After a season as poor as this one that was rife with on field stupidity from both the coaches and players, it rings pretty hollow to hear them knock the previous regime.
There's a lot of deflection from the 5-11 record. Not just that, but they are talking about the second half of the year like it was a success. 4-4, having lost the last 3 of the season...low bar, there.
Terps - you didn't pass on an opportunity to tell the board what you thought of the terrible locker room culture here last year and made quite a big deal about it.
Now that it appears to be corrected, and the GM and coach have made note of that, it's an issue?
It doesn't seem like there's anything that can be done that you won't find a way to complain about. Literally every appearance you make here is complaining or criticizing on a daily basis.
I get it, the team sucks, we should all be incensed, etc... but it just seems like it doesn't matter what is said or done. You'll find a way to disagree with it.
RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Found this comment interesting Â
People got it at the time. They just disagreed that it's worth it, especially in the case of Barkley, who is super coachable and isn't a character concern.
No... people did not get it. Plus, nobody knew that Barkley was was going to be as much of a leader as he is a talented RB. NOBODY knew that.
This locker room sucked last year and bringing in Stewart was not just for Barkley. We needed more veterans in the locker room who knew how to be a professional.
If you ever get to spend any time on a team at a high level, you will understand that the things that happen off of the field are just as important as what you see on TV during the 60 minutes. The Giants teams that won the last two Superbowls should be a prime example. We were not the most talented team in both instances. It was the leadership and the intangibles that truly were the difference.
One of those super bowl teams went out and partied the night before the game. One of those super bowl teams predicted a win, creating the dreaded "bulletin board material".
RE: I am biased against watching horrible football Â
That's what the Giants played this year. Though you wouldn't know it listening to them. They can't talk enough about the progress made.
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Maybe it's as simple as DG preferring to look at and build on the positives than dwelling on the negatives. At least publicly.
I'm sure he's well aware of the team's deficiencies but isn't going to air them in his pressers or on the radio. He's trying to change the culture and build a better one. Pointing out the good things accomplished this year IMO adds to that.
Players should never be signed if their play is in question - so I certainly think that was a poor strategy to burn cap dollars in the name of leadership. We can't be operating that way.
That said - what was going on in this locker room a year ago compared to now are very different and I think it's obvious.
Changing the culture here was a priority for this regime, and I think they're off to a good start as far as results go, but we can't be signing players for their leadership if they can't help the team on the field.
If they CAN help on the field, obviously high-character guys are great to have.
I'm not responsible for the 5-11 season. Gettleman and Shurmur are.
If I've done my job poorly, I don't tell my bosses "yeah but the guy before me did an even worse job".
I watched the games, and this was a team that played poorly, was poorly prepared, was poorly coached on gameday, and produced a poor season. What I'm hearing from the guys responsible is excuses and finger pointing at the previous regime.
As I type this Shurmur just brought up 3-13 again to Francesa.
They're trying to speak to the fans like you who are still annoyed to show how bad things were before and that as much as every coach and GM want to turn things around overnight, it's not always feasible.
They're trying to point out where the team got better - and I think it's being obtuse to completely deny that the team improved at all. The numbers are right there. The offensive production was better this year than it was last year. We can point that out and say we still need to get better - which is what they're doing.
I heard the coach say we need to get better defensively, I heard the coach say we want to continue building the offensive line... that he thought Will Hernandez was light years better later in the year than he was earlier. I heard the GM be very non-committal regarding the QB - telling me he's not content to just roll Eli back out there without exploring alternatives.
The team wasn't uniformly shitty all year. Everyone from analysts, to players, to fans, to the coach himself felt like they saw a few positives on the offensive side of the ball and seemed to think we started moving in a better direction.
