Saquon Barkley is a terrific talent. I have zero doubts that he will be a great player in this league.
That being said, is there anyone still left on BBI who actually believes he was the correct pick for this franchise? I'm not being a smart ass, I'd legitimately like to hear why if you believe that.
This franchise has no real plan for the future right now. Gettleman has not earned the benefit of the doubt. He very clearly was wrong in his evaluation of the current team. He clearly believed they were ready to win now, which is obviously very far from the truth. He clearly believed Eli had a lot left in the tank. That doesn't seem to be the case.
The single most important job of a new GM is properly evaluating your current roster. A lot of people on BBI will say this is hindsight, but it's really not. Many of us on BBI didn't believe this team was ready to win now. A lot of our worst fears have been realized. Some will point to 2016 as a reason to go for it this year that they are actually more talented than they were in 2016. The problem I have with that is 2016 is the only year in the last what, 5 years, that the team hasn't sucked shit. That entire season seemed very flukey. They won a shit load of close games. The defense played way above their heads. Eli did not have a great year.
It's more than fair to be worried about the direction of this franchise with John Mara and Gettleman running the show. Most of the decisions John Mara has made have blown up in his face. There is no way to know this for sure, but I'd guess that DG is the only GM that the Giants could have hired that would have taken Barkley. His comments in the press are the most frightening of all. Ripping analytics and talking as if we're still in the 1980's.
Right or wrong, I also think DG's age played a role in the decisions made in the off-season. He's 67 years old. He's unlikely to be thinking of where this franchise will be in a decade.
It's still hard to fathom that anyone could watch the Giants the last 4-5 years and thought that taking a running back #2 overall was a smart business decision.
A lot of people on BBI in the off-season also thought that Davis Webb was the legitimate future of the Giants. Yet another thing i'll never be able to wrap my head around. He couldn't get off the bench last year and play over Geno Smith for a regime that drafted him. That told me all I needed to know about him.
Eli Manning is not the main problem with this team. But the fact is he's 37 years old, has not played well in years, and with the current roster it's not going to get any better. He could have Barry Sanders in his prime back there and it wouldn't make much difference. The line is a total train wreck. Eli is clearly shot mentally playing behind this line for the last 5 years. Physically he still has something left but each year that passes he's going to have less and less left.
I actually feel bad for Barkley. It's not his fault that the roster sucks.
The Giants desperately need a QB of the future. 2019 doesn't look to be a good year to need a QB, the likely top QB has a lot of character concerns. Barkley could stand on his head every game and without a QB for the future and a new offensive line none of it will ever matter.
John Mara has really put this franchise in a terrible situation. There is a legitimate argument to be made that the New York Giants are in the worst shape for the future of any team in the sport.
Yes, it's only 2 games into the season. But we've seen this movie too many times in the last 5 years.
The owner can't be fired, but he hasn't given any Giants fan reason to be confident in any decision that he makes. He totally botched the Eli situation last year, made the wrong hire at HC in McAdoo, kept Jerry Reese as the GM for way too long, stayed within his comfort zone when he hired Gettleman. His batting average is close to .00 in the last 5 years when it comes to decision making.
I'm genuinely interested in hearing from people who still believe that Barkley was the correct pick for this franchise. Every season that goes by without being a contender is a season wasted of Barkley's prime.
This really was not that hard to see coming.
Keeping Eli and turning over more than half the roster was all they could do last offseason, we knew (if you were willing to acknowledge it) we're looking at 2-3 seasons to rebuild and perhaps more as it takes time to tear down the past (in terms of the contracts/salary cap).
That's borderline insane if they knew it - keeping Eli around to endure this for 2 seasons before they become competitive again?
They're going to get the guy killed at this rate.
fact is the secondary is still blowing coverages at times,the front 7 isnt getting enough pressure and it was always going to take time for that OL to gel. the injury to halapio is a blow that makes trading jones look ill advised right now
barkley is the best pick they could have made once the OL gets better he will make more plays and that will in turn open up the passing game to OBJ/Engram/Shepard etc there was no mack or ogden type pick in that draft he was the best prospect and they went with it any skill position player and look at OBJ for proof he wasnt the player he is now his first 2 games it takes time to find your feet at NFL level and barkley will do that in time IF the OL gives him the holes and eli the time to allow it and make the threat of play action something defences have to account for thou
You can not win consistently in the NFL without a top QB. Sure, they can draft one in future years, but you have no idea where they will be picking and what kind of QB class it will be.
