That bitter taste in their mouth

Eisen of Giants.com talks about the consensus aftertaste of 2008:

"A lot of the players still talk about the playoff loss to Philadelphia and how much they want to atone for that, how they did not play their best football at the end of last season. They were very disappointed last year. This is a team that is very eager to get started... half the guys would get in the car and go (to Albany for training camp)."

You have to know and expect that the maturity and experience of this team will make a difference in 2009. They expect to win, they have a great deal of confidence, and did not like finishing poorly last year. We'll be surprised if the Giants are not able to play at a consistently high level this season. The bitter aftertaste of last year that we keep hearing about is a very good thing.

Who said this about Nicks?

From Friday June 12: "I like the way his attitude is. I like everything about what he's trying to do here. He's planning on staying here all summer so he can throw and catch with Eli [Manning]. He's spending extra time in his playbook. He's watching film. He's doing things that veterans do. It's awesome to see. That's how you succeed and that's how you make a splash in the NFL."

These are the things you like to see. To have your #1 embrace the work ethic and NOT rest on his laurels of being selected #29, it is a VERY good sign. People turn their television on for week 1 and see a rookie make some good plays and they think it is his ability. But we here on this blog watch the Giants 24/7/365 and know enough about football to be aware of the fact that it takes a tremendous amount of dedication and effort to succeed. This rookie can push Moss to get more time in the slot. Is it crazy to think he can take the X and be next to Smith? If he works hard enough it will only be a matter of time. At the very least, it is simply an encouraging sign to see a rookie with special gifts who is willing to work. It shows a great deal of self-respect, respect for his teammates and coaches.

More OTA review

Boley

Thursday OTA Recap

Beckum

17 postponements

Plaxi-shmoe delays his fate until September. Time is NOT on this guy's side. Sure, if he pulled a Keith Hamilton, kept delaying AND KEPT PLAYING while he delayed, he would be doing something that is effective. But the delays in this situation mean he does not necessarily play. Why do the Bears/Jets/Bucs sign him to a deal when he is a question mark with the court system and the league? It is challenging enough to get involved with a player that has a troubled past. Why get involved with a player that has a troubled present and/or future?

So for a moment, let's assume he would not return to football until after his legal issues are figured out. His value and his return to football drop with every postponement. You do not just turn things off and turn them back on at this professional level of athletic commitment. Michael Jordan went to baseball for ~1.5 years and it took another year after his return before he could play at the level he was at before he left. Plaxico Burress has been out of football since November of last season. Now he misses training camp and if he has to serve time it is 2010 before he sees football again. He would probably have an uneven 2010 season, 2011 he would return "to form." But here is the kicker- he would be THIRTY FOUR YEARS OLD BY THAT POINT in 2011. This guy does not have the time he thinks he has. He has just burned 5 months in postponements.

Let's also remember it takes time for ANY WR and ANY QB to get the rhythm and communication necessary to succeed. Not only is this guy going to have to get back to max football output, he is also going to have to learn a new playbook and a new QB. Peyton Manning to Marvin Harrison happens after many years of each player knowing exactly what is going on. The only way out for Burress would be if some team like the Bears were to do make the leap now, take future risks and have an experienced QB like Cutler shorten his communication curve. And then of course we are talking Burress, who would be in Florida in the offseason, not working on his timing with his new QB.

As the story goes, Burress would like to play for the Jets so that he can "stick it to the Giants." Too bad that this shmoe is too busy sticking it to himself first.

To Headcoach or Not to Headcoach

Your team has just gotten another losing season, the head coach has been fired and it is time to pick a successor who will hopefully turn things around. Who do you hire? Do you hire a new head coach who has previously been a head coach with another NFL team, OR do you hire a head coach who does not have any previous experience as an NFL head coach?

The answer from this blog- take the rising assistant head coach. Roll the dice on the new and unproven. Why? Because the goal is championships, and the data shows that NEW head coaches have won many more Super Bowl championships. If your goal is to restore your franchise to respectability, by all means get a retread. They will win you games and give your fans a playoff appearance. But if you are playing to go all the way, get the coordinator who has done some very good things, give him the keys to the car and let him drive.

HC Super Bowl winners w/ no previous NFL HC experience
Lombardi
Stram
McCafferty
Landry
Noll
Madden
Flores
Walsh
Gibbs
Ditka
Parcells
Seiffert
Johnson
Switzer
Holmgren
Billick
Cowher
Tomlin

HC Super Bowl winners w/ previous NFL HC experience
Ewbank
Shula
Shanahan
Vermeil
Belichick
Gruden
Dungy
Coughlin

18 out of 26. 69%. 72% if you count them by total titles.

