) How can Diehl manage on the edge?
2) Will the rest of our offensive line be okay with Seubert moving in and us LOSING depth now when injuries WILL COME?
3) Can Manning throw with consistent accuracy?
4) Will our TEs behind Shockey be able to block?
5) Will our RBs pickup the blitz?
5) Will the offense execute under Gilbride?

Defense
1) Without Strahan, Umenyiora will get doubled constantly. Will we get a pass rush?
2) Without Strahan, our run defense fell off miserably. Will our new defensive coord enable Wilson and Pierce to perform their magic?
3) Kiwanuka at LB?
4) Secondary?
5) Let's try again. Secondary?
6) Is Kiwika Mitchell going to do as well at LB (and shore up this squad) as the early talk proclaims? (I am always skeptical of this at this time of year.)

Specials
1) Do we start new FG adventures?
2) Kuehl out, DeOssie snapping okay?

Benefit of the doubt

Some people doubt the star quality of players like Shockey, Pierce and Wilson. If Shockey did not have a piece of garbage throwing to him, he would be All World, not All Pro. If Pierce and Wilson did not have read and react, they would be making plays all over the place. Let's see if our new D Coord takes the chains off. Let's see if Manning can get the ball to his receivers in stride for a change. Wilson has a 1 year deal and becomes a UFA. Mistake... this is going to cost the Giants a lot of money to sign him now after he starts making the plays he has made consistently when not held back.

Strahan end in sight

Reports say Strahan will announce within the next 2 days his decision whether to play or retire. You do not have to wait 2 days. You read it here that he is retiring.

misc

Dockery and Kuehl are not biggies, but they are hurt. We need all hands on deck this year to be respectable. Dockery made great improvement last year. Kuehl stabilized specials. Do not underestimate each player's importance.

Strahan blinks

Baby Strahan blinked, finally spoke w Coughlin and Reese, and will be deciding whether he wants to retire or not. The Giants have done the right thing by moving forward assuming he is not going to be with the team. And the moves to prepare Tuck and possibly Simeon Rice (visiting this week) have certainly made whatever ploy was being hatched DOA.

To quote George Young, it is always about the money. Strahan was thinking 2007 football all along. He wants more money period. The Giants will not let him out of his contract and that means he is a Giant for 4M/year or he is retired. I do not know what planet this man is from, but when u r 35, have come off of 2 injuries in the past 3 years and are still getting 4M, you take the money if you still want to play. Osi Umenyiora said that when he talked to Strahan this weekend (BEFORE 92 got in touch w Coughlin/Reese!) he felt it was 50-50 he would play. THAT MEANS HE WAS NEGOTIATING.

Memory refresher: back ~4 years ago when Strahan was negotiating his current deal, Accorsi made him a very nice offer, but Strahan wanted more. The Giants said that was their final offer. Strahan would not accept. (It was at this point that Barber stuck his nose in and wondered aloud what Strahan was doing, that at a certain point too much money hurts the rest of the team('s cap resources). The offer lapsed. Time went by, Strahan restarted negotiations, and ended up having to sign for ~5(?) million less.

If Strahan was a smart trader, he would take his losses, pay the fines, show up for camp, and all would be forgotten. That likely will not happen because the person who pulled this stunt in the first place was not very smart. The Giants called his bluff, and it is time to play or fold. The only reason why there is any hope he will return is that he did fold once before.

Team Turmoil

Strahan. Retirement. Holdout. Pick one.

If this team wanted a rudder, Strahan was it. How do you recover from this 11th hour development going into camp? Unless it is resolved amicably it is a disaster.

I am reminded of the Parcells defection in May 1991. The timing was horrible. It was a bitter slap in the face of George Young, most likely a result of more confrontation and disappointment from a late April draft that did not go the way Parcells wanted it to go. The net result is that the Giants organization was left in a big hole, and trying to recruit a new coach at that late hour was out of the question. It set the organization back many years, and Parcells' vindictiveness was felt for quite some time.

In this situation, Strahan indicated as recently as just 2 weeks ago he was looking forward to playing. You do not show up at minicamps and offseason workouts if u r holding out. He says he is retiring, but is that a ploy to keep the negotiating window open while not incurring fines?

The Giant organization moved Kiwanuka to LB because with Strahan coming back it wanted all of these players on the field together, as much as possible. This team had way more questions than answers BEFORE this, and now it has even more questions, if that were even possible. Strahan was a leader. This is not what leaders do because the timing is so difficult to manage.

I was thinking 6-10 before this development. Now I am convinced of 6-10.

Cowher speculation

Fwiw, Jerome Bettis thinks Cowher will coach the Giants in '08. He said this on the NFL Network last Tuesday. Of course, you can find the same speculation that Cowher ends up in Washington.

I would have to think that Cowher is too smart to want Synder's insanity. Cowher thrived with a stable front office, and he knows if he joins the Giants he will get less money but far more continuity. The Giants would still pay him plenty. The other local perk is that his kids play college basketball for Princeton. If I were Reese I would be getting the helipad at the Meadowlands Parking Lot all spruced up.

From Barry Bonds to Lawrence Taylor

As football fans, we watched in horror as baseball whored itself to steroids. With Bonds about to take out Aaron's HR record, feelings are mixed with excitement and resentment. Is Bonds entitled to the recognition as all-time HR king?

A little review first.

Everyone knows that steroids provide more strength. Len Dykstra hit ~5 or 6 HRs per year as a leadoff batter before hitting 19 in a contract year after allegedly taking steroids. (25M later, we never saw that number again.)

