Don’t get all the anger. Is this season really a surprise?

had renewed hope for Flowers, center was questionable and Hernandez is a rookie... but I didn't expect the same old shit, if not worse.

It sucks getting beaten, especially by their rival, but it's sad when fans piss on their own organization, instead of just accepting that the other team was just better. That is sports.

....I am stupid apparently

In this league of parity. Nope. Injury to Vernon probably cost us a game or two.

If no significant moves are made this week, I think it will be appropriate for all of us to go into full mega triggered internet meltdown mode.

as soon as I saw that we kept 23 and brought in 30 new players. Of those 30, a handful were draft picks whom we could hope would pan our (in time) and 2 were Solder and Ogletree whom we could hope were quality. But the 23 keepers included Shane Smith and Flowers and a few more of that level. So it was obvious we were at the start of a complete rebuild. It is bound to take time; and my worry is not that but that with Mara at the helm it may never be accomplished successfully.

But I'm not angry. Actually, some of what this team does is so bad it's comical. (How often do you get to laugh at your team's miscues during the year?)

Nothing changed much. Improving two of the six OL players, counting the TE in there, wasn't going to change overall performance. (They thought they were getting three effective new OL players, but one looks like a dud.) The 3-4 as opposed to the 4-3 really didn't mean anything for the D, even adding one new decent LB, or cover up not having effective pass rushers. So same old, same old in the pass rush department is not a surprise. The secondary did not get better or more reliable. Barkley has exceeded expectations, but he's just one guy. The passing game should not have been touted as scary good and way better than last year's just because OBJ was expected back. And it isn't.

In comment 14125163 BigBlueinChicago said:

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In comment 14125150 bceagle05 said: Quote: That's been the surprise for me. Did it not raise eyebrows that two men (Belichick and Coughlin) who value the old school in terms of the trenches and offensive lineman, willing let these players go without any type of a fight to keep them?

Especially Jax, they had a ton of cap space and could easily have kept Omameh as depth, but chose to let them go. The Pats weren’t going to pay Solder anyway and he’s proving them right, so far a total bust.

I didn't think they'd win the SB, but thought they'd compete in games. This season has gone south fast.

I feel like I've become the resident negative thorn, but I never believed the team had improved enough to be competitive. The right 3/5 of the o-line opening shouldn't be in the NFL next year and the bottom half of the skill position players won't be either.

Gettleman and Shurmur gutted too much of the bottom of the roster towards the end of the pre-season. The special teams suck and look like a cast of characters who have hardly played together (because they haven't).

Good thing the shit half measures like Omameh, Latimer, Martin, Stewart, etc. haven't pushed this team into mediocrity.

The giants wont be relevant again for another 7 months (draft)...7 months!!!! So much will be talked about the draft here that it'll be redundant by Dec.

How about that for basically 2 years in a row.

The right move at the end of last year was to get a new FO and better players in almost all positions for a year or two before adding a new QB.

So getting one and maybe two years out of Eli made sense as of January 2018.

So the risk reward of the strategy was understandable for if we had a rookie Qb this year he would be badly damaged and might not recover his timing/presence.

But I fear that Eli is more shell shocked than they thought

This is a problem for they can probably bring in a better OL and a new QB for next year but not the DL and DBs that are so badly needed.

imho, its going to be 2 more years beyond this one.

Look at the last six drafts...ultimately thats the lead indicator of the product on the field. So far, the 2018 draft looks like a good draft.

I dont see the reason to blame DG so far other than if i believed the verbal optimism verbatim. Who believes what a GM says in public?

Yes sir.

The obvious play was to draft Darnold, a very young prospect, and let him sit a year to learn from Eli, develop under PS, and give them another year to further rebuild Oline.

In comment 14125862 Bill2 said:

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The right move at the end of last year was to get a new FO and better players in almost all positions for a year or two before adding a new QB. So getting one and maybe two years out of Eli made sense as of January 2018. So the risk reward of the strategy was understandable for if we had a rookie Qb this year he would be badly damaged and might not recover his timing/presence. But I fear that Eli is more shell shocked than they thought This is a problem for they can probably bring in a better OL and a new QB for next year but not the DL and DBs that are so badly needed. imho, its going to be 2 more years beyond this one. Look at the last six drafts...ultimately thats the lead indicator of the product on the field. So far, the 2018 draft looks like a good draft. I dont see the reason to blame DG so far other than if i believed the verbal optimism verbatim. Who believes what a GM says in public?

I'll believe it when I see it..."bring in a better OL"...with exception to Hernandez (rook) this mantra has been going on for years.

able to get a very good young qb and be able to add more good pieces to the o-line.