Last year was according to most a pretty strong QB class.
We've seen teams win consistently with average OL play, if they have a top QB for a while you can still do it. Hell we've seen the Giants win a super bowl in 2011-2012 with at best average o-line play, because Eli put the team on his shoulders to the playoffs that year.
Until this team has a franchise QB to replace Eli, it's not going to contend year in and year out. You need a franchise QB to do that.
Not having a franchise QB or even a good QB is close to as crippling as picking one #2 and missing.
The only thing a GM should be worried about is trying to build a team to compete for titles consistently. Not to go 8-8.
Bottoming out in 2003 was the best thing to happen to the Giants in a long time, because they got Eli. You don't win without a QB in this league on a regular basis.
Gettleman's quote that i posted above scares the hell out of me. He's living in denial. Running backs are paid what they aret because quite simply they are not worth investing big time money in. Gettleman still believes that it's a "crock" that running backs are undervalued around the league. He still believes that Jonathan Stewart hasn't lost anything. He doesn't believe in things that are backed up by actual data, but he does know that Saquon Barkley was touched by the hand of God.
Mara and Gettleman running this franchise should scare the hell out of everyone. DG has not earned the benefit of the doubt by any stretch. He's still living in the 1980's.
Here's a recent photo:
It's not about 2018. It never should have been about 2018. This team has so many holes on it that they should have been drafting for 2-3 years from now. Like Accorsi did in 2004.
Not one person who wanted a QB is arguing that they would have been better in 2018 as a result. The Giants went all in on 2018. In my opinion, that was a remarkably poor and short sighted decision.
Take the QB and if you hit on that pick the QB can hide a lot of warts. Saquon Barkley, as good as he is and can be, isn't going to hide the warts on this team.
QB's are the key to consistently winning. The Giants currently have no plan at QB. They can act like they do, but the people saying they do are also the people claiming that Davis Webb was the next great Giants QB.
DG thought this team was a lot better for 2018 than it actually is. They have Beckham, Barkley, Engram, and a few solid players on defense.
Anyone who thought this team was anything more than a 7-9 type squad this year was fooling themselves. The roster sucks.
Awesome.
MookGiants : 3:14 pm : link : reply
that a lot of you who still think Barkley was the correct pick also wanted Sean Taylor in the 2004 draft.
You are guessing. On that, on not picking a QB, on all of it, yet you appear to be going on the old axiom that if you say something enough times, it becomes true.
It may come true - it may not come true, but after two games thinking anything is true is completely asinine.
I dont know how anyone can say after 2 games you can definitively say the giants screwed up..
and what has darnold done to prove he is a future franchise qb?
Unless he has to, Mara usually doesn't go outside of the organization to hire people.
Keeping Reese around as long as he did was the biggest mistake. Then he finally cans him and brings in yet another guy with ties to the organization.
This team has sucked shit for a while now. 2016 was a fluke, the offense was garbage and the defense played WAY above their head. They won basically every close game. It was not sustainable.
Solder wasnt a horrible signing, but he got paid like a great left tackle when he isn't. Brady makes a lot of guys look much better than they are. Just because you have holes doesn't mean you go pay decent players like they are great. Build it the right way, not paying tons of money for just decent players. Everything he did in the off-season and said in the off-season shows that he thought this team could compete in 2018.
and probably an additional 1 pick for next draft
If they were realistic about the roster, all of the decisions made that off-season should have been geared towards the 2020 season, not 2018.
You can not win consistently in the NFL without a top QB. Sure, they can draft one in future years, but you have no idea where they will be picking and what kind of QB class it will be.
Last year was according to most a pretty strong QB class.
Huh? The 2004 QB class of prospects was FAR superior to the 2018 class. It's not even close. All four of these players had flaws and holes in their resumes. I really liked Sam Darnold, but he has less playing experience than any Super Bowl winning QB ever. Guys who leave college as redshirt sophomores are more likely to flame out than have extended successful NFL careers. Maybe Darnold will be the first, but he clearly had flaws as a prospect. Allen, Rosen, and Mayfield were even more questionable prospects.
In addition, no one thought Sean Taylor was the best prospect in the 2004 class. Barkley was almost unanimously seen as the best prospect of 2018. I could understand being critical of the Giants' choice if these QBs were high-end prospects, but they weren't. I could also understand criticizing the Giants if they selected someone unworthy of the second pick. Instead, they drafted the top overall prospect.