Enter 1994, when a player-led strike ravaged fan support and the World Series was lost. TV ratings and stadium attendance plummeted. Yes, there was a degraded state of pitching due to franchise expansion, juiced balls etc.. Home runs were rising and fans liked scoring.

Steroids provided something else too... increased visual acuity. Baseball chose to look the other way as McGuire and Sosa obliterated a record that stood for so many decades. Clearly something changed. Combine the power to spare of guys like Palmiero, McGuire and Sosa with better vision and you start getting eye popping results. As the story goes, Bonds watched in dismay and disgust as McGuire (and Sosa) was put on a pedestal. Why not him? He decided that if baseball was going to look the other way so that McGuire could save the sport from its 1994 horrors then he would partake as well.

First came the 2001 season when Bonds broke McGuire's record for HRs in a single season. But everyone knew that something was wrong when Bonds hit 45HRs in ~350 AtBats at the age of 40!

1986-2000 494 HRs 7456 AtBats.. 1 HR/15 AtBats
2001-2004 209 HRs 1642 AtBats.. 1 HR/8 AtBats

The human body simply does not get better from 37-40 than it was from 22-36.

So Bonds is turning 43 and he will break the record shortly. Do we applaud? Do we protest? Does MLB strike the record from the books if he used steroids? And what about guys like Palmiero and McGuire, who testified under oath and now have a stench of illegal performance enhancement?

WHAT ABOUT THE COMPLICITY OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL?

Lyle Alzado won a Super Bowl with the Raiders, and he admitted using steroids. Do we take that title away too? Guys like Byron Hunt would piss in Lawrence Taylor's cup so that LT would not fail his random drug tests for cocaine. LT would have been kicked out of football if he failed ONE more test. Does this mean that BOTH Super Bowls the Giants won should be negated? And what about the list of NFL players who used steroids? It is so lengthy and embarrassing that it would probably wreck 2-3 decades of winners. Two days ago we found out that an NBA referree was fixing games the past few seasons for the mob. Does this give enough evidence to turn back results?

Professional Sports has a lot of credibility to uphold. We can sit back as fans and judge Bonds all we want, but there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around. I am no fan of Bonds. I will not be watching when he breaks the record. But I have decided that it is a little too late to be judging him.

The Rules for Winning in the NFL

In the spirit of Independence Day, we declare these truths to be self-evident, that not all players and coaches are created equal... THE RULES FOR WINNING IN THE NFL! Please comment, detract, add your own. These rules can be amended (doubtful, but possible!) by your feedback.

1) Do not draft a "versatile" player in Round 1 of the draft. "Dominant" should be there, not versatile.
2) Left Tackle is a rare commodity. A good Left Tackle is better than a great ______ (fill in almost any other position).
3) WRs are a dime a dozen. Do not waste resources here; pick one up when you are close to the prize. They are always available.
4) "Linebackers, I collect'em." - Bill Parcells.
5) Pitchouts do not work in the red zone.
6) Repeat after me, Do not go for the 2 pt. conversion until there are 6 minutes left in the game. If there are more than 8 minutes left in the game, it is a 99% certainty that it was the wrong decision.
6a) The Mike Tomlin Rule- The only thing worse than violating Rule 6 is violating Rule 6 AFTER a penalty makes it a 7 yd (or 12! or 17 yard) attempt.
7) The Devin Hester Rule- If there is a special teams player in the end zone on a FG attempt, it is probably a good idea to fake the kick.
8) Do the unpredictable. Once you are predictable you are dead.
9) Trading down in the draft is good.
10) Investing all of your resources in one player is (now, more than ever in the era of free agency) a mistake. Eli Manning, Herschel Walker, Ricky Williams... the teams that do the best are usually giving the pick and getting multiple players.
11) "Read and react" is for losers. Set the tone, dictate terms of engagement, let others copy your SB blueprint. By the time you copy someone else's, the league has figured out how to adjust, so you are wasting your time.
12) Let the clock wind down to 3 seconds and kick your FG. I have never seen a team muff the (3rd down) attempt and kick on 4th down with the extra time that you left on the clock. I HAVE seen plenty of teams kick the FG and give the other team the oppty/win when they got their hands on the ball again. (ie Dallas Mon Night 2003)
13) The 2 week layover for the SB makes for a lousy game which improves the chances for the favorite.
14) Special teams are always underrated.
15) The only thing the prevent defense prevents you from doing is winning.
16) The only thing the prevent offense prevents you from doing is winning.
16a) The Kenny Holmes Rule- the only thing worse than the prevent offense is the prevent offense when your defense is exhausted/impaired by injury.
17) Players are told to play for 60 minutes. Yet who benches the head coach when he only coaches for 50?
18) The Fassel Rule of Prevent: It is always the coach's fault when a large lead is blown/the game is lost.
19) The Fassel Rule of December: Practice in December w/o pads- your players will appreciate it and win many more games for you with their fresh legs.
20) The Bill Walsh "Quality Win" (winning by 11+ points) is a necessary objective at all times because it enables you to win MORE games that are more hotly contested.
21) After 1st and Goal from the 1-2 yard line, if you fail to score a TD on your first three tries, kick the FG on 4th down.
22) The Carl Banks Rule- You cannot simply turn it on and turn it off in the NFL. Play every game and maintain/improve on your high level of play.
23) Second round draft picks are the best value in the draft. No sizzle, all steak.
24) # of headcases <= strong head coaches. (If you have a strong head coach you can have up to 1 head case in the locker room. If you have a weak head coach you cannot have any. A strong head coach with 2 head cases means a locker room infestation and problems.)
25) The Phil Simms Rule- You must stretch the field on offense. If you do not/cannot pass the ball >20 yards down field, LBers and Safeties will choke off your offense.
26) Defense wins championships.