We can think that and still believe the team is missing pieces and needs to improve.
on this one. If progress is made, it should be noted. Rome wasn't built in a day and I am very skeptical of this regime, but the good has to be noted as well as the bad. In the positive column, the team played much better offensively in the second half of the season than it did at any point last season or the first eight games of this year. That is a fact. And, in my opinion, the last eight games were more fun to watch than at any point in the last 5 years including 2016. I also think we had a five win season without all the chaos that was in the locker room last year, which also should be noted. Culture matters. Do I think these guys will ultimately be successful in turning this franchise into one with sustained success? As I said, I am skeptical, but there were some positives this season in an overall disappointing season and because the positives were at the end of they year, they are certainly allowed some time to build on that. I am not sure what more people want Gettleman to say?
Why can Matt Nagy install a new offense & go 12-4 in year 1? Â
You'd think Gettleman and Shurmur have been charged with an impossible task.
Does Shurmur need more than one year to learn game management? Does he need more than a year to realize that if your pass protection sucks, and your pass rush sucks, you shouldn't throw the ball 200 times more than you run it?
We've seen what it looks like when a talent deficient team is well coached. That's not what happened this year. Go back and read the game threads. Read Sy's game summaries. It's all there.
RE: Why can Matt Nagy install a new offense & go 12-4 in year 1? Â
Better talent on their roster for one thing and trading for one of the best Defensive players in the game no doubt helped. I'm sure getting Mack lifted that team more than just on the field.
RE: RE: Why can Matt Nagy install a new offense & go 12-4 in year 1? Â
Better talent on their roster for one thing and trading for one of the best Defensive players in the game no doubt helped. I'm sure getting Mack lifted that team more than just on the field.
All good points. To me, the Bears are still a defensive first team. They've got talent on offense, and the best still might be coming, but right now Nagy's offense is really a lot of window dressing.
.....he doesn't care that the Giants have only made the playoffs once since 2012.
He's interested in building the team the way he thinks is best, and if that's going to take a few years, so be it. He can't concern himself about what happened before he arrived. We all bitch about what has happened since SB 46 but that's not relevant to DG's process IMO.
And yes, he's trying to win every year but it's obvious the team has needs and he's going to try and fill them the best way he can.
RE: Why can Matt Nagy install a new offense & go 12-4 in year 1? Â
They also had a 3 win season the year before we did.
They followed it up with a 5 win season... like we did.
Now they're a 12 win team and division champions.
They started this process earlier than we did. That's why. They also made a move for an elite defensive player who is head and shoulders better than anyone we have here. Akeim Hicks is a monster.
The Bears had the top scoring defense in the league. Again, you guys are focusing on the wrong side of the ball and making it all about the QB and his experience level. It's the same thing with the Baltimore Ravens. Know why they're winning with Lamar Jackson? They have a great defense. This does not work with the Giants' defense... trust me.
Bringing up the Bears should, if anything, show you guys that you don't go from losing 13 games to winning 13 games in one offseason. A 5-win season like this was an inevitable stepping stone for the Giants whether people want to accept that or not.
The excuses are already being built in for when they go 7-9 in 2019 Â
If you can go that far back for Chicago and call that part of their process, can we go that far back for us too? Because if you do, this was the second worst season we've had since 2003. The terrible seasons we had at the end of Coughlin's tenure...those still didn't get as bad as this one.
It's not a linear thing. You have to control for the fact that this league is set up to prop up bad teams and knock down good teams. There are rebuilding teams that have winning records. Go look at Seattle for an example of that.
If you start 1-7 and end up 5-11, and you didn't have some catastrophic injury or injuries...in today's NFL, you're a really bad team.
Just because we won 2 more games than the explosion year of 2017 doesn't mean we did well. More importantly it doesn't mean we're on the right track.
I still have absolutely no idea what you expected to see this year. You knew this roster was in shambles. Everyone did. None of that was a secret.
We turned over a huge portion of the roster, we hired a new GM, a new head coach... just like everyone wanted. Then, since the results weren't instant, that wasn't good enough.
How many games was this team supposed to win with the circumstances being what they are/were?
Using the Seahawks as an example isn't going to work for me. They have a QB who is better than most QB's in football (certainly better than ours...) and despite their becoming a run-heavy team, still had a tremendously productive season. And again - Seattle has a defense. They are not "rebuilding" the same way we are. It's a bad comparison.
