Friday's News and Tweets from Practice

as doubtful by the Giants was active? That has been exceedingly rare under TC. Diehl isn't playing Sunday IMO.

him.

you bring someone up from the PS, then someone has to go on IR. Who would we bring up? Goodin? Who goes on IR? Snee? And can we even afford to bring someone up from the PS given how little cap room we have?

It's a shit show.

It's almost getting to the point where I'm not even concerned with the result of the game, I'm worried about Eli walking off the field on his own 2 feet.

like jcn56 said, the Giants will somehow win the game..

shot gun.

stay with the run, play field position, hope that the relatively healthy defense can keep the game close.

hope for a miracle

he will be the 7th OL. He might be last man off the bench. They are not bringing a PS player in.

Have to feel Cordle will be at center because he is ahead of Mosley I would have to think.

I would prefer to roll the dice with Boothe at center but I doubt TC will.

Booth is an excellent LG. Hes flexible, mobile and pulls successfully by staying low and putting a hat on a moving target.

Boothe is a journeyman.

Boy is the Giants line bad when Boothe is your second best lineman.

this could be a big upset win for the Gmen. 3-0 against a struggling, old, injured, inefficient, shitty 0-3 team with no heart!. Yup, upset...bank on it!

Giant coaches knew what they were getting into with this O-line during the summer. And if they didnt think Snee and Baas were going to be injured at some point based on their history (and off-season surgeries) than shame on them.

Rest of the team has to pick them up. Eli is goign to take his lumps and I am sure Wilson will have a few tacklers in his face, but there are many ways to win in the NFL.

Find them Coughlin/Gilbride/Fewell.

Boothe has been with the Giants for 7 years.

Unless you tape the games and watch each play a dozen time (in slow a motion), its impossible to get a fair appraisal.

His contract and 32 NFL GMs say otherwise.

It just means he's good enough to provide a solid day's work for a day's pay (like the guild members of yore), but that's about it.

think about his current level of play, you got to admire Deilh dedication and toughness

considering the fact that Myers caught 79 passes last year at TE and got a similar contract as Booth, I think you're using the wrong set of data to prove your point.

Boothe's total guaranteed money was $65K on a qualifying deal.

Yes, when you peel away the voidable BS, Myers's contract is effectively a one-year deal at the veteran-minimum salary. That's where the similarity to Boothe ends.

I could also point out that Myers looks like a journeyman too, but that's beside the point. He will make well over $2MM this year. Boothe will make less than $1MM. If Boothe were an excellent left guard, I think somebody would have outbid the Giants' rock-bottom offer.

Thats not true, as March 12 there were over 30 guards available in free agency. Only a handful of guards signed multimillion dollars deals. Add to it failed tackles that get converted to guard and plus 150+ guards from the 2013 draft. There was a large supply. Some good players fall through the cracks.

Offensive Guards

Andy Levitre (Signed six-year, $46.8M deal with TEN)
Louis Vasquez (Signed four-year, $23.5M deal with DEN)
Donald Thomas (Signed four-year, $14M deal with IND)
Lance Louis (Signed n there was the one-year, $1,603,750 deal with MIA)
Willie Colon (Signed one-year, $1.2M deal with NYJ)
Eben Britton (Signed one-year, $715K deal with CHI)
Jake Scott (Signed one-year, $840K deal with DET)
Ramon Foster (Signed three-year, $5.8M deal with PIT)
Kevin Boothe (Signed one-year, $905K deal with NYG)
Geoff Schwartz (Signed one-year deal with KC)
Matt Slauson (Signed one-year, $815K deal with CHI)
Stephen Peterman (Signed one-year, $905K deal with NYJ)
Travelle Wharton
Leroy Harris (Signed one-year deal with DET)
Tyronne Green (Signed one-year deal with NE)
Geoff Hangartner
Chad Rinehart (Signed one-year, $1.75M deal with SD)
Garrett Reynolds (Signed two-year, $2.5M deal with ATL)
Mike Pollak (Signed one-year, $780K deal with CIN)
Deuce Lutui
Kory Lichtensteiger (Signed fivAdd to it a 2013 drafte-year, $17.5M deal with WSH)
Antoine Caldwell (Signed one-year deal with BUF)
Adam Snyder (Signed two-year, $2.45M deal with SF)
Chilo Rachal (Signed one-year, $715K deal with ARZ)
Nate Garner (Signed three-year, $4.875M deal with MIA)
Chris Spencer (Signed one-year, $1.005M deal with TEN)
Rex Hadnot
Vince Manuwai
Rob Turner (Signed one-year, $1.5M deal with TEN)
Chris Williams (Signed one-year, $2.75M deal with STL)
Leonard Davis
Rokevious Watkins (Signed undisclosed deal with KC)
Bobbie Williams
Seth Olsen (Signed one-year, $650K deal with MIN)
Jeremy Bridges