Here is where we editorialize also. In this blogger's not-so-humble opinion, Coughlin does not win a Super Bowl unless he is ordered to CHANGE and start communicating better with his players by John Mara after a contentious implosion in 2006. Strahan, Burress and others all noted the difference that Coughlin had made. He changed(see minute ~6:30). He was available to players. He listened to them. In fact, we cited here that one of the reasons why the Giants pulled it all off is that the players asked Coughlin for more rest (more sane practices) as the season wore on, Coughlin gave it to them, and the Giants became the road warriors, winning 11 straight on the road. In short, Coughlin bonded with his players in a way that he never would have done when with the Jaguars OR the Giants in 2005 and 2006. Asterisk.

Belichick had an absolutely horrible situation with an imploding franchise that packed up in the middle of the night to escape town. Every former head coach who is interviewing for a new chance is going to tell you they have the extenuating circumstances that makes them the candidate to come in and win a title. But the numbers say you are better off with a new face.

Some of you are thinking- but what about the fact that in the last 12 years, 6 out of 9 of those coaches had previous HC experience. That this is the new era of free agency... Perhaps it is true that there is less patience on behalf of owners, who see teams like the Rams go from worst to first. The turnover of free agency makes life in the NFL far more volatile. The Raiders fire Gruden (more attributable to Al Davis literally losing his mind) when they are knocking on the door. Every HC that wins after losing elsewhere has a story of redemption. Maybe it is true that you have to pay attention to the extenuating circumstances more, because franchises may be making more mistakes in letting guys go too early. Steve Spagnuolo, Ken Whisenhunt, Rex Ryan... these are the types of guys who will give you the fresh start, the best shot. Mangini with prev experience as a head coach? No.

So, do you go with the last 9 datapoints? Or the first 25 (23 out of 25, pretty scary, eh?). We'll choose to look at all 34 and say that the new guy gives you the fresh blueprint and supports Rule #11. Of course there are exceptions. If the Giants had a vacancy and John Fox was let go by the Panthers, I would want Fox back here BECAUSE of the work he has done in Carolina. Fox + Reese would be scary good.

Summary: All things being equal, take the new head coach, not the retread. Only take a HC with former HC experience if there are very strong circumstances arguing for why the candidate deserves another opportunity.

6 Parts, ONE GREAT SHOW

Back by popular demand. The first repeat post. Not good.. A GREAT SHOW.. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Strahan, Manning and Coughlin. 6 Parts. One great story produced by the NFL Network.

A classic from Friday September 12, 2008

America's Game Part 1- The 2007 Giants

America's Game Part 2

America's Game Part 3

America's Game Part 4

America's Game Part 5

America's Game Part 6

Jeremy Shockey

Fictional conversation overheard...

Brees: Are you coming to the voluntary OTAs?
Shockey: Maybe, I'm not sure.
Brees: Whadya mean, maybe???!!
Shockey: Well, I am supposed to be in Miami when..
Brees: Miami? MIAMI!! Do you play for the freaking Dolphins?
Shockey: No, but I like practicing at Miami with all the Hurricane players.
Brees: McFly?? McFly?! Hello McFly. Here, let me help me you out. I'll give you some geography. You show up at all the OTAs, voluntary or mandatory. In LOUISIANA. Or else I am not looking your way.
Shockey: I'm going to be healthy this season and I'll be able to help the team much more than last season.
Brees: You're not going to help anyone here if you dare miss even a single practice. You're on my s*** list if you miss a single practice, you hear me pea brain?
Shockey: I get it, I get it.
Brees: Good. Now tell me what happened in Vegas.

Terrell Thomas

Terrell Thomas video. This guy came on well as the season wore on, which is exactly what you want to see from a rookie. Quietly we have big hopes for Year 2.

Some of the OTA recap

OTA = Offseason Training Activity. When reading about OTA's it is like you are wandering in the desert and every tidbit is supposed to be a meal. It isn't. We are ready for training camp already at the end of July, but in the meantime we have to discuss how a second string player looked good versus a third string defender and presto- success! I do remember Amani Toomer showing up for his third year, having done karate in the offseason, and really separating himself from the pack. So you want to see players who can turn heads. It's still June. These stories are probably at magnification level 3 and need to be toned down. Just a warning not to be sucked into any early hype...

Manningham

Ware

Barksdale

Hixon and Woodson

Busy day in OTA land, plaxi-shmoe

Ralph Vacchiano reports that

Cofield "may" have had micrfracture surgery too. Read the note by Ralph that says how the Robbins blog deleted the word "microfracture" from the Robbins site. Too late, the cat's out of the bag. I always find it stunning how people try to delete history. Saturday Night Live had a great skit back in November of last year with the Big 3 automakers on C-Span in front of Congress asking for 10's of billions of dollars. The plan was to get more and more money every few months with no end in sight. These comedians (and the public) had this one figured out well before we pumped in 50B-60B to see GM still go to bankruptcy anyway. Why mention this? Because you can no longer find the video on the SNL website. NBC pulled it. The truth (be it to the gov't or to the ad clients) hurts.

