Dallas 45 NYG 35

We outlined questions going into the season. Kiwanuka was an enormous liability in his new position. Our secondary is weak. These items contributed significantly to our loss and are not going away easily.

I am cautiously optimistic that (injuries aside) Manning can improve- that would be great..let's see him perform this way for an entire season.

The last word before the start of the season

Manning.

Tell me how Eli does and I will tell you how the Giant season goes. If he can become the consistent and accurate QB that delivers the ball to his receivers in stride, then even if the secondary fails and we go 6-10 despite his efforts, it will be a successful year. Eli Manning is currently the weakest link, and he needs to be the exact opposite- the player who can win games for us even if we do not get that effort from everyone else. So what do we get this year?

From Marvelous Marv (9.3.2007): "I LOVE ELI --& sense he can be a force. It is most difficult for ANY QB to be playing from behind MOST of each & every game---It puts Eli in MUST completions & that's NOT what we need for him!! I'm very certain tho--Eli has improved his total game-- The ONE area Eli must improve on---FEELING THE FOOTSTEPS -- NOT getting balls he's about to throw hit--or him getting tackled!! ...I feel Eli is better than most do!!"

From John Madden (NY Post 9.7.2007): "I think he's ready to be better this year than he was last year. He knows his problem has been accuracy, and he has been working on that. If they block for him and guys get open, I don't think Eli is going to be a big problem."

My view is simple. Show me. He does not deserve or get the benefit of the doubt. Just because a team drafts you number one and makes a huge investment in you does not mean you get the benefit of the doubt. QBs in the NFL take six years to deliver, yet we have seen an important study which says that most NFL QBs hit their general area of sustainable QB rating by the third year. After playing in the second half of 2004, Manning's rating was a pedestrian 75.9 in 2005 and 77 in his 3rd year in 2006. All this while having talented receivers (including a Pro Bowl TE) to throw to and a Pro Bowl running back to take the pressure off the pass. Not to mention Barber's considerable skills at picking up the blitz and being a vg checkdown option out of the backfield.

We have seen glimpses of his potential. He has had his moments of brilliance, like in San Diego, or when he changed the play on a blitz call last year and led the team to an OT victory in Philly. He has pocket poise. Until I see consistent accuracy from him he is not our answer and he is the weakest link in our chances for getting an NFL championship.

SEASON PREVIEW AND PREDICTION

Too many question marks....
Will Kiwanuka play well at LB?
Will Diehl play well at LT?
Will our shoddy secondary hold it together?
Will Manning be accurate?
Will our RBs handle the pass-catching out of the backfield?
Will our (now) thin OL stay healthy?
Will we find a kicker?

And add a few more questions that will surface during the season, and you see that there are too many things that can go wrong, and everything that needs to go right. Jerry H. remarks that none of these question marks are insurmountable, and that if all can go well we will have a good season. Arnie V. thinks that whenever the glass is 3/4 full we have a lousy season and whenever it is 3/4 empty we get surprised and have a good year. To be fair there is a decent amount of consensus from the media (who almost uniformly pick the Giants either 3rd or last in the NFC East) and those surveyed informally that it will be hard to get a winning a record with this team. I am not bowled over by the Cowboys (never was a Wade Phillips fan... a classic retread coach) or the Skins, but can we take two from either of these teams? No. And we will get swept by the Eagles as long as they are healthy and do not have 4 probowlers on IR. The rest of the schedule is not that hard. They have vulnerable opponents like GB, NYJ, ATL, SF, MIA, DET, MIN and BUF that are ALL winnable games if the Giants are good. There are only 4 games on the entire schedule that I do not think the Giants have a chance: both Eagles game, at Chi and home vs NE. Teams like the Jets and 49ers are on the rise. Those two home games will tell a lot about our season. The Giants need to win both in order to have a good year.

Unless Eli has solved his accuracy problems and can play (well) consistently all year, I see 6-10. If many of the questions above are answered, then we can go 10-6. I do not believe in Coughlin. I do not believe in Eli. I believe we will be 6-10.

TWENTY FIVE MINUTE Windbag

Articles like this, books like this, do not come around so often. When they do, you pay attention. They offer rare glimpses into the understanding of how the business of football works, and how it shapes winning and losing in the NFL.

The lead in the article is about how Parcells threw in his hat for the Giants GM job.

More interesting to me is how the Giants, one of the flagship organizations in professional football, did not get their first (or second) choice for head coach. And then they settled on a retread windbag. Talk about a poker tell! If this anachronism was not connecting with Accorsi, how was he going to connect with his players?

And while we are at it, let's add 1+1. I get 2. What do you get? Well, if you are Accorsi and the Giants, you get ZERO! As in, they botched getting Fox and let him slip through their fingers (this was later confirmed and can be read in an earlier post). And now we see that they botched getting Weis too. There is no speculation about either of these facts. Maybe Accorsi is the real nightmare.

Strahan

What an embarrassment. This guy is collecting a check. He is going to get hurt because statistically that is what happens to guys who miss camp. He should not play the first two games of the season, and he should not get those game checks. But Strahan will get a chunk of his fines rescinded, and he will dress for the first games. All of this is a mistake. He hurt himself, hurt the team and will probably get hurt too.

IF he can stay healthy and get up to max productivity, Strahan will help this defense immeasurably. But why does there have to be a conditional next to that statement for a FB player making 4M per year? Strahan chose all of this. If I am the Giants Administration, I am NOT lenient at all on his fines. Why? Because the precedent is that if you make enough money you can piss away a small part of it on fines and it is a cheap price to pay not to have live in a dorm with two-a-days building chemistry with your teammates. Isn't the timing of his arrival just a little bit bothersome to you? He has conveniently missed all of camp while "deciding" whether to play. Sure, we will see some pr attempts in coming days by him and others to rebuild his credibility and show him to be a sincere man who was trying to find himself. BS. It is all about the money. Fine him the max if it is 'not' about the money.

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.