Seattles roster never got as poor as ours and they didn't just replace their coach. I'm not sure you could find many teams that are worse to use as comparisons.
I expected to see a well coached team that played to its strengths Â
I expected a team that understood its weaknesses and game planned to minimize them. Or how about a team that didn't come out of the preseason looking like an unmade bed? How about a team that had a grasp of clock management? Did the roster turnover impact our ability to manage the clock?
This is a league where you don't necessarily have to have the best talent to put together a decent season. I didn't expect 12-4, but I didn't expect to come out looking like a joke and having the season be over by Columbus Day. I didn't expect to go 1-5 in the division, and 0-3 at home in the division. I didn't expect to go 2-6 at home. And then to have both the GM and the head coach come out today talking about how they improved the culture over a 3-13 team...what kind of message is that?
If I were Mara today I'd be sick hearing that garbage.
Actually what's funny are the lengths that posters like FMIC, arcarsenal, and many others will go to in order to convince themselves and others that a 5-11 season is something about which to feel good.
It's funny when you guys do it because we're all just assholes on a message board. It's not funny when the GM and head coach spout the same bullshit.
At what point are posters saying they are happy with the season?
Because there isn't constant gnashing of teeth and parading around like a spoiled child whining about 7 years of bad football, we are acting as if teh season is good?
Your reading of people is worse than your concepts on building a team, and that is pretty fucking hard to top.
A 5-11 season sucks as a fan. The only difference was that I see it as a necessary stepping stone to get somewhere better whereas you seem to just want to go from a 3 win team to a really good one without any in between.
You're surprised a team looked unprepared with such heavy roster turnover, lack of talent, and a brand new coach/system on both sides of the football including basically changing our entire defensive front? That's your fault.
This isn't 1995 anymore. The CBA has made it extremely difficult to fully prepare a team when they HAVEN'T had this amount of roster and coaching turnover. It's why you hear coaches routinely complain about it - because they have to basically use September as an extension of the preseason now.
It's why NFL games don't "look" right until Thanksgiving.
This isn't an issue unique to the Giants. A lot of teams look very sloppy and unprepared out of the gates. Especially teams who just underwent this amount of change.
If the Giants are still a 5 win team next year, I'll be looking for new faces here just like everyone else.
Complaining about everything under the sun regarding the Giants doesn't mean you're less tolerant than I am - it just means you complain a lot more. I've been plenty critical of this franchise. I'm just not so miserable that I feel like staying in "nothing is ever going to get better, everything sucks" mode all the time.
And no, preparedness isn't related to managing the clock or using timeouts - that has to be better. But if coaches got fired for struggling with those aspects of the game alone, Andy Reid wouldn't have a job. This isn't reason enough for me to think we need to be so reactionary to fire the coach after 1 season. A team like the Cardinals is probably on the verge of a dangerous cycle if they whiff again.
They showed virtually no patience at all with Wilks, and if they have that same mindset after this coming year, they're never going to go anywhere.
Stuff like this gets magnified x100 when there's no margin of error on the field. When you're the Chiefs and you score about 40 points a game and win most of them, barely anyone notices clock management mishaps.
Actually what's funny are the lengths that posters like FMIC, arcarsenal, and many others will go to in order to convince themselves and others that a 5-11 season is something about which to feel good.
It's funny when you guys do it because we're all just assholes on a message board. It's not funny when the GM and head coach spout the same bullshit.
I don't feel good about a 5-11 season and I don't think anyone else does either. However I do feel good about the direction the team is headed and tons better than I did after the 3-13 season a year ago.
I saw guys who played hard, didn't quit on their team, and a team that battled while being in a majority of their games. Especially in the 2nd half of the year.
There's plenty still to be fixed but I feel they're headed in the right direction and I for one am not looking back. I'm looking forward with optimism and not skepticism.
Can you just see those nerdy gear heads at Jints Central.
DG: John, where’s that adding machine?