Lots of passing at Friday's OTA

Antonio Pierce lost a gear last year. 31 in October? Ouch. This is what happens to ALL LBers. A few are able to sneak by until 33, but most get to 31 and the downhill slide is unforgiving. Boley will help his game, but remember that Boley will probably be thinking too much to be making an impact, at least in the first half of the 2009 season. Pierce's days are numbered. If he is able to find the fountain of youth and play effectively for one more season, it would be a huge gift. This was why we were so keen on beefing up LBer. I really hope Sintim can help this team, but his hamstring certainly does not help. At least he'll be able to rest it from mid June to the end of July.

Someone is going to have to explain why it all of a sudden has dawned on plaxi-shmoe that he needs to do a deal NOW to keep him in the 2009 season. He had this at the end of March and passed. Two more months have gone by and he is NOW figuring it out? For his sake the grass better be greener with the Jets/Bucs/Bears.. in 2010?

Brian Westbrook gets the knife today

Trivia question: Brian Westbrook is 29 years old. How many seasons has he started all 16 games for the team? Answer- NONE. And we just found out a few days ago that Westbrook will be having his second surgery of the offseason TODAY. He had arthroscopic knee surgery earlier in the offseason, and now ankle surgery to clean out bone spurs. This is not going to help him stay on the field in 2009 because his offseason preparation is going to be impaired. Westbrook is a great player who absolutely kills the Giants when he is healthy. But the good news for the Giants is that he cannot stay healthy for very long.

Fred Robbins

Fred Robbins mentions in his blog on Tuesday and Ralph V picked up that Robbins had microfracture surgery. Oh brown. You cannot have enough depth at DL. How many of you realistically think this guy is going to make the final roster? This has PUP list written all over it.

It is a very sad moment for Giants fans. Fred Robbins is a warrior who time and again delivered for the gmen. When you think about what he played through all season? And the Eagles playoff game, he was playing on guts, and almost ran that INT into the endzone! We hope this guy has some gas left in the tank, but this is sobering and realistically we cannot expect that much more. He was in the trenches for us and got us a championship. Fred- whether or not you play for the Giants again, thanks for all you have given us.

Crime of omission

Sal Paolantonio of ESPN writes an NFC East blog entry on Eli Manning and the Giants receiving options.

Which name is missing from this analysis?

KEVIN BOSS!

Not a word on his motherbrowning TE, all 6'6" and 270 lbs. of him! Yes, technically speaking, Boss is a TE, and not a WR. WHO CARES?! Win games. Go tell that to the Atlanta Falcons, who gave up a #2 for Tony Gonzalez, who "only" caught for 1000 yards and beat out approximately 6x32-9= ~183 other WRs in this league. (Not to mention the other 60 or so TEs too!) USE YOUR TE.

Trust us, we still have scars from a decade of Howard Cross killing our offense because of its INABILITY to have a TE as a weapon to pull away that SS. Kevin Boss has all that is necessary for 800+ yards from scrimmage. You think THAT can help Manning and this offense move the ball more consistently and get an identity?!! We just better hope Boss is more on the radar of Gilbrown than that of Paolantonio.

PSL Update

Myers of the Daily News updated us on the PSLs this weekend.

1) Apparently since all of the NON-CLUB ("non-premium") seats are sold, blackout rules do not apply. The NY Metro area will not be blacked out. Pathetic and embarrassing that such a topic should even have to come up.

2) On the subject of embarrassing, Myers points out that these overpriced club seats behind the Giants bench potentially will be empty for home games, creating the same gaffe that the Yankees have behind homeplate. Ironically, this is only partially true. The TV cameras are on the opposite side of the field behind the visiting team, and when they want crowd shots they usually spin around to get those close ups. You can bet your sweet bottom that if the Clubs remain unsold (doubtful, they'll find some sucker corporates to mop up the rest) the Giants will instruct the NFL and networks to MAKE SURE that they turn the camera to soldout Field 1.

3) We said a long time ago that the waitlist was inflated with many people who had to be on it to register for the ticket exchange program. Kudos to Myers for getting those numbers on just how bad it was.

4) Between the search for people who will pay for these tickets and the ones who stretched to buy PSLs and need to resell tickets to others to lower their costs, you have to expect the crowd and character of the stadium is going to change. How much of the homefield advantage will be lost? We re-link the article written by Simmons of ESPN, a very good read and reread.

Boomer speaks to Manning, Nicks

MSG moments from ~last week. (We see these things faster than they get posted, but in the offseason you have to string'em out a little bit or else you can go for days without anything.)

Boomer interview with Manning. Nice comment on Andre Brown.

Hakeem Nicks shows up at minute 8:00 of the video segment.