The start of all failures was poor drafting on the oline, not moving on from players that were done in the oline and keeping failed oline draft picks. Hill ride called it.
The start of all failures was poor drafting on the oline, not moving on from players that were done in the oline and keeping failed oline draft picks. Hill ride called it.
Teams had a lot more practice time, so developing raw but athletic players was more feasible than it is now. When the CBA changed, Reese never adjusted and continued to draff projects, which is why we kept wiffing on player after player in the draft.
it starts IMO with talent valuation as whole, failed drafts, compounded by poor FA acquisitions that were designed to accommodate for failed drafts, and then poor coaching/front office decisions.
If you had to pick a biggest mistake I think it begins and ends with drafting, because it all snow-balled from there.
Legit 1st round misses and you CANNOT miss in the first round without feeling pain elsewhere, and then when it's compounded by poor free agent choices you wind up in the world of shit the Giants are in now.
in 2013 instead of trying to make one last gasp for the Super Bowl when it was at MetLife in 2013. It was clear by the end of 2012, the championship core that Ernie had built was lucky to squeeze out one more title in 2011.
I've written on here before, after Sandy, the Giants were never the same, and the back to back blowouts by Atlanta and Baltimore late in the season should have been the clue that the Giants run was over and they needed to rebuild. They put too much stock in blowing out an Eagle team 42-7 in Andy Reid's final game of 2012, when a high school team could have beaten Philly that day for how badly they rolled over and died, finishing 4-12.
This. And in retrospect they probably should have gone scorched earth after 2013 and fired everyone instead of just sacking gilbride. But who knows what that would have accomplished...
On second thought I take it back, their biggest mistake was hiring mcadoo as OC which lead to HC. I’d go back and undo that one move and call it a day.
and not building a roster that emphasized the Franchise. The SB(s) sustained and fueled Reese's arrogance in thinking that it was his doing. The Giants had already made their commitment to Eli. He was the Franchise. Every action should have been in support of him instead of Reese thinking that his "basketball on grass" philosophy should be used to build a roster.
Ultimately, Reese should have been fired when Coughlin was let go.
I would take the OL topic back even farther in time. Â
If we're allowed unlimited hindsight, the right move was to break up the OL in 2008/2009 and rebuild it. No extensions for O'Hara (overrated) and McKenzie (declining), no multiple restructures for Snee and Diehl (wheels coming off).
But, but... "What about SB XLVI?" Well, what about it? The 2011 Giants made the playoffs despite the OL, which was awful, not because of it. The line played pretty well in the Super Bowl run, but McKenzie and Diehl were the weak links and O'Hara and Seubert had already retired. Even Snee was very nearly cooked, though he and Coughlin were effectively a package deal.
that unit aged and they didn't adequately replace them - or the overall team toughness in the trenches that came with them. Beatty was a good pick but after that they didn't spend any premium picks on the OL for a long time. Picking David Wilson over Cordy Glenn was a first guess by many that seemed like a golden opportunity missed in 2012. Passing on Alex Mack and Max Unger were others.
Not making those investments led to overpaying for flawed FA's like Baas and Schwartz, and continued through the new regime with Omameh (& to less of a degree Solder/Zeitler who are at least both good players, even if they are expensive).
Obviously there were also poor evaluations/draft picks with Flowers, Pugh, and Richburg. Those guys were almost worse evaluations in terms of demeanor than they were talent.
The pass rush deteriorating was also a big problem, but part of that was bad luck with the JPP situation. The last SB was won in his 2nd year and he looked like he was going to be a DPOY candidate for the next several years. He was clearly more talented than both Osi/Tuck ever were. They didn't do a good job finding more pass rushers but that's a lot harder to do than finding solid interior OL who are a dime a dozen.
At a time when the OL was in decline it showed they didn't understand what was important in building a team. Also, Wilson's size (he wasn't big enough to execute his blitz protections) meant he wasn't an every down back and you don't take a gadget back with a #1 pick.
guess draft picks all day, there is almost always the chance to say "should have picked player x" (cordy glenn over wilson for example).
but that's not why the wheels came off.
Again, it was talent evaluation.
The wheels came off b/c the Giants drafted players like Pugh, Richburg, Flowers for the OL. two 1sts and a 2nd - should be more than enough investment in an OL to compete - it's more than most teams invest in the OL.
Add to that failed picks like Amukamara, Apple, etc.
Who was the Giants last successful 3rd round pick (not counting Carter)?
Manningham? You're going back 10 years.
Missing on draft picks, especially in the first 3 rounds has a trickle down effect.
But I don't think it's accurate to say the Giants neglected the line. It might be partially true by the time they addressed, but it's the talent evaluation of the players they selected for the OL where the failure happened on the OL - and broader talent evaluation.
RE: I would take the OL topic back even farther in time. Â
If we're allowed unlimited hindsight, the right move was to break up the OL in 2008/2009 and rebuild it. No extensions for O'Hara (overrated) and McKenzie (declining), no multiple restructures for Snee and Diehl (wheels coming off).
But, but... "What about SB XLVI?" Well, what about it? The 2011 Giants made the playoffs despite the OL, which was awful, not because of it. The line played pretty well in the Super Bowl run, but McKenzie and Diehl were the weak links and O'Hara and Seubert had already retired. Even Snee was very nearly cooked, though he and Coughlin were effectively a package deal.
Good post. The game in Cleveland has always stuck in my mind as the point of inflection.
To me the biggest mistake has been the failure to see the two Super Bowl runs as flukish runs rather than a model to be followed.
echo the comments on Reese and not ruthlessly restocking the Ol in 2010.
i think 2007 was the result of a good team building effort.
i think 2011 sends a false positive echoing down the halls of Giant leadership...and that is if we stay close then we can win by going on a hot streak. thats not a plan.
Lastly, i dont think they are so much loyal as they are not in synch with the 3 to 5 year cycle of team performance that is true of every team for 2 decades ....except the Patriots.
i think they are out of touch with the time cycle of the modern NFL
lousy talent evaluation cascaded into worse decision making Â
The wheels came off b/c the Giants drafted players like Pugh, Richburg, Flowers for the OL. two 1sts and a 2nd - should be more than enough investment in an OL to compete - it's more than most teams invest in the OL...
These players were drafted (when and at the premium picks they were) because of sheer desperation to patch a unit that had come undone.
Yes, the picks were awful, but a big part they were awful was that Reese and Ross left themselves no choice because of the consequences of prior years' failures in the draft and FA and a myopic approach to building a team that could compete.
And, yes, that goes back to the Maras lack of football acumen in the decisions they made and did not make.
It was problematic even during the last run as mentioned above. The horrendous drafting and free agent additions since that run to help address it only failed. And no real development of any undrafted free agents and prospects.
For horrible drafting... swinging and missing badly with David Wilson, Justin Pugh, Ereck Flowers and Eli Apple among so many others is not going to lead to a strong roster.
He said, "it all starts with the trenches - build the best trench (on both sides) in the league, and build out from there.
Somewhere, he got away from that after a few years and no one picked up on it.
Now we have a chance. All we need is a solid RT and the OL looks above average. DL needs work. We have the skill players to have a fantastic air and ground game. We need to own the trench!
Wasting a 1st rd on David Wilson who only played 1.5 seasons before having to retire was a great moment in Giants history
There really wasnt anything wrong with drafting Wilson. They needed a RB and the guy drafted ahead of him didn’t do anything great. After reducing his fumbling problem, he showed he could flip the field and be a game changer in his brief career. Find another pet peeve to whine about.
10000%!! The biggest mistake was talent evaluation. (Which falls in Reese’s ass). Self scouting, over valuing their own players, poor draft evaluations- picking wrong players. TRYING to rebuild the offensive line and being pathetically bad about it.
Even though Gettleman hasn’t been great across the board, at worse Soldier isn’t bad and Zeitler can play. Now compare those moves to the ones Reese made. His 3 OL picks were misses, and the FA he brought in were ineffective. The biggest mistake Mara has made was not correctly realizing this sooner (it took the Eli debacle) and canning Reese earlier, like 2015 or so.
Clearly it was the OL. For me, and I was a Reese holdout, was the draft where he took Engram and passed on Ramzyk and Cam Robinson. We needed a TE but desperately needed OL. The draft was strong in TEs but very weak in OL. I think had he taken Ramzyk, the OL would have been much better & a good decent blocking TE could have been had in the 4th or 5th round. Reese passed up on rebuilding the OL & took a matchup TE who could not block & didn’t draft OL until Biz in the 6th. That was it for me
During the building phase between 2004-2007 primarily the Giants focused on finding the next QB & followed suit with building up the lines, specifically the pass rush. Ernie’s line of “you can never have enough pass rushers” was a philosophy.
The dynamic of Eli + solid OL + DL made the Giants a dangerous team. Those ingredients will always be dangerous in January & it paid off with 2 titles.
The problem is, they lost touch with that philosophy & never added reinforcements from 2008 - 2012. Eli’s cap number hurt, but they should have allocated their resources much better than they did.
Not rebuilding the Oline correctly
And also, not rebuilding the Oline correctly
Thats the answer in a nut shell. Reese ans Ross were hung up on athletic and size measurables with no clue on evaluating the intangibles that make great linemen. Especially on the OL. MO.