They are going to need to keep adding talent through draft. If they get a high draft pick again, they need to come away with franchise QB, elite Oline or edger rusher. If they go any other way, he had better be all world talent. Problem is now, we are weak in the areas most critical to sustained success.

The contract he gave Solder is a big red flag with the exception they apparently can exit it after three seasons.

In comment 14125890 Ira said:

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able to get a very good young qb and be able to add more good pieces to the o-line.

They will probably miss out on top QB prospects and don’t have resources to deal up.

has a roster construction problem. it adds into the huge percent of a fixed pool going to the QB position especially if Eli still had it and in effect forced 2 years of sitting.

that committed money is not available for any other rebuilding. that's a lot of money on two risks...the new guy and the old guy.

reasonable if we had an ol and a dl and dbs

With all the angst about peoples contracts as if it was our money...how about an albatross risk on a 37 and 38 year old qb?

Eli's contract is 3 very good starters.

the end of his career was mishandled fifty ways from Sunday

Get the #1 pick in the draft, cut Eli and sign a much cheaper vet QB to start in ‘19 while the #1 pick is coached up. (Hey, Tyrod Taylor! The remaining three yrs of his contract voids right after this season ends.). With the 2nd pick, select the highest rated OL excepting LGs. It writes itself.

big surprise. Disclaimer: If Eli had an AVERAGE OL, didn’t have PTSD and no major injuries

I’ve always been in the camp that this is a 2 year rebuild (at least). Like several others, I also thought we’d be more competitive this year.

It’s a strange/tough situation as emotional fans...the best thing for the Giants is the blow off the season and pick top 5 again, but it just sucks seeing our boys in blue get embarrassed (especially being down in Philly after Thursday night)

IMO it’s too early to grade DG, but I think he’s on plan. Consider who on the roster is worth building around:

OBJ, Shepard, Engram, Collins, Tomlinson, Apple (to his credit, showed up to play this season) - holdovers from old regime. Debatable if Collins is worth a big FA contract, but those guys can be considered part of future core, assuming they can stay healthy

Saquon, Hernandez, Carter, Hill - early signs look good for 4 of DGs first draft

TBD - Lauletta

That’s 11 guys - 2 All Pro caliber guys (Saquon and OBJ), others ranging from solid starter or potential to be one soon, with some pro bowl potential.

Flipping JPP and his contract for the pick that turned into BJ Hill was a master stroke. Sure JPP has played well so far this year, but anyone wish we still had to pay him next season?

Ogletree has been as expected IMHO - solid if not spectacular plus new defensive leader we needed. Worth the trade. He is what we thought he was, which is a positive

Free agency looks like a whiff so far. Omameh and Solder have been worse than expected. Much worse. That stings right now. And few of the UDFAs/journeyman are giving us much so far (Curtis Riley - yikes)

Point being, overall DG hasn’t done a bad job with year 1 of rebuilding a seriously flawed roster, but a lot of work left.

All that being said, ultimate success/failure depends on the QB transition - to who, and when.

But I don’t think it’s fair to call DG (or even Shurmur) a failure after 5 games.

Once again, BBI overestimated the talent on this team. On BBI, Barkley was a one man offense, Hernandez was road grader, ODB was unstoppable, Shepard was Antonio Brown, Engram was Travis Kelce, Snacks was a one man D-line and Jenkins was a shut down corner etc etc etc. It's been like this for several years now.

Now we are all finding out that Barkley can't do it all himself, the interior of the line can't pass block to save its life and isn't much better run blocking, there is no right tackle, Shepard can't outrun his grandmother, there is no third wideout, rookies and players who won't be here in a year or two everywhere and a HC whose resume screams "meh" having to deal with a team that Reese and McAdoo left a total wreck.

You knew if anything went wrong, Eli was going to be this season's scapegoat because he's "old". Whatever. It is the BBI way.

It is going to take a serious talent infusion to get this team winning again. That means DG needs another good draft and needs to do a better job in the FA market and finding UDFA who turn into players. Shurmur needs to do a better job in player evaluation. No one can be impressed with either of them in those regards at the moment.

So, no, no surprise.

I have a hard time believing that most - if any - people thought we would be 1-5 at this point.

In comment 14125894 JonC said:

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The contract he gave Solder is a big red flag with the exception they apparently can exit it after three seasons.

Three years at top 5 money isn't a win for the Giants if he's playing bottom half of the league quality. For that price tag the Giants should have negotiated a mechanism to get out after 2.

It was a bad signing in the same neighborhood as Vernon (a player I like a lot).

Easy exits were Abrams specialty, but the desperation of this team has eroded any leverage.

In comment 14125104 giantfan2000 said:

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I knew it Eli was done last year -- Rather than face this Ownership got GM and Coach who gave them happy talk Many of GM moves were obviously about getting rid of Reese players rather than evaluating players in. a rational way to win

THIS POST more than any other I have seen vividly explains the irrational Giants fans this season.