I'm not saying you are in this category. But most people don't know anything about the oline. They watch the game at home while getting shitfaced, and/or while they're playing with their kids, or while they're doing laundry.

In 2010 Boothe filled in a guard very nicely. 2011 Boothe was our best lineman. In 2012 Boothe played once again at a very high level. If you watched the tape you would know this.


Kevin Boothe - ( New Window )

You are right unless all his bad plays were removed from the tape. He always knew his assignment, always hit his man, sustained running blocks pretty well, pulled well, protected very well.

I wish we had five of him.

Unfortunately, nobody will pay me for it. So I leave that glamorous work to the professionals in 32 NFL video rooms. It just seems implausible to me, no matter how ample the supply, that an "excellent", versatile, 30-year-old left guard would have to settle for a qualifying contract.

What's your definition of "excellent"? To me it means, very roughly, top ten among the 30-40 starting-calibre players at his position, with the first few being truly elite. The next five or so are very good, then good, and after that you're into mediocrity. Is Boothe among the ten best starting left guards in the league? Is he in the top 15?

The conclusion your list suggests - and I think it's true - is that there was only one truly excellent LG in the UFA market this winter: Andy Levitre. He got $10.5MM up front, a guaranteed $2.5 salary in 2013, and a structure that assures him of making another $6.5MM in 2014 because he's so expensive to cut. Whether Levitre is elite was a controversial topic in the off-season. Even if he is, can an elite LG be worth eight-to-ten times as much as an excellent one?

And what happened to a pretty good left guard who had to sell himself in this buyer's market? Take Ramon Foster: he'll make $2MM this year, based on a $900K bonus and a $1.1MM salary. That's more than twice what Boothe will earn.

I'm not saying contracts tell all, but they do tell a lot - especially when a group of players were free agents at the same time. To me, the most telling sign that Boothe is JaG is the way the Giants have handled him over the years. They've consistently shown more interest in keeping him on the bench as the sixth man than keeping him in the lineup (or, at contract time, on the team at all).

By the way, most of the guys on your list weren't really competing with Boothe for left guard jobs. Most are either primarily RGs, or centers and tackles who can play guard.

Sunday may be the day that Eli has to find and channel his inner Archie.

Oft-injured and with a history of off-field problems, he couldn't stick on an OL-starved Washington team, and he was barely a starter on a terrible Buffalo line, except when Levitre was briefly benched or had to fill in at tackle. He's now the Chargers' LG (and hurt again), making about 30% more on a one-year deal than Kevin Boothe.

It's possible that Boothe flew completely under the radar, but I don't see how. The Giants are among the most scrutinized teams in the NFL, and Boothe was a starter in SB XLVI. That's not a recipe for obscurity.

to the standard that the word "Excellent" implies.

Excellent is Chris Snee in his prime. Mike Iupati and Alex Boone. Marshall Yanda. Logan Mankins.

All those guys are, or were excellent Guards. Powerful blockers that not only handle their assignments, but obliterate defensive linemen and linebackers. The list is goes on and Boothe is not on it.

Think Richie Seubert in 2008 when he was playing like a man possessed. Watch tape of the things he did against Carolina. He was a machine. He was excellent.

Boothe is a nice player, that gets the job done. But he is not excellent.

I'm always pretty comfortable with him in there and think he usually does well. Not a pro bowl player, not an elite talent or anything.. just a good player who gets the job done more often than not.