To be honest, I could give a rat's brown about the handicapping of the Steelers vs the Cardinals. To me, it is all about listening to Phil Simms talk football. He does not talk down to the fans, he tells it like it is and either you get it or you don't. Simms is the teacher and I (we, if you agree) am the student. He is constantly educating us on how football works, and boy do we get a steady dose of it in his chat with Francesa yesterday.
The advantage of listening to Phil Simms this weekend is that the Giants have played both teams. You learn more about the Giants when you hear about them tangentially. For instance, Simms talks about how the Steelers defense is lining up vs the Cardinals with 7 men in the box, and he adds that only two times this year did the Steelers not use 7 men to stop the run. (1) vs the Titans and (2) A LOT more "cheating" vs the Giants. Simms mentioned as an aside how the 2008 Giants were one of the best running teams he has ever seen.
STOP!!!!
What does not add up here?
Everyone would give their left brown for having one of the best running games ever. And yet we ground to a halt. It was all #17's fault. Right, and I am the Easter Bunny.
Let's rewind the tape for a moment and go back to the Giants-Steelers game. This was one of those nitpickers specials, where the team won 21-14 and yours truly was going browning nuts in the middle of the game, saying clearly that the Giants win DESPITE that meathead. So now, THREE MONTHS LATER, we get some perspective from Simms, how the Steelers were cheating and loading the box to stop the run, and how we saw a Steeler defense with 8 men (which is like any other team with NINE) making the Giants go to the air. And let's remember, what else happened in this game? How about 5 trips to the red zone with 4 FGs?!!! And this game was WITH Burress. We FINALLY saw the play action to a wide open TE Boss in the end zone on the 6th trip in there.
And a remark about that word by Simms called "cheating." What Simms did NOT say which I know he MEANT (to say) was that it was a Steelers defense that was there with 8 men in the box and there were 2 others with a half a step ready to make it TEN men in the box. They were playing to stop the run all day, especially in those red zone tight situations where the field was shortened and they could gamble and use their speed to recover quickly if they took a half step the wrong way. Play action punished the gamble because the half step cheaters became one and a half step VIOLATORS.
James Allen: There's nothing wrong with Jacobs per se, but when the entire world knows you are handing it to Jacobs on 3rd or 4th and 1 and they stack 8 in the box and predictably stuff it, it shows they should mix it up a bit more in short yardage.
In the end they are probably going to win this game, and the 4th quarter will make most people forget the first three. Let's hope the Giants and Gilbride look at the 4th quarter film and do more of that.
Here it is October, and we already know exactly who the enemy is. This may be a redundant story, but when we see it from more angles, with more corroboration, it simply solidifies what we know.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Phil Simms on Friday Francesa
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This makes it even more frustrating for me. It is becoming painfully obvious that Gilbride will be here for another season. I can't say with any confidence at all that he or Tom Coughlin has learned their lesson.
Coughlin had to fire Tim Lewis and John Hufnagel when they were innefective, but more importantly Coughlin realized he was next if he didn't do something to improve the team.
Tom Coughlin has a Super Bowl ring and has the security of a long term contract. ( which he absolutely deserves ) He may now not seem to have the urgency or the inclination to fire Gilbride.
...And there in lies the problem. I as a fan do not want this team to flounder and I'm afraid we will continue to do that if Gilbride continues to run the Offense. The season is over for us and there is no groundswell to replace him.
So as we all have said countless times that we won in spite of Gilbride it is even more critical that this team finds a "big time receiver" to help out our Offense.
If he did learn his lesson ( a big if ) then we will see more screens, slants, draws & flares next season. I just can't trust Gilbrown and neither should Reese.
I know that Jerry Reese understands this and I am hoping that he has the "stones" to do the right thing and swing for the fences and obtain that integral part.
I believe he will.
This was why Motown's remark about this possibly being SF 39-38 is so disturbing. Here it is we were so close and yet the needed action then and the needed action now are not (apparently, thus far) happening.