Lotta misses and even more bad luck. But I think it also is worth remembering that while we aren’t the Pats, we’re hardly the Jets either. If we look back at all the various ups and downs, the truth is that the owners have always wanted to win and they’ve tried to win. Think about the Cowboys or the Raiders or the Washington franchise or the Bills or the Phins... there’s so many NFL teams that have been truly pathetic with really clueless owners many of whom could care less about winning or the fans. So, yeah, we haven’t won three Supes with Eli (yet) and the past 5 years have mostly sucked. But, we have Barks and 4 Lombardi’s to think about. DG just made a good trade, he had a good draft last season and he’s got a bunch of picks for this draft. So, half full for me.
guess draft picks all day, there is almost always the chance to say "should have picked player x" (cordy glenn over wilson for example).
but that's not why the wheels came off.
Again, it was talent evaluation.
The wheels came off b/c the Giants drafted players like Pugh, Richburg, Flowers for the OL. two 1sts and a 2nd - should be more than enough investment in an OL to compete - it's more than most teams invest in the OL.
Add to that failed picks like Amukamara, Apple, etc.
Who was the Giants last successful 3rd round pick (not counting Carter)?
Manningham? You're going back 10 years.
Missing on draft picks, especially in the first 3 rounds has a trickle down effect.
But I don't think it's accurate to say the Giants neglected the line. It might be partially true by the time they addressed, but it's the talent evaluation of the players they selected for the OL where the failure happened on the OL - and broader talent evaluation.
The mistake wasn’t individual bad selections it was the faulty core beliefs that led to those bad picks in the first place and the poor resource allocation to the o line from 08-2013. From 2013 on they did spend a lot of resources on the line and the problem morphed into more of an evaluation issue, though they may have also been forcing things bc of how talent deficient they were by then. In any draft individual selections can be second guessed with hindsight, yes, but it’s not unfair to to point out the facts that for almost half a decade Reese only spent 1 top 3 round pick on an OL (Beatty).
It was like the Giants Front office just said 2 rings is good enough for now, lets take a break. It started with not focusing on rebuilding the Oline for Eli. After that, taking to many gambles on certain players, not drafting well, Mcadoo, and to much damn Loyalty. Keeping Reese that long was their downfall. It still amazes me on what they saw in Mcadoo to think he was a good fit?? That's just awful when you think about it. Now they find themselves picking up the pieces after waiting so long. smh.
Ignoring the offensive line over and over
Ignoring the linebackers over and over
Draft philosophy of constantly picking the best back flipping athlete w “potential” instead of actual good football player
RE: Paying Eli contributed, but more so lost identity Â
During the building phase between 2004-2007 primarily the Giants focused on finding the next QB & followed suit with building up the lines, specifically the pass rush. Ernie’s line of “you can never have enough pass rushers” was a philosophy.
The dynamic of Eli + solid OL + DL made the Giants a dangerous team. Those ingredients will always be dangerous in January & it paid off with 2 titles.
The problem is, they lost touch with that philosophy & never added reinforcements from 2008 - 2012. Eli’s cap number hurt, but they should have allocated their resources much better than they did.
Hate to say it but this team has had devastating injuries. Nicks, Cruz, JPP, that promising safety, etc. Even the OL pick ups Schwartz and Baas. I was not a fan of Reese/Ross combo but they certainly had a lot of replacement to deal with. Had they selected better lineman I think this team would have had far better results in recent years. I am confident Gettleman will at least make this team a physical team again.
As other stated, very little production in the draft and the misses in the first round are catastrophic.
.
This. And in retrospect they probably should have gone scorched earth after 2013 and fired everyone instead of just sacking gilbride. But who knows what that would have accomplished...
On second thought I take it back, their biggest mistake was hiring mcadoo as OC which lead to HC. I’d go back and undo that one move and call it a day.
Yes, everyone but Eli should've been gone after 2013. Instead, a series of half-measures (firing Gilbride, then Coughlin, then Reese, coupled with the milquetoast McAdoo hire) lead to the point we're at now.
In comment 14322835 Bill2 said:
[quote]
i think 2007 was the result of a good team building effort.
i think 2011 sends a false positive echoing down the halls of Giant leadership...and that is if we stay close then we can win by going on a hot streak. thats not a plan.
[/quote
Agree with this totally. The 2007 team was part of a continuum from 2005-2008 where the combined record was 41-23; they were a top franchise in the NFL that was only waiting for Eli to finally mature in the 2008 playoffs to become fully formed.
The 2011 team, however, was a collection of players who were never quite as good as they were either before or after that season due to injuries, lack of skill, or dumb luck...and even then they barely made the playoffs. They actually remind me very much of the 2002 USA men's world cup soccer team.
After 2011, the Giants FO never seemed to have a plan to build a dominant team, instead they tried to conduct patchwork every year to build a "just good enough to get in" team.
Mara runs the franchise. He HAD to be able to recognize that Reese and Ross needed to get the boot (and didn’t ). He compounded this error by not cleaning house in 2015 and piece mealing things. Which brought us Mac. Until they get rid of Manning I’m not sure he’s learned anything.
Eli got more consistent in the west coast offense despite less talent Â
around him - it just didn't compensate for the lack of a running game and structural reduction of talent across the board. They won the 2nd SB on the strength of the downfield passing game with Nicks + Cruz both at full strength and last bit of production from Bradshaw and the aging OL keeping defenses a little honest. Nicks getting hurt was the straw that broke the camels back in the sense that they just weren't good enough to create multiple mismatches from that point forward. And they became enormously 1 dimensional.
Don't get me wrong, Mcadoo's offense had a lot of problems, not the least of which was his playcalling and run/pass balance. It was the wrong cure for flawed diagnosis (we had a talent problem, not a scheme problem). But it did help Eli improve in some ways despite the talent declining around him. Whether or not it was the best use of his talents in combination with the personnel around him is a multi-dimensional question, but in terms of results there was a mixed bag of good and bad (higher completion %, more yards, less big plays, less interceptions).
Just a stupid and desperate draft selection. I will always believe they were going to draft Lael Collins until the allegations came out. When he was off the table, they simply took who they thought (and were wrong) the next best tackle was. Had they drafted Andrus Peat, they would have had a good solid lineman for years. The Flowers pick turned a bad situation into a catastrophe.
coming, but there was no pipeline of talent brought in aside from JPP.
JPP + the major core remaining from the 2004-2007 team build was enough to squeeze out another title in 2011. Once the 2013 draft rolled around, the Giants tried to build up the OL & misfired on picks.
Another huge issue is Eli’s cap number in addition to his aging.
Pugh, Richberg, and Flowers showed our priorities were fine, but our analysis was poor. I still don't understand how that's possible. Couldn't coaches or former players see that none of these guys was a worth a high pick?
To identify that the o line was deteriorating sooner, as Eli masked a lot of issues in 2011. Then failure to identify and develop talent through the draft. A lot of high upside high risk players were drafted that just weren’t good football players. Then holding onto reese way too long.
I thought Eli did well in the WCO... he had some of his best stats Â
It’s all on him as far as I’m concerned and i don’t need to even go into any Eli conspiracy crap. He signs off on a rebuild 14-15 then wacks coughlin. Hires his own guy in mcadoo, puts the GM on notice then allows for big spending. Wrong plan there Johnny. You let the young HC build his own team at a long view pace and don’t foster an environment where the GM is desperate and saddled with a HC he didn’t even hire.
That was a mistake but obviously wouldn't have headed off the downward spiral post super bowl 46.
At the end of the day Reese inherited several core strengths of the connective tissue of both SB rosters - Coughlin, Eli, pass rush (Osi + Tuck in particular), and the core of the OL. Those elements weren't always consistent or dominant but they came up big in big games.
Reese certainly deserves credit for helping draft those guys in the first place before he was GM, and his pick of JPP was as big of reason for the improbable SB 46 win as anyone, but overall his regime oversaw the deterioration of those units because they were unable to replace the guys he'd inherited when they moved on.
Reese should never have lasted as long as he did had they accurately assessed what they had. Similarly they overestimated things following McAdoos first season, and I’d argue again last season.
Gettleman is doing the same dumb shit Reese did. They're both symptoms
Remains to be seen - he had a mixed first offseason but he had the best draft we've seen in a while and his focus in the trenches was a lot better. I'm curious to see what he does this year (and how it plays out on the field).
Another major failure I haven’t seen mentioned was Reese’s inability to keep the front stocked with passrushers. He inherited Strahan, Osi, Tuck, and Kiwi and only added JPP in 10 drafts.
I've come to believe this is true. I am old enough to remember when Wellington Mara was the problem. He stopped being the problem and moved into his role as Beloved Giants Legend when he gave the reins to George Young. John Mara needs to do the same, and if necessary Steve Tisch should stand up to him and force the issue.
The Giants have not been run well, and Mara's the guy running it. If he were an employee, he'd have been fired with Reese. But since he's (half) owner, he can fire the other guys.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong but I'm not counting on it.
Reese's over valuation of skills players on both offense and defense Â
and undervaluation of OL and D front seven players, along with awful assessment of OL talent.
He never met an undersized speedy CB or talented WR he wouldn't pick instead of a solid OL or DL player.