Mara: You mean a calculator?
DG: Yeah, calculator...adding machine...whatever.
Mara: You trying to do an algothingy?
DG: Nah, trying to figure how much we improved.
DG: What did you have last year? 3 wins? (laughing)
Mara: Yes, damn McAdoo.
DG: Okay. 5 divided by 3 equals...(sausage fingers pressing the keys)
DG: Uh...1.66666
Mara: Wow! A 66% improvement!
DG: How did you get that?
Mara: Minus 1
DG: (to himself] huh?
DG: Okay, let’s emphasize that today at the pressa.
Mara: Should we declare that Eli is the starter yet?
DG: Nah. Let’s toy with them a bit...
Andy Reid doesn't get fired because he is exceptional in many other areas of his job. With few exceptions we've been able to pencil his teams in for 10+ wins every year.
But what does Shurmur do that is exceptional? Is he exceptional at anything as a head coach? At this point, no.
The one thing he was supposed to be really good at was working with quarterbacks. Now I would argue that that job is best suited for a coordinator; a head coach has a lot more to worry about than just the QB. But that aside, did Shurmur's presence prove extremely beneficial for our QBs? Didn't seem that way to me. This wasn't a great season for Eli. Lauletta had a nightmare rookie season (which included Shurmur taking a not so veiled public shot at him in the media).
What do you see Shurmur doing exceptionally in 2019?
I actually think Shurmur did quite well with a very limited QB... getting him to turn the ball over less than any other year in his career outside of 2008 - which was a decade ago.
Eli's completion % was the highest of his career (it's up across the board in the NFL, but this was obviously a focal point) - he amassed about 800 more passing yards in just 1 fewer game.
This is about the best anyone is going to get out of Eli at this stage in his career. I have faith in Shurmur to be the guy to develop the next QB because I think he has a pretty good grasp of the position and what he's looking for - and I'm fairly certain that was part of the motivation behind hiring him to begin with.
I honestly felt the Giants were 100% unwatchable for almost all of 2017 and up through the bye week this season.
I still thought we were a bad team afterwards on the whole, but I most certainly thought the offensive line started to protect better, the team started to figure out their identity offensively a bit and we started putting more points on the board. We did it against some pretty good defenses, too. It wasn't all smoke and mirrors and we were missing our best WR for the final month.
I think if Hernandez continues to improve, we add another 2 offensive linemen, and hopefully another outside WR, this offense can be pretty good in 2019. I don't think they're that far away.
Defense has to be better, though. Otherwise we're the 2015 team all over again. An edge rusher is a massive need.
A 5-11 season sucks as a fan. The only difference was that I see it as a necessary stepping stone to get somewhere better whereas you seem to just want to go from a 3 win team to a really good one without any in between.
You're surprised a team looked unprepared with such heavy roster turnover, lack of talent, and a brand new coach/system on both sides of the football including basically changing our entire defensive front? That's your fault.
This isn't 1995 anymore. The CBA has made it extremely difficult to fully prepare a team when they HAVEN'T had this amount of roster and coaching turnover. It's why you hear coaches routinely complain about it - because they have to basically use September as an extension of the preseason now.
It's why NFL games don't "look" right until Thanksgiving.
This isn't an issue unique to the Giants. A lot of teams look very sloppy and unprepared out of the gates. Especially teams who just underwent this amount of change.
If the Giants are still a 5 win team next year, I'll be looking for new faces here just like everyone else.
Complaining about everything under the sun regarding the Giants doesn't mean you're less tolerant than I am - it just means you complain a lot more. I've been plenty critical of this franchise. I'm just not so miserable that I feel like staying in "nothing is ever going to get better, everything sucks" mode all the time.
I hope Gettleman got his culture thing out of his system, or at the least opts for very minimums and only pays decent salaries for players who are here for the football part.
