recent vintage Giants stars sure have short shelf lives

Most other teams most likely share the same fate

But RBs usually have pretty short careers.

while some were injury prone. Snee stayed healthy until he started to get hurt and his skills went downhill because of it.

I am surprised Kiwi is one of the last one standing, along with Eli.

(maybe?) thing about Bradshaw is his career was over by 26.

I think Tuck is underestimated slightly. He definitely wasn't the same (I want to say after the Flozell Adams cheap shot?), and I know stats aren't everything, but last year he was very good against the run and had double digit sacks.

Was also done at a pretty young age of 33.

At age 32. You would think one of those guys coulda made it to the 35 year range as an OL. Not sure what the norm is for that position, but seems fairly young.

it's hard to say how we compare to other teams. Barnwell's article last year did a good job of summarizing all of the injuries and such that have impacted many of our recent draft picks. It sure seems like many of our guys are barely even approaching 6-7 years of productive seasons, let alone 10+. Maybe we were spoiled by guys like Toomer, Tiki, Strahan (obviously a huge outlier), Hammer, etc.

It's hard for me to agree with you on Tuck and Snee. Not only is Tuck still playing, but he's coming off an 11.5 sack season (though I know it was largely compiled. Snee... yeah, he checked out a tad early, but nothing over-the-top.

Thomas is one of those players that, in a weird way, probably exceeded expectations given his circumstances. Every team gets a handful of players bit with multiple injuries/surgeries, but the way Thomas responded time and time again was extraordinary.

Phillips and Smith I totally agree with. Phillips was looking like he could be a top 5 safety in the NFL before his injury, and while he showed flashes after that, he just never fully recovered. Smith? He had like 25-farkin-catches in one season more than ANY GIANT EVER. His fall from grace is the craziest of them all.

Can't really do anything about injuries. It's why guys who get to 15-19 years are usually the hall of famers.

Our guys seem to fall off a cliff like they were signed by the Rangers - there's no graceful decline from very good to good to average.

O'Hara is another.

his fall isn't that crazy.

They had to recontruct his knee. For a player that was never a super athlete, and who made himself by maxing out his ability, it's a death sentence.

he was pretty much done at 29.

was maybe the opposite though?

I thought some of his best seasons, were the later seasons of his career.

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Tuck and Snee broke down.

I would say bad luck on the first three, but it happens, and teams usually don't find Pro Bowl WRs in their backyard UDFA pool to wildly succeed the guy lost to a bad injury.

if you're into reliving all the injuries, failed picks and plain old bad luck.
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mid 30s (in terms of quality, not just dragging themselves out to the field) is a bit unlucky.

NFL careers are generally short, but you'd think at least one of them, given the positional histories/probabilities, would have held up longer than they did, as they were all pretty much shot after 2010.

that Terrell Thomas is still unsigned. He did OK last year and should be 100% this year. WTH???

done after only 9 starts in his career and 24 overall games played. I'm still pissed off

Doesn't seem to belong with the others, whose careers ended or declined dramatically due to circumstances beyond their control.

We'll see if he's "done" but he hasn't been looking like the guy we saw a few years ago. Maybe even JPP, let's hope not.

We've definitely had bad luck with long-term injuries. Lots of good players who didn't have anything close to the normal career arc because of long-term injuries.

in the Plax category of self-inflicted idiocy costing the team.

...at least a year or two before their wheels came off. Seubert's career ended suddenly, but it was a miracle he ever made it back from his first "career-ending" injury. I think the only guy who really fell off a cliff was McKenzie in 2011.

All five of those lineman got paid, though Seubert did less well than the others. The players I feel most for are the ones who fell just short of a big payday because of ill-timed injuries - like Phillips, Thomas and Smith. Even Jon Goff and Dominik Hixon were on their way to nice, lucrative careers when their knees went.

Then there's Chad Jones, whose bad luck is of a different magnitude, though he still considers himself fortunate.

Monetarily I don't feel sorry for Smith. The year before it was reported that he left 7mill per season(for 5 years) on the table. He says he never received such an offer. So either his Agent witheld that from him(highly doubtful imv) or the Giants lied.

What do you think?

But Kevin Boss had a quick turnaround from a promising NFL tight end to an afterthought, too.

was due to repeated concussions..I doubt he ever recovered fully from the ones incurred with us

When a player plays 10+ seasons just think how many teammates he would have played with and how the rosters change over that period of time.

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cut too soon, before the Giants had any proven replacements.

O'Hara had been hurt and missed most games in 2010, but what's new about a player being banged up one year. Shaun was about the only Giant O-Lineman to make the Pro Bowl three times, once as a starter. Seubert was BBI's player of the year, so did the BBI people here think that he was "done" going into 2011.

That line was "lunch pail" line like in 1986. No publicity, average to good ability, but playing as a unit for so many years made them special.

So in 2011, sacks go up from 16 to 28. Bradshaw rushing average goes from 4.5 to 3.9 and Jacobs from 5.6 to 3.8.

But since we won the Super Bowl by the width of a hair I wouldn't change a damn thing.

be cut too soon?

Seubert's injury in the last game of 2010 was something he just couldn't get back from and he had to call it a day. A couple teams (including Miami) showed interest in O'Hara in 2011, after the Giants cut him, but he couldn't pass a physical to be cleared to play even in the middle of that season; he too was just physically done.

The Giants have made plenty of mistakes in recent years. Cutting players that had to retire because injury is not one of them.

that alone more than balances the scale, no?

in the last game of the season. Still, before he was hurt Reese had been praising him to the skies for filling in so well at center.

Seubert was singing the old "ready by training camp" song. But you could make the better case for keeping Seubert since he was 32 and didn't have a prior list of very serious injuries.

There's a hint in this article that the Giants needed cap space for Bradshaw, Steve Smith, and Bossy. So, who knows, they sign Seubert and don't sign Bossy then they lose the Super Bowl, if they even get there.

This article made an emotional impression on me because the guys just wanted to come back so badly.
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I think it is a hell of a lot easier to make the case the Giants are lucky to get good production on guys in their second contract. The overwhelming statistics put guys done in their first contract. The Strahans of the game are insanely limited.

case to be made. Same for O'Hara.

I'm sure Reese would have loved to have been able to ride at least Seubert at C for one more year and not have had to overpay Baas like he did, but it was never an option for the team. You can't keep guys who physically can't be cleared to play and that you know very likely won't ever be again.

thought he still had a lot to give. He had overcome serious injuries in the past.

It is futile to argue this since we don't his exact medical condition, or what his doctors were telling the Giants.

Their mid thirties. Sure some like Bruce Matthews was very good into his middle 30s but MANY OLs are lucky to get 8 seasons in. . On what planet do offensive linemen regularly play into their mid 30s? Never mind at a high level.