11-5 and the playoffs in your first year is a hell of a way to start. and as others have said, it's clear the job wasn't too big for him. but it's hard not to be concerned when you hire an offensive guy to run the team, and he keeps the playcalling responsibility, and your offense regresses. there have been plenty of NFL coaches who had terrific first years and never panned out. things it'll be interesting to watch
does the coaching staff stay intact? the fact that he kept so many of TC's staff was interesting to stay the least. was it because he'd never been a head coach before and wanted continuity? because there was organizational pressure? because he simply believed these were the best people for the jobs? we know that he had conviction about changing the strength and conditioning program immediately, and it paid off. will he want to make more changes with a year under his belt? if he does, we'll know soon.
what does he do with the offensive line, and especially with flowers? this is an organization that gives draft picks every chance to fail, but no one can have watched flowers and think he's the answer at left tackle without a remarkable transformation. is this the guy they open training camp with penciled in as the starter? is moving Pugh a real possibility? and how explicit will he be about that?
what sort of bigger changes does he make to the offense. the question that hangs over this season is whether their choices in terms of formations and playcalling were dictated by personnel, or a philosophy? how much effort is made to bring in a fullback? does he keep the playcalling responsibility, or hand it off to someone else? and regardless, after adding players in FA and the draft on the offensive side of the ball, which they are sure to do, does he come into training camp with a plan for a more varied attack?
I'm sure there's more, that's what i'll be most curious about.
I want to see what he does with better offensive personnel. We don't have much to work with. Missing pieces really killed us this year, and forced us into 11 personnel, a ton.
Flowers can't play LT, he can't play RT. Hopefully he can play guard. He can swap spots with Pugh and the line is already better. Now just need a guard and RT. Not an impossible task in free agency or the draft.
He's called the plays for 49 games .
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He's called the plays for 49 games .
Really didn't hear any significang criticism of his play calling for those previous 49.
Eli likes him and John Mara fell in love with him three years ago. He's around for a while. This is the team that kept Sinoroce Moss for 5 years. The Giants could go 5-11 and Mara will keep this guy. Not one of his big supporters her can tell me why he's such a good coach? Offensive stats in today's NFL are so ove rated. Sam Bradford set the record for completion percentage. Sam Bradford. But being a numbers machine is ok even when losing 10 games
Now the D carries the team all year and he's a genius. Funny when he had nothing to do w that side of the ball. Well not funny. Sad
We had two horrible OT's; no blocking TE's worth anything to help the tackles or run game; and not WR #2 as Cruz was clearly finished.
RB Rashad Jennings turned 31 and clearly he is no longer not only a part-time starting RB but in my opinion he should be cut so a younger guy can be signed - preferably a 5th year RB who can run, catch, block and play specials fairly well.
We had no fullback to help the run game either.
The problem is that this year's UFA crop and Draft crop for OT's isn't looking too good. Yeah, it is early and maybe some surprises occur. Fixing this OL may be about "shuffling" some guys around:
LT Pugh OG UFA OC Richburg RG Flowers RT Hart
Assuming Pugh's short arms aren't a big hindrance; assuming we can get a guy like Dallas OG Leary to come here as a UFA; assuming Hart improves in year 3 at age 22 when season starts; and, assuming coach Solari's style is totally understood in year 2; well, we may improve from "bottom five" to "middle of the pack or slightly better" which I think is the best we can hope for.
Hey, maybe we do get lucky and take an OL with pick #1 and he is standout. We need to draft well, keep our own, and pick up 3 UFA's (if possible) OL, WR #2, TE to replace Donnell's roster spot.
Eli must be better protected as he is an aging pocket passer. I say sell out 2017 and go for it.