KC because I had money on them to win the AFC West, and Baltimore because I'm fascinated by the offense they are running. I'm a big Jackson believer, but more than that I like seeing a team fully commit to having an offense run around the mobile QB. Since Jackson took over they have run 45 times for 230 yards per game (5 yards per carry). They've won the TOP battle in all 7 games, and are 6-1 over that stretch with the 1 loss being the Mahomes OT insanity game in KC.
Yeah it's only 7 games, but they're showing that there's another way to play offense in the NFL. It's a way that should interest us given the quality of our RB and the fact we're probably looking at a new QB soon.
There’s no doubt it can work. Falcons did it with Vick too. They had Dunn and the other bigger back (what hell was his name) and they used to run down hill all game long. Vick was THE reason why they ran the ball so well as he opened up the entire offense. Defenses had to focus on him. Jackson is too. We know the risks but it most definitely works. Fun to watch too. I’d probably sign off on that here one day soon but it’s riskier in a sense.
You guys have no idea if the Eli salary thing this coming season is at all being discussed. Why would it ? He’s over paid? Says who? It’s probably his last year in the nfl if he’s even playing next year do you really think DG is insisting on a paycut right now? Teams don’t operate that way with the starting established qb quite often especially the giants. This frickin non stop salary and overpaid talk — it’s not a factor right now ... get off it. Eli likely said he’s fed up with the fucking losing. Look he’s got his flaws but you have got your fucking head in the sand if you don’t believe this team has sucked around him more often than not the last 6-7 years. Don’t be stupid. Hate Eli and want him gone all you want but he’s been besieged by shit lately— the evidence is right in front of you. The defenses have sucked all he time. That’s why Eli’s (likely) pissed off.
I think it's safer. It takes years to refine a pocket passer. If you end up with Drew Brees it's great. But how often does a passer of his quality come around?
Lamar Jackson's best asset is that the threat of his athleticism opens things up for other players. You have to defend all 11 guys on every play. That's the advantage he has over Brees or Brady. He's never going to be either of those guys as a passer, but he doesn't have to be. As long as he's leading a run first team his passing windows are going to be massive by comparison. And the holes for his RBs will be bigger too.
And the biggest advantage is that it's way easier to replace Jackson than it is Brees or Brady. College football is filled with athletic quarterbacks. It isn't filled with grand masters like Brees and Brady.
There's a lot of deflection from the 5-11 record. Not just that, but they are talking about the second half of the year like it was a success. 4-4, having lost the last 3 of the season...low bar, there.
Now that it appears to be corrected, and the GM and coach have made note of that, it's an issue?
It doesn't seem like there's anything that can be done that you won't find a way to complain about. Literally every appearance you make here is complaining or criticizing on a daily basis.
I get it, the team sucks, we should all be incensed, etc... but it just seems like it doesn't matter what is said or done. You'll find a way to disagree with it.
Quote:
People got it at the time. They just disagreed that it's worth it, especially in the case of Barkley, who is super coachable and isn't a character concern.
No... people did not get it. Plus, nobody knew that Barkley was was going to be as much of a leader as he is a talented RB. NOBODY knew that.
This locker room sucked last year and bringing in Stewart was not just for Barkley. We needed more veterans in the locker room who knew how to be a professional.
If you ever get to spend any time on a team at a high level, you will understand that the things that happen off of the field are just as important as what you see on TV during the 60 minutes. The Giants teams that won the last two Superbowls should be a prime example. We were not the most talented team in both instances. It was the leadership and the intangibles that truly were the difference.
One of those super bowl teams went out and partied the night before the game. One of those super bowl teams predicted a win, creating the dreaded "bulletin board material".
Maybe it's as simple as DG preferring to look at and build on the positives than dwelling on the negatives. At least publicly.
I'm sure he's well aware of the team's deficiencies but isn't going to air them in his pressers or on the radio. He's trying to change the culture and build a better one. Pointing out the good things accomplished this year IMO adds to that.
That said - what was going on in this locker room a year ago compared to now are very different and I think it's obvious.
Changing the culture here was a priority for this regime, and I think they're off to a good start as far as results go, but we can't be signing players for their leadership if they can't help the team on the field.