And just didn't understand the function of LBs whatsoever.
Ironic, because wasn't JR a LB himself?
In the end it seemed he had little idea what a football player was.
My favorite example of his bias was that even his best draft pick - OBJ - was a mistake. He should have drafted Aaron Donald at that slot, because DL are more impactful than WR...
Just a bad football "vision" or philosophy. Combined with poor talent evaluation on the OL particularly.
I think Mara’s biggest issue is sensitivity to what the fans think Â
Years ago I analyzed Reese's pick allocation, and he was drafting gung-ho for WRs and CBs, especially WRs, at the detriment to stocking the team with starting OL and future OL.
I mean the Giants drafted more WR and skills guys than any other team in the league by far. And for OL they tagged James Brewer, a dreadful misfit who couldn't block a lick.
RE: Eric on LI - good posts, especially the 2:32. Â
Years ago I analyzed Reese's pick allocation, and he was drafting gung-ho for WRs and CBs, especially WRs, at the detriment to stocking the team with starting OL and future OL.
I mean the Giants drafted more WR and skills guys than any other team in the league by far. And for OL they tagged James Brewer, a dreadful misfit who couldn't block a lick.
It aligns with his basketball on grass philosophy. Get the ball into the hands of the playmakers and stops said playmakers. The trenches are just undervalued.
And Brewer? Our most lasting memory of him is cuddling a teddy bear. A NY Football Giants OLineman cuddling a teddy bear...
RE: I think Mara’s biggest issue is sensitivity to what the fans think Â
A lot of the last 2 years can be pointed to how pathetic the fans acted during the Eli benching at 2-9. Fans bought fucking billboards.
If you haven't listened to the Evan Silva podcast from a few days ago (Big Blue Bubble Boy), listen to it. I'm sure it overstates Mike Francesa's influence, but the points hold. It's a good summary of why the Giants are where they are.
Even though they drafted players. THose players were not working oout. You can't just keep throwing them out there and praying to the Oline gods for a miracle. On the OL you need to constantly cycle players until you have ones that are working. And even then you need to be constantly planning for replacements. The OL is that important that you must invest and keep on investing.
I won't argue that Eli was paid too much. But, mismanaging the OL is a far greater sin in my opinion. A solid OL can cover many other sins.
Didn't even let him coach 2 full seasons, before firing him.
And once he knew Eli was the problem, he was fired for it. Even though you guys were littered with injuries in 2017, he was fired after going 2-10.
The Giants finished the 2016 season with an 11–5 record under McAdoo, tying the franchise record held by Dan Reeves for most regular season wins by a first year head coach. The Giants returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2011, but lost to the Green Bay Packers 38–13.
How you fire a coach that quick, is crazy. Whether you like him or not? He didn't deserve that & had the balls to replace Eli.
He knew what needed to be done. Unfortunately, he doesn't own the team.
it's good to see that there are still some on BBI that manage to do some critical thinking and realize it's a problem that isn't tied to a singular decision or turning point.
It started with some bad luck - players who were injured or had careers shortened due to injury that necessitated refilling those positions that should have been staffed for longer (Snee, Nicks, Phillips, Wilson, Cruz - we won't mention TThomas since he was an injury risk from college).
They definitely waited too long for OL - they left in veterans like Snee, O'Hara and Diehl well past their primes. When they did focus on the OL, they spent resources in both FA and in the draft, and missed badly.
It seemed like the FO and coaching staff didn't share a vision for the team and routinely ended up trying to wedge square pegs into round holes.
When it was time for a house cleaning - the whole thing was botched. Instead, TC was let go, and there was an aborted coaching staff search when they feared that McAdoo might jump ship. They would have been better suited to clean house entirely.
And when Reese and McAdoo went - they practically stayed in house again for the GM hire, bringing back Gettleman and leaving the scouting staff intact. I'm always amazed at how little turnover there was in the FO/scouting dept - literally two positions - and that people are surprised that the team is still doing poorly.
It was a cascade of errors, and a panicking team wildly spinning the steering wheel of the bus while it careened across a patch of ice. Each mistake trying to compensate for the last, trying to patch in one place and ending up only making more holes. That direction seems to have been coming from the top, and it doesn't seem to be changing any time soon.
What's interesting is that the nature of the issue is starting to become clearer outside the team, the local media, and the fans. There are some really great and compelling criticisms bring made by a lot of smart people. And they are being backed up with good data.
djm
Go Terps : 3/10/2019 6:20 pm : link : reply
Gettleman is doing the same dumb shit Reese did. They're both symptoms
Gettleman has a completely different take on the draft. He's not a guy who will take fliers on workout warrior types. He believes very much in trusting scouting reports. He also will put a heavy emphasis on the OL, DL and LB positions. Reese valued DL, but was very bad at addressing the OL and LB position.
Gettleman likes to move on from veterans before they become too expensive.
A simple question in the differences between the two:
Would Reese have been more likely to move on from Collins or extend him? That's just one litmus test in illustrating the differences in the two
But yeah it became clear pretty quickly in 2018 that he wasn't the problem.
I do think we're worse now at head coach than we were. Certainly on Sundays.
I saw a bad team in 2017 and 2018. The difference was the 2018 team went down fighting every game. The 2017 teams quit in a lot. Players were suspended. Players walked out.
There was no respect for McAdoo in the locker room, whether it was jsutified or not. I think McAdoo's ego was much larger than people realized.
I'm curious as to what you see that justifies this statement Â
Gettleman has a completely different take on the draft. He's not a guy who will take fliers on workout warrior types. He believes very much in trusting scouting reports. He also will put a heavy emphasis on the OL, DL and LB positions. Reese valued DL, but was very bad at addressing the OL and LB position.
You seem to think Reese (who was the head of the scouting department before his promotion) didn't trust scouting reports and instead went the workout warrior route?
Reese did put an emphasis on the OL - just too late, and the players he picked weren't good enough. Flowers was a bust. Richburg regressed and ended up being too small for his position (hardly a workout warrior). Pugh was oft injured.
Are you suggesting that these players had different ratings from the scouting department and Reese just decided to ignore them?
He should still be apart of this organization... they should have fired Reese two years sooner and TC could have stayed as HC AND took over some of the GM responsibilities before finding his replacement at HC and then transfering into the front office afterwards.
But picking Flowers and Apple top 10 back to back years Â
I have always argued the root of the Giants problem was Tom Coughlin's Strength and Conditioning program.
As someone noted we actually had some great players whose careers were cut short and attributed it to "Bad luck"
but the way that our players careers ended points to the poor S & C program
my example is Hakeem Nicks. - after Giants' last super bowl it looked like Nicks was going to be an elite NFL receiver for the next 5 years ..
he had foot injury the next year and seemed to be rushed back and then had a knee injury - he was never the same player ...
instead of Giants having elite receiver Nicks career was done.. Remember Giants drafted OBJ when Nicks was still 26!!!!!!!!
This happened over and over during TC years .. Giants would draft a potentially great player .. only for them to have injury and then never come back to same level as before or worse get a new injury right when they came back.
This meant instead of building a team over a few years -- Reese had to keep on redrafting the same positions to replace injured players.
if you look at TC reign in Jacksonville the same thing is happening there .. Jacksonville has been one of the most injuried teams the past two years .. last year they were number 1
so it is hard to argue it is bad luck ..
If a football coaches best quality was his clock management, he probably wasn't a very good coach.
McAdoo won't get another HC job in this league any time soon. He sucked. As soon as Coughlin walked out the door and the offense was left to him, it became an abject disaster.
When an "offensive guy" has your team 26th and 31st in points scored his 2 years with the team, it's time to go.
He lost the locker room, was the coach during the most embarrassing circus (Geno Smith) we've dealt with in quite some time.... very Jets-ian.
Good riddance. Guy sucked.
Maybe Pat Shurmur will too. But at least the guy who came in here with an offensive pedigree actually got better out of this offense... and 30 points no longer are this magical barrier that the Giants are incapable of passing.
Reese was very by the book for his first rounders, and for the most part he hit on them.
Where he took fliers was in the middle rounds, but unfortunately he lost the majority of the time. The vast majority.
Just look at the Clint Sintim pick, for example. Took a player who didn't project well to the system we were running. Adrian Robinson was more of a H-Back than a TE. He took guys in those rounds that had raw potential, but weren't very good at football.
And I'd disagree that Reese put an emphasis on the OL. He didn't look at it as an issue until it was too late. We can laugh at the Hog Mollie comments, but Gettleman believes very much in focusing on the lines, not just for the present, but for the future.
If reese took the same care in having depth on the OL as he did in the DL, we may not have had so many issues.
my example is Hakeem Nicks. - after Giants' last super bowl it looked like Nicks was going to be an elite NFL receiver for the next 5 years ..
he had foot injury the next year and seemed to be rushed back and then had a knee injury - he was never the same player ...
instead of Giants having elite receiver Nicks career was done.. Remember Giants drafted OBJ when Nicks was still 26!!!!!!!!
Nicks career is over because of Compartment Syndrome and the after-effects. He has permanent nerve damage. I have no fucking clue how that relates to Strength and Conditioning.