I absolutely think that Barkley was the best player in the past draft class. But I dont believe he will be anywhere near as valuable as more than a few guys. Taking a RB that high when you arent ready to win is bad business
Eli was not without flaws coming out of college. That draft class has turned out great, but coming into that draft all of the QB prospects had flaws.
Not having the OL to make him go - and possibly not having it this year or next - just makes it look worse.
It's obviously too soon - all of the QBs drafted in RD1 could turn out to be busts. Barkley could turn out to be a HoFer. Lots of things can still happen.
The probability still isn't in our favor though - the fact that Barkley's having a hard time getting going with this OL, combined with the systemic value placed on RBs in the NFL, makes it look like we reached to fill a position that most of the teams with top rated RBs managed to do a lot later in the draft. Meanwhile, Eli's on borrowed time with an OL that can't block for him this year, and might not be able to next year either.
It's an exercise in futility.
Again - the overhaul of this roster was massive, especially given the constraints of the cap. The only thing that doesn't fit into the narrative that they overhauled everything is that they kept Eli. How do you have any idea how that plays out with an eye to 2020?
What if they drafted Barkley, plan on building up the lines and cut Eli next year? You have no idea - yet you whine and act as if you do.
So many people are using win now vs. rebuilding as some mantra to say what's going on. What more change on the roster did you expect? I'll answer that - a new QB, and anything short of that apparently negates the other moves.
And yet after two games, you've made conclusions. The worst part is you don't even realize how ridiculous it comes off as. You truly believe you have an iron-clad take on the situation.
Give me a break. It was a figure of speech.
Get over it.
Win now is what fans what to hear and believe in, it continues to rake in the revenue. Meanwhile, the front office is working on plans for next offseason and figuring out the next phase and what can be done before the 2019 season.
If they knew the line needed to be rebuilt and they weren't going to do it in one year - why would they bring back Eli and put him behind a leaky OL once again? At that point, wouldn't you either trade or cut Eli? For both his own good and that of the team; he's not getting any younger, that line is atrocious, and he's costing us $20M. They could have used the money on FAs, picked up a mid-tier FA QB to run for his life for one year, and kicked the QB decision one year out.
Adrian Peterson only sniffed a super bowl when Favee turned the clock back. Otherwise he never even came close. Not because of him, not because his line sucked, because they had dogshit at QB
Adrian Peterson only sniffed a super bowl when Favee turned the clock back. Otherwise he never even came close. Not because of him, not because his line sucked, because they had dogshit at QB
Even they guy he's usually compared to - Barry Sanders - didn't manage more than one playoff game. And he was the gold standard for RBs.
Win now is what fans what to hear and believe in, it continues to rake in the revenue. Meanwhile, the front office is working on plans for next offseason and figuring out the next phase and what can be done before the 2019 season.
The idea that we had a 2-3 year rebuild in mind this off-season doesn't seem to jive with a lot of the comments or moves Gettleman has made to my eyes.
I'd feel a lot better if I thought the team saw a mediocre football team heading into the year. I'm concerned that they again overrated the team and are only just now going to realize how far away they are (assuming, of course, the season continues going poorly).
Even next year he'd carry a $6M dead cap hit. Still, if they knew they were going to be completely noncompetitive (assuming they knew the OL rebuild was a long way off), they should have known these were the results they'd get.
No one thought it would be worse.
Adrian Peterson only sniffed a super bowl when Favee turned the clock back. Otherwise he never even came close. Not because of him, not because his line sucked, because they had dogshit at QB
How much do you think Marshawn Lynch contributed to that Seahawks championship as compared to Wilson?
I dont know how anyone can say after 2 games you can definitively say the giants screwed up..
and what has darnold done to prove he is a future franchise qb?
I don't need two games to say they screwed up the draft. I knew the moment Barkley's name was announced.
For me, it's less about Barkley v Darnold, although that is the comparison that will be in the mix, it's really a position view: RB v QB (or DE or trade down). And the value for RB at #2 is exceedingly worse than the value for a QB, both in terms of cap benefit and position longevity.
In fact, it's not even a close analysis.
The only way the Barkley selection "works", and I'm making a big leap here, is if the Giants pull a rabbit out of the hat with Lauletta, make a trade for another QB already on an NFL roster, or get another high pick and get it right by nailing the QB.