If they CAN help on the field, obviously high-character guys are great to have.
If I've done my job poorly, I don't tell my bosses "yeah but the guy before me did an even worse job".
I watched the games, and this was a team that played poorly, was poorly prepared, was poorly coached on gameday, and produced a poor season. What I'm hearing from the guys responsible is excuses and finger pointing at the previous regime.
As I type this Shurmur just brought up 3-13 again to Francesa.
They're trying to point out where the team got better - and I think it's being obtuse to completely deny that the team improved at all. The numbers are right there. The offensive production was better this year than it was last year. We can point that out and say we still need to get better - which is what they're doing.
I heard the coach say we need to get better defensively, I heard the coach say we want to continue building the offensive line... that he thought Will Hernandez was light years better later in the year than he was earlier. I heard the GM be very non-committal regarding the QB - telling me he's not content to just roll Eli back out there without exploring alternatives.
The team wasn't uniformly shitty all year. Everyone from analysts, to players, to fans, to the coach himself felt like they saw a few positives on the offensive side of the ball and seemed to think we started moving in a better direction.
We can think that and still believe the team is missing pieces and needs to improve.
How often do you see teams undergo this type of turnover and look like a well-oiled machine in September?
Just doesn't happen.
Because Matt Nagy has a superstar defense. Give Matt Nagy our defense and give me a call when he goes 12-4.
With a second year quarterback...
You'd think Gettleman and Shurmur have been charged with an impossible task.
Does Shurmur need more than one year to learn game management? Does he need more than a year to realize that if your pass protection sucks, and your pass rush sucks, you shouldn't throw the ball 200 times more than you run it?
We've seen what it looks like when a talent deficient team is well coached. That's not what happened this year. Go back and read the game threads. Read Sy's game summaries. It's all there.
Better talent on their roster for one thing and trading for one of the best Defensive players in the game no doubt helped. I'm sure getting Mack lifted that team more than just on the field.
Quote:
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Better talent on their roster for one thing and trading for one of the best Defensive players in the game no doubt helped. I'm sure getting Mack lifted that team more than just on the field.
All good points. To me, the Bears are still a defensive first team. They've got talent on offense, and the best still might be coming, but right now Nagy's offense is really a lot of window dressing.
He's interested in building the team the way he thinks is best, and if that's going to take a few years, so be it. He can't concern himself about what happened before he arrived. We all bitch about what has happened since SB 46 but that's not relevant to DG's process IMO.
And yes, he's trying to win every year but it's obvious the team has needs and he's going to try and fill them the best way he can.
Funny you brought up the Bears.
They also had a 3 win season the year before we did.
They followed it up with a 5 win season... like we did.
Now they're a 12 win team and division champions.
They started this process earlier than we did. That's why. They also made a move for an elite defensive player who is head and shoulders better than anyone we have here. Akeim Hicks is a monster.
The Bears had the top scoring defense in the league. Again, you guys are focusing on the wrong side of the ball and making it all about the QB and his experience level. It's the same thing with the Baltimore Ravens. Know why they're winning with Lamar Jackson? They have a great defense. This does not work with the Giants' defense... trust me.
Bringing up the Bears should, if anything, show you guys that you don't go from losing 13 games to winning 13 games in one offseason. A 5-win season like this was an inevitable stepping stone for the Giants whether people want to accept that or not.
It's not a linear thing. You have to control for the fact that this league is set up to prop up bad teams and knock down good teams. There are rebuilding teams that have winning records. Go look at Seattle for an example of that.
If you start 1-7 and end up 5-11, and you didn't have some catastrophic injury or injuries...in today's NFL, you're a really bad team.
Just because we won 2 more games than the explosion year of 2017 doesn't mean we did well. More importantly it doesn't mean we're on the right track.
We turned over a huge portion of the roster, we hired a new GM, a new head coach... just like everyone wanted. Then, since the results weren't instant, that wasn't good enough.
How many games was this team supposed to win with the circumstances being what they are/were?