No - if Reese had been as accurate as picking OL Â
The DL had talent leave in FA and replenished in the draft. They managed to pick both ends and tackles to replace players who were hurt or left on a regular basis.
The OL on the other hand had no such luck. Players who were brought in via FA (Baas, Schwartz) were disappointments. Players who were drafted (Pugh, Richburgh, Flowers) were no better. That's a lot of money and high draft picks that all didn't pan out. If anything, that suggests a pretty significant failure of both the pro personnel and scouting departments.
Which isn't to absolve Reese - he was responsible for both of them. The problem here is Reese is gone - and both those departments remain, untouched. The implication is that the focus of the GM will somehow make their player evaluations better, and that's some wishful thinking if I've ever heard it.
major difference - Gettleman also has a say in the scouting. He's doing his own grades on the prospects. I'm not certain of this because it comes as hearsay, but Reese no longer actively evaluated guys when he became GM - he was more of a manager who relied on the team for the consensus input.
I'd love to have somebody corroborate that though. From what I heard, Reese took a lot of interest in the 1st round picks but after that relied more on the team.
I've said this since the day Gettleman was hired - my objection to his hiring was more about the process that led it to the hiring and the comfort level than it was about Gettleman himself.
Gettleman might be scouting every last prospect personally (and I would hope he would). If Reese hadn't been doing that (something we can only assume is true based on rumors), then he was more reliant on those same departments.
Even if Gettleman is doing all this extra due diligence - he's still one person, and this is a shit ton of work. If those departments were leaned on more heavily by Reese, it means that they were even more responsible for the bad drafting than previously thought, and that bad foundation still sits below Gettleman.
if the comments above are true, some of his demise might be attributable to the fact that his level of participation was confined to first rounders only
However, we shouldn't underestimate Marc Ross's departure. Ross had a lot of influence on the draft and he was basically the guy who represented the scouting team.
Was he a fall guy for their failings or was he a guy who mucked stuff up?
The Giants scouting department has a lot of long-time guys there. Ones that preceded Reese and who had some very good drafts prior.
As GM he started out well (Ross, KP, Nicks, JPP). While Ross was not a player I wanted (mostly b/c of his age) hard to argue with the success.
Prince. eh, this was one "we can't believe he's still here" and Prince wasn't awful, but It was one of the first signs of the team not having a draft plan IMO.
Wilson was next, and I won't judge this with hind sight, no one can predict injuries, but it just wasn't a good use of resources and almost reeked of arrogance as SB champs.
Then the wheels start to come off and some of this is hind sight but the signs were there.
Pugh. Pugh had some success, but when you draft a guy top 20 and immediately have questions (is he a LT, is he a RT, is he a G) then you show symptoms of not really knowing who you drafted. This is different than saying he will be our LT, but he's going to start at RT b/c we have a need there or b/c we want to bring him along slowly, etc.
Beckham, HR. No issues with this pick, now or at the time.
Then the wheels are fully off:
Flowers, Apple, Engram. Even if Engram salvages a career as a useful TE, almost every pick after Engram the rest of the round would have been better. I always say you can 2nd guess every draft pick, but when you do it on draft day that's different IMO.
So his 1st round misses IMO could have saved his job or bought him more time, but that led to the visible reasons why Reese needed to go.
and he had other draft failure (it's almost like the 3rd round was viewed as a throw-away pick for Reese) but IMO going from a solid 1st round track record to 4 out of 5 misses led to Reese's removal needing to happen.
TC wasn;t very good in his final few years. McAdoo went 11-5 - mostly due to OBJ and a great defense (big time FA signings by Reese). Then that defense went downhill mainly due to piss poor management of the locker room, which for the most part falls at McAdoo's feet.
I don't even know if McAdoo was even Reese's choice, but he gets far too much grief around here as successful as he was, for the most part.
It was time to make a change at GM, I can't understand why people think TC should still be here - he was part of the problem at the end. It's kind of like SU going downhill with Boeheim at 74 years old - team has been medicore for 5 straight years - I really wish he had stuck to the original plan and retired two years ago and let Hopkins take over.
However, we shouldn't underestimate Marc Ross's departure. Ross had a lot of influence on the draft and he was basically the guy who represented the scouting team.
Was he a fall guy for their failings or was he a guy who mucked stuff up?
The Giants scouting department has a lot of long-time guys there. Ones that preceded Reese and who had some very good drafts prior.
Considering Marc Ross does not have a track record of success anywhere, I go with the latter. The drafting seemed to be for bodies at positions rather than fitting schemes. Flowers was built for a completely different type of offensive scheme than Pugh or Richburg. Tom Coughlin in his prime knew exactly what he wanted at each position and when he was able to convey that to Reese and Accorsi they focused on that. Was Coughlin losing that ability at the end of his tenure which compounded the problem of Marc Ross?
to be fair we don't know how many changes Gettleman has made BTS Â
we know he whacked Ross instantly and promoted the other guy, and brought in someone from his time in Carolina I believe as an advisor to change the way they stacked their draft board. We also know he had a really solid first draft. If we can get 3 more Hernandez, Hill, and Carters (I'm a Mcintosh fan as well so if you want to up that to 4 go ahead) in the trenches, it's going to be a big boost to this team's play at the LOS - which was a common refrain in the failings of the org over the past decade.
I think the jury is still out on both Gettleman and Shurmur, but both showed enough signs of encouragement in year 1 that there's some hope we're heading in the right direction. Zeitler is an early sign of encouragement for me heading into offseason 2. This wasn't a simple situation to turn around.
I don't want to make Marc Ross the fall guy for all of the bad drafts during the Reese era - but it is hard to figure out what he actually did well or deserves credit for...
RE: RE: I think Mara’s biggest issue is sensitivity to what the fans think Â
A lot of the last 2 years can be pointed to how pathetic the fans acted during the Eli benching at 2-9. Fans bought fucking billboards.
If you haven't listened to the Evan Silva podcast from a few days ago (Big Blue Bubble Boy), listen to it. I'm sure it overstates Mike Francesa's influence, but the points hold. It's a good summary of why the Giants are where they are.
It's kind of like SU going downhill with Boeheim at 74 years old - team has been medicore for 5 straight years
In that "mediocre" time, they have 2 berths in the Sweet 16, including a Semifinal loss to UNC. And going back 7 years, they have 2 losses in the Semifinal.
Although, they lost me with the analyzation of Mara Â
but since all we can do is speculate - there's still one big hanging question in there, and that's the role of Chris Mara.
From a titular perspective he's an important part of all of this. And if that title is not just in name only, then he's also largely to blame for the current state of the roster.
Who really knows, though? Does anyone know whether Reese really only looked after the 1st round scouting reports and disengaged later? Or if Chris Mara would rather hit up the racetrack than be involved in the front office, and he only retains the title so that he can make small talk at cocktail parties? I don't. But like Terps said - from the outside looking in, there are a lot more signs of dysfunction than of a solid organization working through a down period.
to shitty real football analyst while lacking any real credentials or accomplishments. I can tell you first hand his main "publication" of employment scrapes even lower in the barrel and mismanages their content worse than the worldwide leader. By far. Don't mistake being in the public domain long enough to get access to credible people obscure the fact that he himself is Matthew Berry without the professional writing credits.
As GM he started out well (Ross, KP, Nicks, JPP). While Ross was not a player I wanted (mostly b/c of his age) hard to argue with the success.
Prince. eh, this was one "we can't believe he's still here" and Prince wasn't awful, but It was one of the first signs of the team not having a draft plan IMO.
Wilson was next, and I won't judge this with hind sight, no one can predict injuries, but it just wasn't a good use of resources and almost reeked of arrogance as SB champs.
Then the wheels start to come off and some of this is hind sight but the signs were there.
Pugh. Pugh had some success, but when you draft a guy top 20 and immediately have questions (is he a LT, is he a RT, is he a G) then you show symptoms of not really knowing who you drafted. This is different than saying he will be our LT, but he's going to start at RT b/c we have a need there or b/c we want to bring him along slowly, etc.
Beckham, HR. No issues with this pick, now or at the time.
Then the wheels are fully off:
Flowers, Apple, Engram. Even if Engram salvages a career as a useful TE, almost every pick after Engram the rest of the round would have been better. I always say you can 2nd guess every draft pick, but when you do it on draft day that's different IMO.
So his 1st round misses IMO could have saved his job or bought him more time, but that led to the visible reasons why Reese needed to go.
and he had other draft failure (it's almost like the 3rd round was viewed as a throw-away pick for Reese) but IMO going from a solid 1st round track record to 4 out of 5 misses led to Reese's removal needing to happen.
He almost never hit on second round picks - you cannot miss on these either. And there are some real dogs there.
Here's the list from 2008 to 2017:
Terrell Thomas
Clint Sintim and Will Beatty
Linval Joseph
Marvin Austin
Rueben Randle
Jonathan Hankins
Weston Richburg
Landon Collins
Sterling Shepard
Dalvin Tomlinson
By far the best player on that list is Joseph - and he chose not to keep him.
I tend to think SS is a JAG, I'm not sure how Tomlinson will turn out. And these guys are out of the league:
Thomas
Austin
Randle
Sintim and Beatty (Sintim only played two seasons)
Hankins signed with the Raiders but I doubt he makes it out of camp.