Perspective is interesting. I was not 'smarter' than Wellington Mara in Jan 2003. My perspective as a fan removed the personal relationship with a good man named Jim Fassel (we called him F***el in the email group back then). Mara (as anyone) liked Jim. Nice guy. Respectful. So Mara saw the 49er game as Chicago in 1985, that the Giants were on the doorstep of a title. EGADS! To me, it was the same manglemitts coaching where the only team which could beat the Giants was itself. And that is the common denominator once again. That is the 'frustrating' element that Mitch refers to, that we have been down this path before. When the Giants are good enough to win but beat themselves, it is going to take CHANGES to make a title happen. In 2000 when Gentleman Jim's feet (and contract) were held to the fire, he grew a pair, changed, started taking no brown and the team responded to that by winning 5 straight to get the top seed (no, I do not forget the prevent 9-7 win vs Washington and Jeff George, aided by a HUGE penalty). And how about another coach on the hot seat who was told to change by John Mara or else he was gone. He CHANGED, the players responded to the coach and played their gutts out for him and won a title in 2007.
No one's feet are being held to the fire this time. No urgency from the offense vs the Eagles and no urgency to see the problems of why the team failed. They all think it was Manning's fault, and Plaxico's fault. And that necessary changes are (apparently) not happening anytime soon.
Gilbrown had to beg borrow and steal to get an interview with the Raiders, a mercy brown if I ever saw one. The Raiders stuck with 4-12(?) Tom Cable after a month of having the insane Al Davis go through his gyrations. The only thing more pathetic than Gilbride remaining as OC of the Giants would have been the Raiders pulling a Herm and taking Kevin off our hands. Now that that is gone, we are left with patient, deliberate and loyal Giants management to stay the course with KG. Yes, it was the same deliberate and loyal mgmnt that CHANGED Coughlin. But not here, not now. When you are a SB champ and then 12-4, change is not coming. Until Gilbrown is gone, I am afraid that Motown's assessment of SF Jan 2003 is with us.
I guess the only possable silver lining to this whole mess is if we take Jacobs at his word that you can't change your identity mid season. My mind says BS but my heart says "I hope so." Gilbrown will have the whole off season and training camp to develop a new offensive stratagy for life without Plax.
Then Plax will come back and screw the whole thing up again. LOL
The NYG situation seems very clear to me. We were the leading team in scoring in the NFL for 12 games with Plax, even with Gillbrown calling offensive signals. Without Plax, we scored 1 offensive TD in the last 2 games.
If Reese & Coughlin don't have the stones to eject Gillbrown, then they MUST find an equivalent for Plax or suffer mediocricy in 2009.
Pastime Princess...
Trust your mind not your heart here, because we all saw that Arizona was able to change their philosophy/identity and started running the ball at the end of the season. It can be done. Jacobs was just making an excuse.
I remember a few weeks back someone suggested we rent a plane and script a message "FIRE GILBRIDE"... I'm in.
Bob Papa was being interviewed down at the Super Bowl this week. These were his comments:
“I can’t still wrap my arms around the fact that they’re not here,” Papa said. “When you think of what they did defensively against Philadelphia in the first half. That game should have been 19-7 at the half. If it’s 19-7 at the half, Philly’s not coming back. And Arizona is not coming to Giants Stadium (for the NFC Championship Game) and beating the Giants. You watch these Super Bowl highlights on NFL Network and you see the Steelers going back to back and you realize how hard it is. But then you also realize the Giants were that close to becoming one of those teams that put their place in history in a whole different light.
Hey Andy...I don't think he has accepted it yet either.
It's just funny to think of a tough coach like Coughlin being unable to fire an assistant coach. I bet head coaches make vows to themselves each time a new assistant coach is hired: "I'm not gonna get close to this guy in case I have to get rid of him." But working together in the heat of battle forges a closeness that makes it hard for the head coach to fire his assistant, now friend.
Oops, I wasn't supposed to use a military reference ("heat of battle"). Anybody see this in the Washington Post today?
League Honor Military, but Moves Away From Using Its Terminology
Russ
I had heard an interview with Steve Sabol about the military references before and when asked about altering previous recordings of NFL films for that purpose he said he would never do it because he didn't want to tinker with voice overs out of respect for "The Voice of God" John Facenda.
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