Using the Seahawks as an example isn't going to work for me. They have a QB who is better than most QB's in football (certainly better than ours...) and despite their becoming a run-heavy team, still had a tremendously productive season. And again - Seattle has a defense. They are not "rebuilding" the same way we are. It's a bad comparison.
Seattles roster never got as poor as ours and they didn't just replace their coach. I'm not sure you could find many teams that are worse to use as comparisons.
This is a league where you don't necessarily have to have the best talent to put together a decent season. I didn't expect 12-4, but I didn't expect to come out looking like a joke and having the season be over by Columbus Day. I didn't expect to go 1-5 in the division, and 0-3 at home in the division. I didn't expect to go 2-6 at home. And then to have both the GM and the head coach come out today talking about how they improved the culture over a 3-13 team...what kind of message is that?
If I were Mara today I'd be sick hearing that garbage.
And because of it, guys like Trubisky and Jackson get lauded.
Just like Jax last year, watch what happens when those D's become pedestrian. Spoiler alert - the offenses won't carry them.
Is it any coincidence that the seahawks missed the playoffs the season their D tanked?
It's funny when you guys do it because we're all just assholes on a message board. It's not funny when the GM and head coach spout the same bullshit.
At what point are posters saying they are happy with the season?
Because there isn't constant gnashing of teeth and parading around like a spoiled child whining about 7 years of bad football, we are acting as if teh season is good?
Your reading of people is worse than your concepts on building a team, and that is pretty fucking hard to top.
A 5-11 season sucks as a fan. The only difference was that I see it as a necessary stepping stone to get somewhere better whereas you seem to just want to go from a 3 win team to a really good one without any in between.
You're surprised a team looked unprepared with such heavy roster turnover, lack of talent, and a brand new coach/system on both sides of the football including basically changing our entire defensive front? That's your fault.
This isn't 1995 anymore. The CBA has made it extremely difficult to fully prepare a team when they HAVEN'T had this amount of roster and coaching turnover. It's why you hear coaches routinely complain about it - because they have to basically use September as an extension of the preseason now.
It's why NFL games don't "look" right until Thanksgiving.
This isn't an issue unique to the Giants. A lot of teams look very sloppy and unprepared out of the gates. Especially teams who just underwent this amount of change.
If the Giants are still a 5 win team next year, I'll be looking for new faces here just like everyone else.
Complaining about everything under the sun regarding the Giants doesn't mean you're less tolerant than I am - it just means you complain a lot more. I've been plenty critical of this franchise. I'm just not so miserable that I feel like staying in "nothing is ever going to get better, everything sucks" mode all the time.
C'mon guys, think.
Think? Youre asking a lot.
Guys says too much people get mad. Guy says too little people get mad.
They showed virtually no patience at all with Wilks, and if they have that same mindset after this coming year, they're never going to go anywhere.
Stuff like this gets magnified x100 when there's no margin of error on the field. When you're the Chiefs and you score about 40 points a game and win most of them, barely anyone notices clock management mishaps.
It's funny when you guys do it because we're all just assholes on a message board. It's not funny when the GM and head coach spout the same bullshit.
I don't feel good about a 5-11 season and I don't think anyone else does either. However I do feel good about the direction the team is headed and tons better than I did after the 3-13 season a year ago.
I saw guys who played hard, didn't quit on their team, and a team that battled while being in a majority of their games. Especially in the 2nd half of the year.
There's plenty still to be fixed but I feel they're headed in the right direction and I for one am not looking back. I'm looking forward with optimism and not skepticism.
DG: John, where’s that adding machine?
Mara: You mean a calculator?
DG: Yeah, calculator...adding machine...whatever.
Mara: You trying to do an algothingy?
DG: Nah, trying to figure how much we improved.
DG: What did you have last year? 3 wins? (laughing)
Mara: Yes, damn McAdoo.
DG: Okay. 5 divided by 3 equals...(sausage fingers pressing the keys)
DG: Uh...1.66666
Mara: Wow! A 66% improvement!
DG: How did you get that?