As GM he started out well (Ross, KP, Nicks, JPP). While Ross was not a player I wanted (mostly b/c of his age) hard to argue with the success.
Prince. eh, this was one "we can't believe he's still here" and Prince wasn't awful, but It was one of the first signs of the team not having a draft plan IMO.
Wilson was next, and I won't judge this with hind sight, no one can predict injuries, but it just wasn't a good use of resources and almost reeked of arrogance as SB champs.
Then the wheels start to come off and some of this is hind sight but the signs were there.
Pugh. Pugh had some success, but when you draft a guy top 20 and immediately have questions (is he a LT, is he a RT, is he a G) then you show symptoms of not really knowing who you drafted. This is different than saying he will be our LT, but he's going to start at RT b/c we have a need there or b/c we want to bring him along slowly, etc.
Beckham, HR. No issues with this pick, now or at the time.
Then the wheels are fully off:
Flowers, Apple, Engram. Even if Engram salvages a career as a useful TE, almost every pick after Engram the rest of the round would have been better. I always say you can 2nd guess every draft pick, but when you do it on draft day that's different IMO.
So his 1st round misses IMO could have saved his job or bought him more time, but that led to the visible reasons why Reese needed to go.
and he had other draft failure (it's almost like the 3rd round was viewed as a throw-away pick for Reese) but IMO going from a solid 1st round track record to 4 out of 5 misses led to Reese's removal needing to happen.
He almost never hit on second round picks - you cannot miss on these either. And there are some real dogs there.
Here's the list from 2008 to 2017:
Terrell Thomas
Clint Sintim and Will Beatty
Linval Joseph
Marvin Austin
Rueben Randle
Jonathan Hankins
Weston Richburg
Landon Collins
Sterling Shepard
Dalvin Tomlinson
By far the best player on that list is Joseph - and he chose not to keep him.
I tend to think SS is a JAG, I'm not sure how Tomlinson will turn out. And these guys are out of the league:
Thomas
Austin
Randle
Sintim and Beatty (Sintim only played two seasons)
Hankins signed with the Raiders but I doubt he makes it out of camp.
Agree to a point, but 2nd round picks b/c of the contract being less, etc. if you miss it's not quite is debilitating to the team. You should still hit on your 2nd round picks and worst case should be a JAG, but his 2nd round wasn't as bad as the catastrophic misses of Flowers and Apple IMO.
I'd put Collins up there with Linval, mainly because Collins plays close to 100% of the snaps and Linval played around 50-60% with the Giants.
I'd call these players hits for 2nd round picks:
Shepard
Collins
Hankins
Linval
Steve Smith
I'd say massive whiff on:
Austin
Richburg
incomplete:
Tomlinson
not whiff or hit:
Terrell Thomas
Will Beatty
Randle - look at his stats, he was a bonehead, but he put up #'s
- overestimating the talent level on the team after 2011 which resulted in the command to go one more round to open the new Stadium.
- listening to Reese's excuses and finger pointing which resulted in firing competent people with proven track records and placing a $100 million bet on his competency when it should have been obvious that the team had been losing more talent to retirements, free agency and injuries than Reese was bringing in and had been doing so since 2009.
Hankins was a whiff too. And Steve Smith had one good season. Randle was finished in the NFL at age 25.
I agree that most of his first round picks were terrible, but you cannot miss on these second round picks either and expect to be competitive.
Hankins was a serviceable player (at a minimum). Hey, at least he's still in the league.
Smith was injury related.
Randle is an interesting discussion when you try and figure out what went wrong.
Yes, he's out of the league, and he was not a great player, but it's hard to debate his production.
There are only 7 players from that entire draft class, at any position, with more receiving TD's than Randle (and he hasn't played a down in three seasons)
He's top 15 in that class for receptions. And again, he hasn't played a down in 3 years.
The players all ahead of him in receiving TD's and receptions all had at least 20 more games played (many played 40 games more).
Not saying he was a good player, but I'm not sure I fault Reese for his failure. Seemed like the talent was there.
RE: RE: Although, they lost me with the analyzation of Mara Â
The part about getting rid of Barkley and starting Lauletta should have lost you, too.
Some of their points were terrible.
I don't know when Evan Silva became a guy we actually care about around here, but I guess as long as he trashes the Giants, he's relevant.
Arc, as I continued to listen it struck me as a hit piece.
-Eli Apple was ascending? I thought that wa a good trade.
-How could you trade Snacks Harrison?
-Landon Collins is a star safety.
It’s easy to bash Mara right now, he deserves it. But, so much of this relates to a star player who has 2 SB’s with this franchise ending his career. It’s very difficult to do & I think once there is a new QB here everyone will be looking at things with a clear set of eyes.
Mara deserves credit for 2007 & 2011, the entire fan base or just about wanted Coughlin gone after 2006.
Skins fan tell us "firing McAdoo was a mistake"... Holy cow has everyone forgotten how Mac lost every semblance of control or positive influence over the locker room in those 2 years?
The team headed straight to the toilet character wise under Mac, and Big Blue Pride was almost non-existent.
Mistake my arse. Not firing Reese and Ross along with TC was the the mistake, FO wise. We ended up with several smug narcissists in the FO instead of dudes with real roots in the game.
Let's see what product Gets puts on the field this year before we castigate him further. I want to see a team that's at least level at the LOS with the majority of the league. Gaining Zeitler was nice, but losing OV made that deal nearly a wash. We need 2-3 plus players added on the D front 7 now along with that RT.
Hankins was a whiff too. And Steve Smith had one good season. Randle was finished in the NFL at age 25.
I agree that most of his first round picks were terrible, but you cannot miss on these second round picks either and expect to be competitive.
Hankins was a serviceable player (at a minimum). Hey, at least he's still in the league.
Smith was injury related.
Randle is an interesting discussion when you try and figure out what went wrong.
Yes, he's out of the league, and he was not a great player, but it's hard to debate his production.
There are only 7 players from that entire draft class, at any position, with more receiving TD's than Randle (and he hasn't played a down in three seasons)
He's top 15 in that class for receptions. And again, he hasn't played a down in 3 years.
The players all ahead of him in receiving TD's and receptions all had at least 20 more games played (many played 40 games more).
Not saying he was a good player, but I'm not sure I fault Reese for his failure. Seemed like the talent was there.
Fair point on Hankins - but I think he'll be out of the league soon. And I'd forgotten about Smith's injury issues.
Randle had talent, but he had dropped into the second round for a reason. Every other team's GM seemed to know why, except for Reese. And the fact that he was out of the league when he was 25 speaks volumes. Hilton and Sanu at the WR slot would have been better choices than Randle.
Didn't even let him coach 2 full seasons, before firing him.
And once he knew Eli was the problem, he was fired for it. Even though you guys were littered with injuries in 2017, he was fired after going 2-10.
The Giants finished the 2016 season with an 11–5 record under McAdoo, tying the franchise record held by Dan Reeves for most regular season wins by a first year head coach. The Giants returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2011, but lost to the Green Bay Packers 38–13.
How you fire a coach that quick, is crazy. Whether you like him or not? He didn't deserve that & had the balls to replace Eli.
He knew what needed to be done. Unfortunately, he doesn't own the team.
re #s but just misjudged the prospects because of the picks Pugh, Richburg, and Flowers starting in 2013 completely mischaracterizes what Reese failed to do from 2007 through 2012. Do the math! Tons of picks in the first 3 rounds on WRs and TE types. Only one top pick (Will Beatty) on the OL. And you need 5 OL on ALL DOWNS. You need only 3-4 (WR + TE) the vast majority of downs. Yet we drafted lots of skills guys, and no OL (among the first 3 rounds) for 6 Fooking years. I will bet anyone the Giants were the only team in the NFL with that ratio of draft asset allocation of skills guys to OL. Yes he did bring in OL FAs who simply didn't work out. But I am talking about his draft philosophy. It failed, miserably.
Even more ironically, arguably our best WR during that time was UDFA Victor Cruz. So we didn't NEED TO BE INVESTING IN THOSE SKILLS GUYS at that concentration of picks that we should have been dedicating to OL to improve on and replace the DD, Seubert, Snee, MacKenzie and O'Hara OL.
When the wheels came off that unit, we didn't have even a broken bicycle of OL replacement parts in the garage.
RE: RE: RE: Although, they lost me with the analyzation of Mara Â
The part about getting rid of Barkley and starting Lauletta should have lost you, too.
Some of their points were terrible.
I don't know when Evan Silva became a guy we actually care about around here, but I guess as long as he trashes the Giants, he's relevant.
Arc, as I continued to listen it struck me as a hit piece.
-Eli Apple was ascending? I thought that wa a good trade.
-How could you trade Snacks Harrison?
-Landon Collins is a star safety.
It’s easy to bash Mara right now, he deserves it. But, so much of this relates to a star player who has 2 SB’s with this franchise ending his career. It’s very difficult to do & I think once there is a new QB here everyone will be looking at things with a clear set of eyes.
Mara deserves credit for 2007 & 2011, the entire fan base or just about wanted Coughlin gone after 2006.
I agree - the way the team is trying to bend over backwards to usher Eli out the right way now is just creating this overhang effect and I think once we finally just get out from under it, a lot of other stuff about the team will come into focus and be easier to make decisions on without all of this Eli stuff.