On one hand, acknowledge that Eli was done and that the team was bad, but then on the other, have this belief that the team could have found a way to win this season.

This raised expectations beyond any rational level, and explains the incessant whining on this site.

The Giants won 3 games last year, and were probably lucky to ge that many. Yes, the team was THAT BAD.

The front office did what they could in one off-season. This is a 3-4 year full rebuild, and anyone who is allowing themselves to be deluded otherwise is using rose-colored glasses.

This off-season is going to be a full-on Dallas Cowboys 1980's style tear-down. Any vet who is not likely to be performing at a high level in 3 years will be let go or traded. They probably wanted to do that last year, but the cap didn't have to space to absorb the accelerated cap hits.

This offseason, the only players who cannot be cut for financial reasons are OBJ, Barkley and Solder. Solder might go after the 2019 season, when the guaranteed money runs out.

OBJ and Barkley are the building blocks for the next competitive team. The off-season will be about rebuilding the OL and DL/rush LB, and maybe a WR. The next off-season (after a just as bad 2019, resulting in yet another top 5 pick) will be about the QB and DBs, and depth building. 2020 will be when they start to make a move, while the young QB learns- and move forward from there.

Anyone who expects or even hopes for anything earlier than that is not seeing the true picture.

The Giants are going to run Eli out there for two reasons- one, they don't want Lauletta to get hurt out there- if Eli goes down, there is no long term impact on the team, they just cut him in the off-season. Two, with Eli being so gun-shy, they will lose and lose a lot. Sounds harsh, but the reality is the team needs a very high pick, and at this stage, Eli does NOT help them win games. Sorry, but that's the hard truth.

a good team. It is a surprise that we are one of the worst.

Do you get it now?

In comment 14126182 christian said:

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In comment 14125894 JonC said: Quote: The contract he gave Solder is a big red flag with the exception they apparently can exit it after three seasons. Three years at top 5 money isn't a win for the Giants if he's playing bottom half of the league quality. For that price tag the Giants should have negotiated a mechanism to get out after 2. It was a bad signing in the same neighborhood as Vernon (a player I like a lot). Easy exits were Abrams specialty, but the desperation of this team has eroded any leverage.

I didn't say it was a win, I frankly dislike the deal along with OV's and been vocal about it, to a point. After the complaining is tiresome.

The hard part is we're stuck watching this team struggle, and wonder if the regime will have the courage and perspective to do the right things next offseason.

If you ran the 2017 season a bunch of times that 6 wins would be the median outcome. Big stuff sent against us last year starting with odell playing very few games. He's a difference maker who has shown he can turn close losses into close wins on his own. Then we had the snowball effect of losing a lot of games early with weak leadership and the locker room turmoil that comes along with that.

For this year I was thinking something in the 6 to 7 win range. There should have been some big upgrades with odell coming back plus Barkley solder and ogletree coming in. Those would be offset by the continued decline of manning plus some small age related declines of some of our good players on d.

I thought this team had zero upside potential, so I'm not too upset about the losing. I've pretty much been in tank mode since losing to Dallas. What I'm bothered by is the lack of a plan and the leadership we have in place. I think its very likely that we are going into a redskins like period where we are either bad or mediocre for the foreseeable future.

me. Given the changes in GM, coaches, and players, I expected some improvement (perhaps 7 or 8 wins). I did not expect a team about the same or possibly even worse than last year's team.

In comment 14126172 Eric from BBI said:

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I have a hard time believing that most - if any - people thought we would be 1-5 at this point.

What games of this early schedule did you think this tea was winning?

In comment 14126206 JonC said:

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The hard part is we're stuck watching this team struggle, and wonder if the regime will have the courage and perspective to do the right things next offseason.

Oh for sure -- I was just commenting on getting out after 3 years not being a contractual advantage to the team.

The Solder deal is a deeply bad contract. He's going to be 32 and in his 10th NFL season in his 3rd and hopefully last season of the contract, which would still cost the Giants 4M in dead money to get out of.

I echo the hope management and ownership has the guts to make the hard financial and interpersonal decisions to get back on track.

what were the other options to pursue than Solder? I seem to recall pickings were pretty slim and we were desperate.

In comment 14126314 fkap said:

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what were the other options to pursue than Solder? I seem to recall pickings were pretty slim and we were desperate.

Yeah. Whether Solder was a bad sign will ultimately be revealed, but we had ZERO choice, if we were not re-signing Pugh and were giving up on Flowers as our OLT

Have you been all that impressed with any of the teams we've played? I haven't.

I felt we'd be playing around .500 ball...give or take a game.