Very hard to know about Lauletta, NFL trades pay a big price for QBs, and who knows if we'll get fortunate enough to be back in the top 5 for the opportunity...
Coincidentally, Eli had either just gotten paid or was about to get paid, so franchise QB's weren't worth the money at that time...
No one thought it would be worse.
That's the most damning thing right now. And it's still early there as well, but the initial results are not promising.
We can beat Flowers all day and night, but at the end of the year he's out of here. Solder has been pedestrian despite being very well paid, and Omameh has been brutal. Hernandez looks like he's got a long way to go (similar to Flowers in his rookie season). It's hard to be patient for a multi-year rebuild when the initial results are not encouraging.
It's still early, and if they wind up 2-14 we're picking high again as a reward for the pain.
What does that mean?
It's still early, and if they wind up 2-14 we're picking high again as a reward for the pain.
33 new players. It's a big roster turnover and more to come.
It's still early, and if they wind up 2-14 we're picking high again as a reward for the pain.
How though?
The two thoughts are mutually exclusive - you can't think 'man, this roster needs to be totally rebuilt, more of it is trash than not'
..while at the same time thinking..
'We should be able to win some games with this trash roster though, right?'
You mean the greatest RB of his generation, maybe ever?
That would be like saying you shouldn't draft a QB high because he can't overcome team deficiencies and pointing to Dan Marino.
Truly moronic.
It's still early, and if they wind up 2-14 we're picking high again as a reward for the pain.
My concern is that there's a dichotomy between what management expects and what's happening on the field - and I consider it a red flag if management thinks the team is closer to contending than it actually is. I'm concerned that there were steps taken this past off-season that wouldn't have been made if DG thought they were going to be a bad football team again.
I'm very much a DG skeptic for now.
Right now we don't know and won't know, because he can't run anywhere with this OL.
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but there's also a significant amount of pain that has to be endured to ride out and get rid of the Reese era too.
It's still early, and if they wind up 2-14 we're picking high again as a reward for the pain.
How though?
The two thoughts are mutually exclusive - you can't think 'man, this roster needs to be totally rebuilt, more of it is trash than not'
..while at the same time thinking..
'We should be able to win some games with this trash roster though, right?'
Keep in mind it's only a two game sample size, jcn. We've seen dead team walking begin to play better after a few games under their belts. Right now, they look overwhelmed and in shock. When they get more comfortable (or desperate) things will turn.
My guess is they felt the team would be competitive in the word hard, and make a run at 8-8 type of improvement. 8-8 with 33 new players, coaches, and systems is the arrow pointing up when essentially rebuilding a football team.
I really think expectations of the fans are too high, this whole thing is fluid. There's no continuity in place while learning new systems, the OL looks devoid of any confidence, the lack of pass rush is feeding back on the unit.
Barkley being a hall of fame running back does not mean that they will contend for Super Bowls.
Isn't that what the goal is? To contend for Super Bowls?
A good QB in todays NFL you could argue is more valuable than a hall of fame level running back.
Philip Rivers is a very good QB, no one would argue that he's a better player than LaDanian Tomlinson, but I don't think there's an argument to be made that LT was more valuable to the Chargers than Rivers has been.
And Rivers hasn't even really won anything.
The Giants have zero chance to regularly contend without a franchise QB. Doesn't matter if Barkley is a hall of fame level player, if they have average or shit play at QB, they aren't going anywhere.
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but there's also a significant amount of pain that has to be endured to ride out and get rid of the Reese era too.
It's still early, and if they wind up 2-14 we're picking high again as a reward for the pain.
My concern is that there's a dichotomy between what management expects and what's happening on the field - and I consider it a red flag if management thinks the team is closer to contending than it actually is. I'm concerned that there were steps taken this past off-season that wouldn't have been made if DG thought they were going to be a bad football team again.
I'm very much a DG skeptic for now.
It could be they're entirely terrible at their jobs so far, but I think it more likely it's just fan expectations being higher than reasonable.
I hope Barkley has a long long career with us but typically QB's have longer ones, and there were quite a few quality picks for us at QB that could have had longer ones that could have been built and rebuilt around .
The line is terrible. But even when he has time, Eli is missing throws. He missed more than a few against the Jaguars. He plays scared and it impacts plays where he doesn't even have pressure in his face. His physical skills have diminished, but mentally he looks finished. The look on his face that has turned into 50000 memes was not pretty