I wish it wouldn't continue to go this way with the band aid getting ripped off hair by painful hair... but at least we can be pretty sure that once the contract ends, it's over.
Still hope we draft Haskins or make a move for Rosen, personally. But if we go BPA and it's someone like Rashan Gary - I'm good with that too.
RE: Claiming that Reese addressed the OL adequately Â
re #s but just misjudged the prospects because of the picks Pugh, Richburg, and Flowers starting in 2013 completely mischaracterizes what Reese failed to do from 2007 through 2012. Do the math! Tons of picks in the first 3 rounds on WRs and TE types. Only one top pick (Will Beatty) on the OL. And you need 5 OL on ALL DOWNS. You need only 3-4 (WR + TE) the vast majority of downs. Yet we drafted lots of skills guys, and no OL (among the first 3 rounds) for 6 Fooking years. I will bet anyone the Giants were the only team in the NFL with that ratio of draft asset allocation of skills guys to OL. Yes he did bring in OL FAs who simply didn't work out. But I am talking about his draft philosophy. It failed, miserably.
Even more ironically, arguably our best WR during that time was UDFA Victor Cruz. So we didn't NEED TO BE INVESTING IN THOSE SKILLS GUYS at that concentration of picks that we should have been dedicating to OL to improve on and replace the DD, Seubert, Snee, MacKenzie and O'Hara OL.
When the wheels came off that unit, we didn't have even a broken bicycle of OL replacement parts in the garage.
Agree with this but what should have been happening all along was drafting OL projects (like other teams do) that were drafted and developed to eventually replace the veterans.
Guys like Adam Koets, Mitch Petrus, James Brewer, Matt McCants, Brandon Mosely, etc.
those guys are supposed to be your bridge to using premium picks again on the OL.
When the Giants had Diehl, Suebert, O'Hara, Snee and McKenzie all locked up and all young(ish) it didn't make sense to use a premium pick on the OL, especially with needs elsewhere.
That OL played an NFL record 34 consecutive games with the same OL configuration and Beatty was added to the mix to help replace a tackle.
Whether the OL failure was with those late round projects, the coaching, wrong FA's brought it, all of the above, etc. the execution failed - no doubt about it - but I'm not sure the approach was wrong.
At a time when the OL was in decline it showed they didn't understand what was important in building a team. Also, Wilson's size (he wasn't big enough to execute his blitz protections) meant he wasn't an every down back and you don't take a gadget back with a #1 pick.
THIS. I think this is the moment it started to go the wrong direction. As everyone stated it's allowing the OL to decline. And after winning the SB with a terrible OL, you take David F'ing Wilson with our first pick in the draft??? What the hell were they thinking?? This is definitely the first domino in a string of a terrible terrible drafting. Reese built too much credit with ownership after winning the second ring and we are paying for it today.
RE: RE: Claiming that Reese addressed the OL adequately Â
re #s but just misjudged the prospects because of the picks Pugh, Richburg, and Flowers starting in 2013 completely mischaracterizes what Reese failed to do from 2007 through 2012. Do the math! Tons of picks in the first 3 rounds on WRs and TE types. Only one top pick (Will Beatty) on the OL. And you need 5 OL on ALL DOWNS. You need only 3-4 (WR + TE) the vast majority of downs. Yet we drafted lots of skills guys, and no OL (among the first 3 rounds) for 6 Fooking years. I will bet anyone the Giants were the only team in the NFL with that ratio of draft asset allocation of skills guys to OL. Yes he did bring in OL FAs who simply didn't work out. But I am talking about his draft philosophy. It failed, miserably.
Even more ironically, arguably our best WR during that time was UDFA Victor Cruz. So we didn't NEED TO BE INVESTING IN THOSE SKILLS GUYS at that concentration of picks that we should have been dedicating to OL to improve on and replace the DD, Seubert, Snee, MacKenzie and O'Hara OL.
When the wheels came off that unit, we didn't have even a broken bicycle of OL replacement parts in the garage.
Agree with this but what should have been happening all along was drafting OL projects (like other teams do) that were drafted and developed to eventually replace the veterans.
Guys like Adam Koets, Mitch Petrus, James Brewer, Matt McCants, Brandon Mosely, etc.
those guys are supposed to be your bridge to using premium picks again on the OL.
When the Giants had Diehl, Suebert, O'Hara, Snee and McKenzie all locked up and all young(ish) it didn't make sense to use a premium pick on the OL, especially with needs elsewhere.
That OL played an NFL record 34 consecutive games with the same OL configuration and Beatty was added to the mix to help replace a tackle.
Whether the OL failure was with those late round projects, the coaching, wrong FA's brought it, all of the above, etc. the execution failed - no doubt about it - but I'm not sure the approach was wrong.
No, the approach was wrong.
OL guys need more time to develop than other positions. Since the mid-2000s they have not been coming out of college with the same level of prep and experience to be pro-ready.
On top of taking more time, the change over to these spread systems means evaluators have less to go on. So the evaluations have become more hit and miss.
Taken together it means you need to be selecting guys with premium picks on a regular basis, and cycle through them. When you find a good one, move him in and replace the veteran. Rinse and repeat.
The fact that that O-line played a record 34 games together is a MASSIVE red flag that O-Line pipeline wasn't functioning properly.
I said before that paying attention to the O-Line was the big mistake. At a surface level this is true.
As folks have stated, the lack of a well stocked pipeline led to the situations where by '09/'10 the wheels were coming off '07 line and there was nobody in the wings. Which led to ill-fated forays into FA for replacements
Have we forgotten the Andrews Brothers, Tony Ugoh, to go along with Baas, Schwartz, Jerry, and Fluker...
None of them lasted and by 2012 the line consisted of Beatty, the ghosts of Diehl and Snee, the wreckage of Baas, Boothe's ass, and a shit ton of duct tape. The "development pipeline" consisted of such luminaries as Selvish Capers, Jim Cordle, James Brewer and a whole lot of wishful thinking.
Between 2007 and 2012 the only premium pick used for OL was Beatty. Midway through that period the OL was a scramble drill to patch all the leaks. Which led to the reaches for players such as Pugh, Richberg and Flowers. And at that point 3 forced premium picks was simply not enough to fix the problem. DG seems to be making moves to fix it, but Omameh was another FA failure, Solder is wildly expensive. The problem remains to this day, and the jury is still out on the new regime.
The failure to properly address the OL was the catalyst that set in motion one bad decision after another both in the draft and FA. Bad luck with injuries to top draft picks is not an excuse since it wasn't OL players that went down.
The abject failure to realize that the OL is the heart and soul of the team suggests that Reese was a poor GM from the start. He inherited a core, but had no idea of how to build a roster himself.
At the end of the day, the real mistake was promoting Reese and sticking with him, long after his faults were plainly obvious. A very poor job of evaluation of executives by the ownership over an extended period of time.
At a time when the OL was in decline it showed they didn't understand what was important in building a team. Also, Wilson's size (he wasn't big enough to execute his blitz protections) meant he wasn't an every down back and you don't take a gadget back with a #1 pick.
THIS. I think this is the moment it started to go the wrong direction. As everyone stated it's allowing the OL to decline. And after winning the SB with a terrible OL, you take David F'ing Wilson with our first pick in the draft??? What the hell were they thinking?? This is definitely the first domino in a string of a terrible terrible drafting. Reese built too much credit with ownership after winning the second ring and we are paying for it today.
Well I think my feelings on taking RBs with 1st round picks is well known. And as stated above and undersized one that can't be an every down player at that. Horrible choice.
not following the Patriots example of getting rid Â
of older players when they no longer play up to their contracts, right now we have an aging QB who can't get out of his own way making over 20+ million a year, the Pats would never do a thing like that...
Interesting note from .McL. about the 34 consecutive games Â
played being a massive red flag. Part of the FO's problem was overvaluing the individual components of that (left to right) DD, RS, SOH, CS, KM OL. That OL really did play well together and as a unit managed to overcome various weaknesses in the parts. O'Hara was undersized and underpowered as an OC but was buffeted by two tough and nasty OGs surrounding him in Seubert and Snee. Diehl was never a good pass protector at LT, but was another all around tough warrior who brought pulling skills to LT.
I wrote a long write up after a Ravens game when the Giants rushed for over 200 yards vs a Ravens run D that was giving up an avg of maybe 50 per game... That it was fool's gold if one thought the Giants OL beat up on the Ravens front 7. It was a really long post with a lot of detail about what a great job Bradshaw and Jacobs did that game reading their cutback lanesand maximizing damn near ever rush.
At the POA, the Giants' OL was getting stuffed, but BJ and AB found every backside crack.
Aside from Beatty, they brought in a string of 4th and latter round drafters that McL noted above, and none were worth their weight in fertilizer.
Meanwhile 2nd & 3rd round picks were languished on Randle, Barden, Beckum, Jernigan - look it was definitely a philosophy to draft skills players 1st and grunts last. Wilson over Glenn, when we all knew we were getting desperate for OL.
And also, not rebuilding the Oline correctly
Gilbride
If you had to pick a biggest mistake I think it begins and ends with drafting, because it all snow-balled from there.