Mara: Minus 1
DG: (to himself] huh?
DG: Okay, let’s emphasize that today at the pressa.
Mara: Should we declare that Eli is the starter yet?
DG: Nah. Let’s toy with them a bit...
But what does Shurmur do that is exceptional? Is he exceptional at anything as a head coach? At this point, no.
The one thing he was supposed to be really good at was working with quarterbacks. Now I would argue that that job is best suited for a coordinator; a head coach has a lot more to worry about than just the QB. But that aside, did Shurmur's presence prove extremely beneficial for our QBs? Didn't seem that way to me. This wasn't a great season for Eli. Lauletta had a nightmare rookie season (which included Shurmur taking a not so veiled public shot at him in the media).
What do you see Shurmur doing exceptionally in 2019?
Eli's completion % was the highest of his career (it's up across the board in the NFL, but this was obviously a focal point) - he amassed about 800 more passing yards in just 1 fewer game.
This is about the best anyone is going to get out of Eli at this stage in his career. I have faith in Shurmur to be the guy to develop the next QB because I think he has a pretty good grasp of the position and what he's looking for - and I'm fairly certain that was part of the motivation behind hiring him to begin with.
I honestly felt the Giants were 100% unwatchable for almost all of 2017 and up through the bye week this season.
I still thought we were a bad team afterwards on the whole, but I most certainly thought the offensive line started to protect better, the team started to figure out their identity offensively a bit and we started putting more points on the board. We did it against some pretty good defenses, too. It wasn't all smoke and mirrors and we were missing our best WR for the final month.
I think if Hernandez continues to improve, we add another 2 offensive linemen, and hopefully another outside WR, this offense can be pretty good in 2019. I don't think they're that far away.
Defense has to be better, though. Otherwise we're the 2015 team all over again. An edge rusher is a massive need.
A 5-11 season sucks as a fan. The only difference was that I see it as a necessary stepping stone to get somewhere better whereas you seem to just want to go from a 3 win team to a really good one without any in between.
You're surprised a team looked unprepared with such heavy roster turnover, lack of talent, and a brand new coach/system on both sides of the football including basically changing our entire defensive front? That's your fault.
This isn't 1995 anymore. The CBA has made it extremely difficult to fully prepare a team when they HAVEN'T had this amount of roster and coaching turnover. It's why you hear coaches routinely complain about it - because they have to basically use September as an extension of the preseason now.
It's why NFL games don't "look" right until Thanksgiving.
This isn't an issue unique to the Giants. A lot of teams look very sloppy and unprepared out of the gates. Especially teams who just underwent this amount of change.
If the Giants are still a 5 win team next year, I'll be looking for new faces here just like everyone else.
Complaining about everything under the sun regarding the Giants doesn't mean you're less tolerant than I am - it just means you complain a lot more. I've been plenty critical of this franchise. I'm just not so miserable that I feel like staying in "nothing is ever going to get better, everything sucks" mode all the time.
Arc spot on as usual.
Yeah it's only 7 games, but they're showing that there's another way to play offense in the NFL. It's a way that should interest us given the quality of our RB and the fact we're probably looking at a new QB soon.
There’s no doubt it can work. Falcons did it with Vick too. They had Dunn and the other bigger back (what hell was his name) and they used to run down hill all game long. Vick was THE reason why they ran the ball so well as he opened up the entire offense. Defenses had to focus on him. Jackson is too. We know the risks but it most definitely works. Fun to watch too. I’d probably sign off on that here one day soon but it’s riskier in a sense.
Lamar Jackson's best asset is that the threat of his athleticism opens things up for other players. You have to defend all 11 guys on every play. That's the advantage he has over Brees or Brady. He's never going to be either of those guys as a passer, but he doesn't have to be. As long as he's leading a run first team his passing windows are going to be massive by comparison. And the holes for his RBs will be bigger too.
And the biggest advantage is that it's way easier to replace Jackson than it is Brees or Brady. College football is filled with athletic quarterbacks. It isn't filled with grand masters like Brees and Brady.