Lots of panties in a bunch this morning after preseason game #2.
So what should have been done? 2015 is over, what would have been your plan going into 2016 to improve the OL.
Please provide specifics.
Draft: Conklin & Stanley were gone. Tunsil had issues.
I have provided a link to 2015 Free agents.
Free agents - (
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WTF? Vernon, Harrison, JPP, DRC, Hankins, Jenkins, I think Collins is showing he's going to be a top SS, our FS is impressing as a rookie, Kennard. This defense has more talent than any in the division, easily. You want to be down on the OL, fine. Say all you want, no arguments. The defense doesn't have talent. You're clueless.
Complete BS. If you really think they were taking Floyd, you aren't paying attention very closely.
This team got embarrassed - not beaten - embarrassed by their biggest rival 2 years in a row in crucial prime time games. They're 1-5 vs Philly since 2013 with the 1 win coming vs Matt Barkley. They're probably not going back to the post-season if they can't even beat the Eagles.
One of the truest football cliches is "bad teams find ways to lose" and I'm not sure if any team exemplifies that more in recent years than the Giants. It's at times uncanny, like week 1 vs Dallas and week 10 vs New England.
The X factor that the Giants no doubt continually have front & center in their minds is Manning's age. 4 more years if they're lucky. No doubt they're gambling that once he's in the post-season...he, Beckham, and the Dline can win some games in January. Part of the reason I'm sure for the monster FA contracts.
That's if they can make the playoffs, belying what we've witnessed as of late.
This team got embarrassed - not beaten - embarrassed by their biggest rival 2 years in a row in crucial prime time games. They're 1-5 vs Philly since 2013 with the 1 win coming vs Matt Barkley. They're probably not going back to the post-season if they can't even beat the Eagles.
You mean the same teams that were the most injured teams in the NFL for those 3 years on top of having already lost TT and Phillips and Nicks and Wilson and others. Those teams were 1-5 vs Philly. Shocked.
We have a HUGE talent evaluation problem on the NFL level. We seemed to have fixed it in regards to the draft but our pro personnel is fucking abysmal.
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+1
Carolina loses their #1 receiver and goes to the Super Bowl b/c of their depth of talent.
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Once Gettleman left, I'd have found myself a good Pro Personnel guy and not hired Chris fucking Mara who absolutely sucks at his job.
"Chris Mara joined the Giants as Vice President of Player Evaluation on July 29, 2003. He was promoted to Senior Vice President of Player Personnel in 2011." (Giants.com) Gettleman left in 2013. He worked for Chris Mara.
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Once Gettleman left, I'd have found myself a good Pro Personnel guy and not hired Chris fucking Mara who absolutely sucks at his job. ood for 4 games a year.
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+1
Carolina loses their #1 receiver and goes to the Super Bowl b/c of their depth of talent.
They went to the SB with one of the best Ds in the NFL. If we had that D, we would have vied for it all...
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In comment 13080607 Joey in VA said:
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Once Gettleman left, I'd have found myself a good Pro Personnel guy and not hired Chris fucking Mara who absolutely sucks at his job.
"Chris Mara joined the Giants as Vice President of Player Evaluation on July 29, 2003. He was promoted to Senior Vice President of Player Personnel in 2011." (Giants.com) Gettleman left in 2013. He worked for Chris Mara.
And Gettleman's team went 15-1 and has a bright future and we sign asswipes on the OL who can't block anyone in the NFL. Wonderful stuff. He worked for Chris Mara....I worked for several idiots who I out earn and have much higher positions than now because I earned it and was good and they sucked, just like Chris Mara.
You keep missing the point. Mara didn't replace Gettleman nor did he hire who replaced him. We won two SB with Chris Mara in his job. He seemed to do ok then.
Nah, 19 wins over three years indicates the team is loaded.
Here's a link to guys that could have been considered.
Linky - ( New Window )
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As drkenneth said what OL would you have signed. There is the reality of what's available. Schwatz's brother was the only fit I remembered and I'm not sure that was realistic given his preferences.
Here's a link to guys that could have been considered. Linky - ( New Window )
And it's a pretty limited list. Glenn stayed put for 13m/per and Osemele got 12m/per from Oakland. Who weren't you going to sign to get one of them or even a Beachum or Schwartz.