Legit 1st round misses and you CANNOT miss in the first round without feeling pain elsewhere, and then when it's compounded by poor free agent choices you wind up in the world of shit the Giants are in now.
I've written on here before, after Sandy, the Giants were never the same, and the back to back blowouts by Atlanta and Baltimore late in the season should have been the clue that the Giants run was over and they needed to rebuild. They put too much stock in blowing out an Eagle team 42-7 in Andy Reid's final game of 2012, when a high school team could have beaten Philly that day for how badly they rolled over and died, finishing 4-12.
This. And in retrospect they probably should have gone scorched earth after 2013 and fired everyone instead of just sacking gilbride. But who knows what that would have accomplished...
On second thought I take it back, their biggest mistake was hiring mcadoo as OC which lead to HC. I’d go back and undo that one move and call it a day.
+1
Ultimately, Reese should have been fired when Coughlin was let go.
But, but... "What about SB XLVI?" Well, what about it? The 2011 Giants made the playoffs despite the OL, which was awful, not because of it. The line played pretty well in the Super Bowl run, but McKenzie and Diehl were the weak links and O'Hara and Seubert had already retired. Even Snee was very nearly cooked, though he and Coughlin were effectively a package deal.
I wasn’t excited about the pick, but unless the medical staff could have picked up spinal stenosis during his exams, injuries happen.
Not making those investments led to overpaying for flawed FA's like Baas and Schwartz, and continued through the new regime with Omameh (& to less of a degree Solder/Zeitler who are at least both good players, even if they are expensive).
Obviously there were also poor evaluations/draft picks with Flowers, Pugh, and Richburg. Those guys were almost worse evaluations in terms of demeanor than they were talent.
The pass rush deteriorating was also a big problem, but part of that was bad luck with the JPP situation. The last SB was won in his 2nd year and he looked like he was going to be a DPOY candidate for the next several years. He was clearly more talented than both Osi/Tuck ever were. They didn't do a good job finding more pass rushers but that's a lot harder to do than finding solid interior OL who are a dime a dozen.
but that's not why the wheels came off.
Again, it was talent evaluation.
The wheels came off b/c the Giants drafted players like Pugh, Richburg, Flowers for the OL. two 1sts and a 2nd - should be more than enough investment in an OL to compete - it's more than most teams invest in the OL.
Add to that failed picks like Amukamara, Apple, etc.
Who was the Giants last successful 3rd round pick (not counting Carter)?
Manningham? You're going back 10 years.
Missing on draft picks, especially in the first 3 rounds has a trickle down effect.
But I don't think it's accurate to say the Giants neglected the line. It might be partially true by the time they addressed, but it's the talent evaluation of the players they selected for the OL where the failure happened on the OL - and broader talent evaluation.
But, but... "What about SB XLVI?" Well, what about it? The 2011 Giants made the playoffs despite the OL, which was awful, not because of it. The line played pretty well in the Super Bowl run, but McKenzie and Diehl were the weak links and O'Hara and Seubert had already retired. Even Snee was very nearly cooked, though he and Coughlin were effectively a package deal.
Good post. The game in Cleveland has always stuck in my mind as the point of inflection.
To me the biggest mistake has been the failure to see the two Super Bowl runs as flukish runs rather than a model to be followed.
"One more run with Eli."
i think 2007 was the result of a good team building effort.
i think 2011 sends a false positive echoing down the halls of Giant leadership...and that is if we stay close then we can win by going on a hot streak. thats not a plan.
Lastly, i dont think they are so much loyal as they are not in synch with the 3 to 5 year cycle of team performance that is true of every team for 2 decades ....except the Patriots.
i think they are out of touch with the time cycle of the modern NFL
Yes, the picks were awful, but a big part they were awful was that Reese and Ross left themselves no choice because of the consequences of prior years' failures in the draft and FA and a myopic approach to building a team that could compete.
And, yes, that goes back to the Maras lack of football acumen in the decisions they made and did not make.
anyone who watched that game should have absorbed its lessons
Drop the Mic..Let’s move on
= disaster...
Somewhere, he got away from that after a few years and no one picked up on it.
Now we have a chance. All we need is a solid RT and the OL looks above average. DL needs work. We have the skill players to have a fantastic air and ground game. We need to own the trench!
There really wasnt anything wrong with drafting Wilson. They needed a RB and the guy drafted ahead of him didn’t do anything great. After reducing his fumbling problem, he showed he could flip the field and be a game changer in his brief career. Find another pet peeve to whine about.
Even though Gettleman hasn’t been great across the board, at worse Soldier isn’t bad and Zeitler can play. Now compare those moves to the ones Reese made. His 3 OL picks were misses, and the FA he brought in were ineffective. The biggest mistake Mara has made was not correctly realizing this sooner (it took the Eli debacle) and canning Reese earlier, like 2015 or so.
Schwartz
Richburg
Followed by the Eli extension while not building a great roster.
Clearly it was the OL. For me, and I was a Reese holdout, was the draft where he took Engram and passed on Ramzyk and Cam Robinson. We needed a TE but desperately needed OL. The draft was strong in TEs but very weak in OL. I think had he taken Ramzyk, the OL would have been much better & a good decent blocking TE could have been had in the 4th or 5th round. Reese passed up on rebuilding the OL & took a matchup TE who could not block & didn’t draft OL until Biz in the 6th. That was it for me
That's not an indictment on Eli it's just my feeling on QBs and salary cap allocation
That's not an indictment on Eli it's just my feeling on QBs and salary cap allocation
Truth.
The dynamic of Eli + solid OL + DL made the Giants a dangerous team. Those ingredients will always be dangerous in January & it paid off with 2 titles.
The problem is, they lost touch with that philosophy & never added reinforcements from 2008 - 2012. Eli’s cap number hurt, but they should have allocated their resources much better than they did.
And also, not rebuilding the Oline correctly
but that's not why the wheels came off.
Again, it was talent evaluation.
The wheels came off b/c the Giants drafted players like Pugh, Richburg, Flowers for the OL. two 1sts and a 2nd - should be more than enough investment in an OL to compete - it's more than most teams invest in the OL.
Add to that failed picks like Amukamara, Apple, etc.
Who was the Giants last successful 3rd round pick (not counting Carter)?
Manningham? You're going back 10 years.
Missing on draft picks, especially in the first 3 rounds has a trickle down effect.
But I don't think it's accurate to say the Giants neglected the line. It might be partially true by the time they addressed, but it's the talent evaluation of the players they selected for the OL where the failure happened on the OL - and broader talent evaluation.
The mistake wasn’t individual bad selections it was the faulty core beliefs that led to those bad picks in the first place and the poor resource allocation to the o line from 08-2013. From 2013 on they did spend a lot of resources on the line and the problem morphed into more of an evaluation issue, though they may have also been forcing things bc of how talent deficient they were by then. In any draft individual selections can be second guessed with hindsight, yes, but it’s not unfair to to point out the facts that for almost half a decade Reese only spent 1 top 3 round pick on an OL (Beatty).
Ignoring the linebackers over and over
Draft philosophy of constantly picking the best back flipping athlete w “potential” instead of actual good football player
The dynamic of Eli + solid OL + DL made the Giants a dangerous team. Those ingredients will always be dangerous in January & it paid off with 2 titles.
The problem is, they lost touch with that philosophy & never added reinforcements from 2008 - 2012. Eli’s cap number hurt, but they should have allocated their resources much better than they did.
Nice post imo
As other stated, very little production in the draft and the misses in the first round are catastrophic.
This. Ross was the beginning of Reese’s downfall.
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This. And in retrospect they probably should have gone scorched earth after 2013 and fired everyone instead of just sacking gilbride. But who knows what that would have accomplished...
On second thought I take it back, their biggest mistake was hiring mcadoo as OC which lead to HC. I’d go back and undo that one move and call it a day.
Yes, everyone but Eli should've been gone after 2013. Instead, a series of half-measures (firing Gilbride, then Coughlin, then Reese, coupled with the milquetoast McAdoo hire) lead to the point we're at now.
[quote]
i think 2007 was the result of a good team building effort.
i think 2011 sends a false positive echoing down the halls of Giant leadership...and that is if we stay close then we can win by going on a hot streak. thats not a plan.
[/quote
Agree with this totally. The 2007 team was part of a continuum from 2005-2008 where the combined record was 41-23; they were a top franchise in the NFL that was only waiting for Eli to finally mature in the 2008 playoffs to become fully formed.
The 2011 team, however, was a collection of players who were never quite as good as they were either before or after that season due to injuries, lack of skill, or dumb luck...and even then they barely made the playoffs. They actually remind me very much of the 2002 USA men's world cup soccer team.
After 2011, the Giants FO never seemed to have a plan to build a dominant team, instead they tried to conduct patchwork every year to build a "just good enough to get in" team.
Flowers Schwartz Walton Pugh Richburg Beatty were all big disappointments
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The drafts really dropped off after this smug asshole got hired..
This. Ross was the beginning of Reese’s downfall.
Drafts went downhill after his hire and he was focusing more on other GM stuff unrealted to the draft after the round 1 picks
The dysfunction is higher up than Reese and Ross.
