Eli, Coughlin, Reese and Organizational Failure

Let me first start off by saying that Eli has had a crappy season which has contributed significantly to the nightmare this season has become. But this nightmare season is a systemic failure, and what I mean by that is, not that the read-option offense, or Fewell’s defensive schemes are the problem, rather it is an entire organizational failure from top to bottom.

That said, I have a hard time believing that a two time Superbowl MVP, someone who has been perhaps one of the most clutch 4th quarter QBs, someone who is still in their prime and has largely been free of serious injury, has all of a sudden this year forgotten how to play QB. It just doesn’t happen. Of course QBs as they age or suffer injury see their skills drop off, but we are not seeing that with Eli. For all the throws that make you want to toss the remote through the TV, he still makes ones that do leave you in awe. Most of his mistakes are mental. You have to be an unabashed Eli hater, not to acknowledge the impact that the OL’s inability to consistently keep him upright is having on him and his decision-making. People have long complained about Eli’s lack of emotion and his even keeled personality. This is the first season I can recall where I can strongly feel his frustration and that he his having a hard time keeping his emotions under control. We’ve seen a lot of bad throws from him this year, more than we have become accustomed to. However, I still think its mental. Bad throws usually mean one of two things a bad read or bad mechanics, both of which are more likely when you cannot rely on your offensive line. Part of it is also his makeup. He’s a gunslinger, a bit more Brett Favre than Peyton. You might occasionally get an inopportune interception but you have a comfort knowing when the game is on the line he can stick that throw into the smallest window to win the game. But that is the rub. The things he does that make you want to pull your hair out are what also makes him great. He’s poised, supremely confident in himself and a competitor. He takes chances because he always believes that he can win the game. How many of those turnovers in the middle of the season were because of him trying to do to much? a good portion I would bet.

I am not trying to exonerate Eli here. He must be accountable for his poor play. My point is simply that we don’t need to find a new QB and it is wrongheaded to think that any other QB would thrive better under similar conditions. Fix the OL next year, have a credible running attack, and much of these issues will disappear.

On the coaching front, I have come to greatly admire Coughlin as a coach and more impressively as a human being. However, I have been frustrated with him and the staff as much as anyone this year. I think Coughlin this year has been stubborn, and to a certain degree he has a right to be. He has a system that has been proven effective, winning two Super Bowls. When the system all of a sudden no longer works and mental errors are everywhere, I don’t blame him for thinking its not the system thats the problem, its execution. However, there comes a point when your personnel can’t run the system that you have to consider other alternatives. I also think another reason Coughlin was slow to change things up was that this focus was on keeping the team together and not have it lapse into a free for all of infighting. To have drastically changes things up would have sent a vote of no confidence to the team which would have just accelerated the collapse. For those who worry if Coughlin sticks around we are doomed to more of the same, I would just say he’s not a stupid man. He knows what isn’t working. He’s reinvented himself before, and I wouldn’t put it past him again. You know he cares and you know he hates losing.

This brings me to Jerry Reese. I’e long ago pushed back against the whole “In Reese we trust” mantra. Not because I though he should be fired, but because he like everyone is not above being accountable for their performance. As a Red Sox fan, I watched Theo Epstein win two World Series but make a number of bad decisions that were directly responsible for the two previous nightmare seasons. Here its not hard to understand why the team is suffering. We lack talent in key areas and that is directly attributed to some poor drafting, especially in the mid rounds. Too many projects picks that have not panned out. That said while Reese is the GM and the buck stops with him, I put more blame on Marc Ross. I think that there has been a drop off in our drafts since Ross took over for Reese. He’s doing the scouting and talent evaluating. If there is one casualty this off season, I would not be surprised to see Ross let go.

Reese’s poor decisions this year are obvious and I am not going to dwell on them. I’ve always tried to judge Reese not on his mistakes but what he does to rectify them. Usually he succeeds in remedying them. The awful year we had CC Brown at Safety, the next year he went out and signed Antrell Rolle. This year he was wrong about our LBs. He goes out and trades for Beason which seems to have made a difference. Its easy to criticize him for all the wrong moves he’s made this year, even if our cap situation was most of the problem. Let’s just give him the opportunity to fix his own mess. Unlike letting a player go a year too early instead of a year to late, I think I’d rather err on the side of prudent caution here.

Clearly, there needs to be changes next year. The team cannot and will not go into the season next year status quo. I just think we need to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of tossing the baby maybe we can just get rid of Fewell and Gillbride.