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Once Gettleman left, I'd have found myself a good Pro Personnel guy and not hired Chris fucking Mara who absolutely sucks at his job. ood for 4 games a year.
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+1
Carolina loses their #1 receiver and goes to the Super Bowl b/c of their depth of talent.
The majority of the players who were vital in the Panthers success last year had nothing to do with Gettleman. They were there before he arrived.
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When you think about the players who had the most to do with the Panthers success last year, who do you think of? Newton, Olsen, Kuechly, Thomas Davis, Norman, Kalil, Stewart, Johnson... all of those players were there before Gettleman arrived.
Not saying he hasn't done a good job there or had nothing to do with their success last year but the vast majority of their impact players who had the most to do with their run last year were from the prior regime. There are 6 pro bowl/all-pro players on that list. That's a lot of talent and Gettleman had nothing to do with them being in Carolina.
He's been great and the loss of his football mind in the Giants war room had been felt. Mara hated losing him and he's made a huge impact in Carolina.
2) whomever said resign the unicorn at te is spot on- our oline and run game has been garbage since the departure of a te that was a threat and a competent ( in mb case excellent) blocker. Teams don't scheme for the Giants te position they exploit it- and that kills our tackles who are either young or poor.
2) whomever said resign the unicorn at te is spot on- our oline and run game has been garbage since the departure of a te that was a threat and a competent ( in mb case excellent) blocker. Teams don't scheme for the Giants te position they exploit it- and that kills our tackles who are either young or poor.
Hitdog, you were spot on with all your info about the Giants FA plans. Was there any talk of addressing the OL in the first week? If I remember correctly, the focus was all on he defensive side, suggesting that there was a conscious plan that what we had on the OL was good enough.
Reb8thVA, we met at a Giants game with HopeJ a decade or so ago didn't we?
LT's who are available do not sign contracts to play RT.
Who was the long list of RT available
If we bitch about keeping players who are hurt, why would you keep Beatty and Schwartz. Beatty only got cleared a month ago or so. Schwartz is beat up - big guys with leg/foot injuries do not get healthier as they age
NFL OL depth is generally late round picks and UDFA - you have to make it work. NE got to the AFC Championship game with street FA on the OL. Coaches have to develop depth at some point
OL are hard to find - very few teams can field 5 guys. Watch the Packers and see how Rodgers is under duress every snap. Ben gets hit a ton behind his OL
Conversely, they are trending the opposite direction on defense, going from 22nd in 2014 to 32nd in '15.
It's true that the defense needed to be addressed, because IMO it was the defense that was directly costing them games. How many times over the past two years did the offense, despite it's inability to run and pass protect, go down and score the go ahead TD in with 2 minutes to play only to let the other team march 80 yards in two minutes to win the game? Too many.
That said, the offensive line began to decline in 2009. Reese's inability to build a quality offensive line now going on 7 years should cost him his job, because it already cost Tom Coughlin his. And I've been saying that for 3 years, now. He failed again (in regards to the line).
Two questionable personnel decisions. Pugh at 19 (to be a guard) and Flowers (so far).
If those two panned out at their draft spot, you'd have RT and LT solidified. Richburg was a great pick at OC. Finding guards is a lot easier and cost-effective than finding tackles.
Second, is the fact there have been zero OL developed by the Giants coaches and it's hard to know if that is due to FO draft picks/UDFA signings or coaching since you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit, but at the same time none, zero of the non-premium (1st 3 rounds - and in the Giants case it could be first 2 round) have provided ANY value.
I have done this exercise before. Just look at the 12 playoff teams each year and catalog where the OL came from. There are far more late round picks, UDFA's and UFA's than there are premium draft picks playing on their same team. It's too expensive and normally risky to build your line that way.
Very few exceptions, Dallas and maybe SF from their competitive years. It's risky because it means taking resources from other areas of the roster and using them only on OL.
The question is why can 31 other teams develop OL and plug them in and get by, but this team cant. The coaches finally were held accountable
The Pats went to the AFC Championship game with 3 street FA playing the interior.