I don't recall anyone on this site back in August predicting one win by midseason.

I also don't recall anyone predicting we would once again have one of the worst offenses in the NFL. And I remember practically everyone saying that not only was Bettcher going to be great, but we'd probably lose him in a year or two.

In comment 14126314 fkap said:

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what were the other options to pursue than Solder? I seem to recall pickings were pretty slim and we were desperate.

That's the crux of it ... I'd rather not spend in that situation, desperation isn't a great excuse. What's your take on that, given your financial know-how?

I thought that the OL would be a bit improved. Maybe not good, but at least approaching average. Clearly, they're not even that, and that has affected Eli and the running game. In fact, even when people do their job from a blocking standpoint, Eli misses the pass or someone drops it or something else happens.

I thought the defense would be a little bit better. All we heard in camp is that we would be aggressive sending blitzers at the QB from various angles. Haven't really seen that. Don't think we have as much confidence in the man to man coverage abilities of our secondary.

I thought with these two improvements, it'd be enough to approach 8-8, 9-7. But, it's clear this is a limited roster with a few star players and a quarterback that is on the down side of a great career.

Still disappointing though.
I was of the mindset that this team was nowhere close to being ready to support a QB taken @ the top of the draft and I (as fictional GM) would have ran Manning into the ground this season(which is still painful to watch) while getting the rest of the team, staff, cap/talent repaired and ready for next year.

I think the win now narratives(one more run with Eli) have been false since day one, but owners & GM can't really publicly say what I think they are really thinking & working towards.

scenario was that they would be at least competitive and not an exact repeat of last year with so many changes. 7-9 or 8-8 with a shot at a wild with some lucky breaks and good health..but they just can't execute a string of plays without a colossal error. I just posted in another thread that after being beaten down by this shitty play for so many years that I'm resigned to expect another 3 to 5 years of this, it just feels completely hopeless without just hitting big on the next few drafts. Even though there's so much evidence of teams doing complete 180's in the NFL now, it just not happening for this organization. Best case scenario is they get a QB that plays lights out from the get-go like Barkley next season..most realistic is a rookie QB comes in mid-season next year while they're stop-gap is floundering (and would be surprised if it's still Eli) and maybe they sniff the playoffs the year after or three years from now..maybe.

In comment 14126378 Eric from BBI said:

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I also don't recall anyone predicting we would once again have one of the worst offenses in the NFL. And I remember practically everyone saying that not only was Bettcher going to be great, but we'd probably lose him in a year or two.

The improved offense was always dependent on a good OL, and at best you could only be hopefully optimistic before week 1.

I am not sure I agree.

What other defenses had done was to focus all of their attention on Odell. With Saquon in the picture, combined with Engram and Shepard, I think most us expected the offense to at least be middle of the pact even with an offensive line that most of us expected to be still the weak spot.

pack

I think there was a lot of mistaking activity with achievement.

Anyone who watched Solder and especially Omameh should have anticipated the underachieving to the cost.

Omameh was a bad football player at Jax. Markedly bad.

reasonable expectation - they didn't have to be great, just competent. they're pretty far from that right now.

they've played a tough schedule, 4 playoof teams and a division rival. they were competitive in 4 of those games and should have won the game against Panthers.

Eagles - SB Champs

Jaguars - Conference Champs

Saints - but for fluke play would have played for Conference Title

Carolina - Playoff team

Cowboys - Division rival

Reminder - team was 3-13 last year.

But, he'll come around - the alternative keep Flowers there? No thanks.

I totally disagree, Fans are allowed to be Passionate, Pissed Off , or whatever they want to be. Bottom line if you think this Teams Defense did not quit, Eli is playing good, and Coach Shurmur has a Grip on this Team, (I won't act angry). Total disagreement with your outlook.

In comment 14125054 Eric from BBI said:

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Yes. I expected our offense and defense to play much better than this. I was not as optimistic about the special teams. I did not expect us to look like Ben McAdoo 2.0.

I cannot figure how anyone could build positive expectations given that virtually all of Reese's draft picks are failures. And yes, that includes that whirling Durbish, Beckham. I wish we either traded him last Spring or franchise him and not give him that new contract. There was and remains no core 'group' of players and leaders on this club. It is a loose confederation of a warring tribe with each individual looking out for themselves. There are no Strahans. There are no Banks. Yes, we had LT, but he was surrounded by talent and other leaders. This team has no leadership and is very low on talent. The record illustrates that. And when players bitch about the refereeing ignoring their own mistakes and inability, that says it all. I look forward to the Gints getting the first overall pick so we can then bitch about QB all over again. As for me, I would prefer not to take create a "David Carr" tragic scenario until we get more talent. That to me is the strategic question for this team.