Sea has issues protecting the passer, GB can't pass block, Chi can't, DET, TB, NO, ATL, Phi, Was. There are so few teams that can pass protect consistently
The question is why can 31 other teams develop OL and plug them in and get by, but this team cant. The coaches finally were held accountable
The Pats went to the AFC Championship game with 3 street FA playing the interior.
Sea has issues protecting the passer, GB can't pass block, Chi can't, DET, TB, NO, ATL, Phi, Was. There are so few teams that can pass protect consistently
Pat Flaherty coached a pretty strong offensive line between 2004 and 2011, even as it began to decline in 2009. To me, it was clear as day that as Diehl, Snee, Seubert, and O'hara began to decline, they weren't replaced.
Not for lack of trying. Will Beatty was a 2nd round pick. Didn't pan out. Baas was a high dollar FA, didn't pan out. It was these whifs in the draft and FA that directly led to our problem. Do you think Flaherty just automatically forgot how to coach guys up after 2008? The physical decline of the o-line was obvious and happened right in front of our eyes. I find it baffling that people want to blame the coaches for that. The popular argument here seemed to be that Coughlin, was as much if not more responsible for the choices on the O-line as Reese. I'm not sure why, if Reese doesn't choose the players then what does he do? Either way, Coughlin AND Flaherty are gone now, and Reese has 2 1sts and a 2nd, as you stated, invested in the O-line. If they suck again this year, which it's looking like they might, who gets the blame?
Let's look at the resume of our current guy:
In Solari’s 17 seasons serving as an NFL team’s primary offensive line coach, his players combined for 25 Pro Bowl appearances and at least one of his players was selected to the Pro Bowl in 15 of those seasons.
If the line doesn't improve this year, are we going to put that on him?
I agree - and as you posted, it's not like they ignored it. They just whiffed. I think they got it right with Richburg and Pugh. Flowers is TBD (he flashed enough last year prior to his injury that I'm hopeful. But it's been years now. Might be a slight exaggeration, but if Flowers turns out to be a bad pick it may lead to Reese's firing here.
I do wonder whether the changes in training camp/practice have impaired the coaches ability to teach relatively raw players like Flowers, though.
Yup. Not to knock Gettleman, but claiming that he built a 15-1 team is more than a bit disingenuous. That team was dominated by talent he inherited.
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I don't have the solution or the answer. My opinion is based on the fact that I feel that there has been more than enough time to address the ailing line since 2009, and it does not appear to be getting better.
I agree - and as you posted, it's not like they ignored it. They just whiffed. I think they got it right with Richburg and Pugh. Flowers is TBD (he flashed enough last year prior to his injury that I'm hopeful. But it's been years now. Might be a slight exaggeration, but if Flowers turns out to be a bad pick it may lead to Reese's firing here.
I do wonder whether the changes in training camp/practice have impaired the coaches ability to teach relatively raw players like Flowers, though.
I wouldn't exactly say they "got it right" with Pugh. He might be a good guard, but he was drafted to be a tackle. he wanted to play LT the team envisioned him as a RT. And that's mostly where he played initially.
He moved to guard not because Newhouse is so good you move Pugh for him, he moved because he struggled there and had enough versatility to play guard.
I think if you ask yourself if the Giants felt like Pugh would be a guard to they still take him at 19?
I'm not so sure they do. You have to go back 28 years to 1988 to the last time the Giants used a 1st round pick on a guard (Eric Moore). And in those 28 years I think they only even used a 2nd round pick on a guard once (Snee).
For the OL, I'm not sure what I'd do since evaluating line play is really tough as a fan. Telling you who I'd sign would just be an exercise in knowing names and basing it off of reputations others have graded.
what I would've done is continue to invest draft picks on the line like reese has done. About the only difference is that I'd have tried to bring in as many bodies as possible to compete for spots using a success in numbers type of model. But then again - that might take away from the plan to develop the talent they have. Not sure there is a right answer here and I'm not knowledgeable enough the OL players around the league to provide specific names.
For the OL, I'm not sure what I'd do since evaluating line play is really tough as a fan. Telling you who I'd sign would just be an exercise in knowing names and basing it off of reputations others have graded.
what I would've done is continue to invest draft picks on the line like reese has done. About the only difference is that I'd have tried to bring in as many bodies as possible to compete for spots using a success in numbers type of model. But then again - that might take away from the plan to develop the talent they have. Not sure there is a right answer here and I'm not knowledgeable enough the OL players around the league to provide specific names.
Yeah, like I said in my first post on the subject, addressing the defense was the right move to win now, which is what we need.
The offense has improved from 13th to 6th in scoring the past two years, in spite of the state of flux on the offensive line.
It's not an excuse to not improve the line, but I understand why they went that direction.
I wasn't so much commenting on his merit as a guard, so much as value from the pick. It's just rare for the Giants to take a guard in the first round, and at 19, they probably hoped Pugh would be the right tackle of the future, not the guard of the future.
So, I like Pugh and think he's hopefully part of the line going forward, but if he was able to remain at RT I think the line would be in better shape.
that was my point, not that Pugh isn't good, only that he's not what the team envisioned when drafting him at 19.
Reese's strategy this offseason made a lot of sense to me. He saw an offense that was pretty productive as it was, invested a 2nd rd pick on another young WR to pair with Beckham and brought in a few different OT's to try and add a player there. Unfortunately, the guys he brought in either went elsewhere or retired. Schwartz signed so quickly that I'm not sure we ever even got a chance to reach out.
The defense was so bad that he invested about 85% of our offseason resources into revamping the unit with rookies who are expected to step in and help from day 1 (Apple, Thompson) and ascending FA's who are in the middle of their best years or just hitting them now (Harrison, Vernon, Jenkins).. he also held onto JPP who looks primed to prove a lot of people wrong this year. Went a step further and added Leon Hall for CB depth.
The idea was to field a competitive defense this year that could actually get stops and help win football games while doing just enough to hope the offense could continue to be a top 10 point producing unit.
I 100% would have felt more comfortable if the OL had been better addressed but when you actually look at what the options were and what we tried to do, it's not exactly as if Reese was "asleep at the wheel"
You can also only do so much in one offseason. We've got to give this a little time. I think Solari will get this offensive line performing better as we go. Gotta give it a little time.
Sometimes you get a flash like Odell, sometimes you get a steady, productive player like Webster.
Sometimes you get a flash like Odell, sometimes you get a steady, productive player like Webster.
I agree, in general, but and I don't think it's a great analogy, but IMO drafting a tackle who winds up as a guard would be almost like drafting a starting RB who winds up as your starting FB.
If the FB is good, you don't think it's a bad pick and the better he plays the better the pick looks, but not the value you planned when picking the player.
anyway, it's semantics, I just think it had a domino effect, if Pugh was still the RT and excelling at RT the line would be in better shape.
For the OL, I'm not sure what I'd do since evaluating line play is really tough as a fan. Telling you who I'd sign would just be an exercise in knowing names and basing it off of reputations others have graded.
what I would've done is continue to invest draft picks on the line like reese has done. About the only difference is that I'd have tried to bring in as many bodies as possible to compete for spots using a success in numbers type of model. But then again - that might take away from the plan to develop the talent they have. Not sure there is a right answer here and I'm not knowledgeable enough the OL players around the league to provide specific names.
Though I always look forward to my buddy Britt's well thought out, non knee-jerk opinions(a rarity here), I closely align with FMiC's post here.
My concern isn't necessarily about this offseason, it's the cumulative product of the past four or five off seasons.
Reese does deserve some blame for both of those things but I thought he had a good offseason this year and did as much as he could to get this team back on track. I don't know how anyone could have watched the levels of embarrassing this defense was in 2015 and not have wanted significant assets spent on fixing it.
When NYG was on the draft clock I was calling for Taylor Decker, but it's difficult to argue with grabbing the CB you felt was the best one in the draft.
The above highlights the moving parts in play, and when you factor in NYG is still playing catchup from multiple poor drafts, it's very difficult to fill every hole during each offseason.
There's definitely something going on inside NYG Central causing them to overvalue their own too often, and I'm not sold we're past the poor pro personnel decisions being made, as Joey pointed out.