Don't get me wrong, Mcadoo's offense had a lot of problems, not the least of which was his playcalling and run/pass balance. It was the wrong cure for flawed diagnosis (we had a talent problem, not a scheme problem). But it did help Eli improve in some ways despite the talent declining around him. Whether or not it was the best use of his talents in combination with the personnel around him is a multi-dimensional question, but in terms of results there was a mixed bag of good and bad (higher completion %, more yards, less big plays, less interceptions).
EVERYTHING starts with the draft
Our draft picks have been bad and when they had a chance to be good they had injuries and
We arnt talking your normal run of the mill injuries.
Over the last 10 years we only have 3 1st round picks still on the team.
'08 Kenny Phillips - OK safety not worth 1st RD pick
'09 Hakeem Nick's - Very good WR who only had a couple good years before injury derailed his career
'10 JPP - Blew his hand off
'11 Prince - An Ok CB whose time here was short
'12 Dave Wilson - freak neck issue
'13 Justin Pugh - a average to below average OL
'14 OBJ - HOF skill and production... when he isnt injured
'15 Eric Flowers - bust
'16 Eli Apple - bust
'17 Even Ingram - shows potential but has had injuries
'18 Barkley - HOF rookie year... will he be the 1 Giants picked in the last 10 years that can avoid the injury bug?
You can not draft poorly AND have bad luck for 10 years and expect to field a competitive team
JPP + the major core remaining from the 2004-2007 team build was enough to squeeze out another title in 2011. Once the 2013 draft rolled around, the Giants tried to build up the OL & misfired on picks.
Another huge issue is Eli’s cap number in addition to his aging.
Wilson, Pugh, Richburg, Flowers Apple were all need pucks more than BPA imo. Didn’t work out
I think that it’s everything after the first round where there ineptitude hurt them.
David Wilson? He was turning the corner if not for the neck injury.
The biggest mistake was firing TC over Reese.
The even bigger issue still exists, and that's the owners.
It’s all on him as far as I’m concerned and i don’t need to even go into any Eli conspiracy crap. He signs off on a rebuild 14-15 then wacks coughlin. Hires his own guy in mcadoo, puts the GM on notice then allows for big spending. Wrong plan there Johnny. You let the young HC build his own team at a long view pace and don’t foster an environment where the GM is desperate and saddled with a HC he didn’t even hire.
That was a mistake but obviously wouldn't have headed off the downward spiral post super bowl 46.
At the end of the day Reese inherited several core strengths of the connective tissue of both SB rosters - Coughlin, Eli, pass rush (Osi + Tuck in particular), and the core of the OL. Those elements weren't always consistent or dominant but they came up big in big games.
Reese certainly deserves credit for helping draft those guys in the first place before he was GM, and his pick of JPP was as big of reason for the improbable SB 46 win as anyone, but overall his regime oversaw the deterioration of those units because they were unable to replace the guys he'd inherited when they moved on.
Remains to be seen - he had a mixed first offseason but he had the best draft we've seen in a while and his focus in the trenches was a lot better. I'm curious to see what he does this year (and how it plays out on the field).
The Giants have not been run well, and Mara's the guy running it. If he were an employee, he'd have been fired with Reese. But since he's (half) owner, he can fire the other guys.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong but I'm not counting on it.
He never met an undersized speedy CB or talented WR he wouldn't pick instead of a solid OL or DL player.
And just didn't understand the function of LBs whatsoever.
Ironic, because wasn't JR a LB himself?
In the end it seemed he had little idea what a football player was.
My favorite example of his bias was that even his best draft pick - OBJ - was a mistake. He should have drafted Aaron Donald at that slot, because DL are more impactful than WR...
Just a bad football "vision" or philosophy. Combined with poor talent evaluation on the OL particularly.
I mean the Giants drafted more WR and skills guys than any other team in the league by far. And for OL they tagged James Brewer, a dreadful misfit who couldn't block a lick.
I mean the Giants drafted more WR and skills guys than any other team in the league by far. And for OL they tagged James Brewer, a dreadful misfit who couldn't block a lick.
It aligns with his basketball on grass philosophy. Get the ball into the hands of the playmakers and stops said playmakers. The trenches are just undervalued.
And Brewer? Our most lasting memory of him is cuddling a teddy bear. A NY Football Giants OLineman cuddling a teddy bear...
If you haven't listened to the Evan Silva podcast from a few days ago (Big Blue Bubble Boy), listen to it. I'm sure it overstates Mike Francesa's influence, but the points hold. It's a good summary of why the Giants are where they are.
I won't argue that Eli was paid too much. But, mismanaging the OL is a far greater sin in my opinion. A solid OL can cover many other sins.
And once he knew Eli was the problem, he was fired for it. Even though you guys were littered with injuries in 2017, he was fired after going 2-10.
The Giants finished the 2016 season with an 11–5 record under McAdoo, tying the franchise record held by Dan Reeves for most regular season wins by a first year head coach. The Giants returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2011, but lost to the Green Bay Packers 38–13.
How you fire a coach that quick, is crazy. Whether you like him or not? He didn't deserve that & had the balls to replace Eli.
He knew what needed to be done. Unfortunately, he doesn't own the team.
I do think we're worse now at head coach than we were. Certainly on Sundays.
It started with some bad luck - players who were injured or had careers shortened due to injury that necessitated refilling those positions that should have been staffed for longer (Snee, Nicks, Phillips, Wilson, Cruz - we won't mention TThomas since he was an injury risk from college).
They definitely waited too long for OL - they left in veterans like Snee, O'Hara and Diehl well past their primes. When they did focus on the OL, they spent resources in both FA and in the draft, and missed badly.
It seemed like the FO and coaching staff didn't share a vision for the team and routinely ended up trying to wedge square pegs into round holes.
When it was time for a house cleaning - the whole thing was botched. Instead, TC was let go, and there was an aborted coaching staff search when they feared that McAdoo might jump ship. They would have been better suited to clean house entirely.
And when Reese and McAdoo went - they practically stayed in house again for the GM hire, bringing back Gettleman and leaving the scouting staff intact. I'm always amazed at how little turnover there was in the FO/scouting dept - literally two positions - and that people are surprised that the team is still doing poorly.
It was a cascade of errors, and a panicking team wildly spinning the steering wheel of the bus while it careened across a patch of ice. Each mistake trying to compensate for the last, trying to patch in one place and ending up only making more holes. That direction seems to have been coming from the top, and it doesn't seem to be changing any time soon.
Go Terps : 3/10/2019 6:20 pm : link : reply
Gettleman is doing the same dumb shit Reese did. They're both symptoms
Gettleman has a completely different take on the draft. He's not a guy who will take fliers on workout warrior types. He believes very much in trusting scouting reports. He also will put a heavy emphasis on the OL, DL and LB positions. Reese valued DL, but was very bad at addressing the OL and LB position.
Gettleman likes to move on from veterans before they become too expensive.
A simple question in the differences between the two:
Would Reese have been more likely to move on from Collins or extend him? That's just one litmus test in illustrating the differences in the two
I do think we're worse now at head coach than we were. Certainly on Sundays.
I saw a bad team in 2017 and 2018. The difference was the 2018 team went down fighting every game. The 2017 teams quit in a lot. Players were suspended. Players walked out.
There was no respect for McAdoo in the locker room, whether it was jsutified or not. I think McAdoo's ego was much larger than people realized.
You seem to think Reese (who was the head of the scouting department before his promotion) didn't trust scouting reports and instead went the workout warrior route?
Reese did put an emphasis on the OL - just too late, and the players he picked weren't good enough. Flowers was a bust. Richburg regressed and ended up being too small for his position (hardly a workout warrior). Pugh was oft injured.
Are you suggesting that these players had different ratings from the scouting department and Reese just decided to ignore them?
As someone noted we actually had some great players whose careers were cut short and attributed it to "Bad luck"
but the way that our players careers ended points to the poor S & C program
my example is Hakeem Nicks. - after Giants' last super bowl it looked like Nicks was going to be an elite NFL receiver for the next 5 years ..
he had foot injury the next year and seemed to be rushed back and then had a knee injury - he was never the same player ...
instead of Giants having elite receiver Nicks career was done.. Remember Giants drafted OBJ when Nicks was still 26!!!!!!!!
This happened over and over during TC years .. Giants would draft a potentially great player .. only for them to have injury and then never come back to same level as before or worse get a new injury right when they came back.
This meant instead of building a team over a few years -- Reese had to keep on redrafting the same positions to replace injured players.
if you look at TC reign in Jacksonville the same thing is happening there .. Jacksonville has been one of the most injuried teams the past two years .. last year they were number 1
so it is hard to argue it is bad luck ..
McAdoo won't get another HC job in this league any time soon. He sucked. As soon as Coughlin walked out the door and the offense was left to him, it became an abject disaster.
When an "offensive guy" has your team 26th and 31st in points scored his 2 years with the team, it's time to go.
He lost the locker room, was the coach during the most embarrassing circus (Geno Smith) we've dealt with in quite some time.... very Jets-ian.
Good riddance. Guy sucked.
Maybe Pat Shurmur will too. But at least the guy who came in here with an offensive pedigree actually got better out of this offense... and 30 points no longer are this magical barrier that the Giants are incapable of passing.
Where he took fliers was in the middle rounds, but unfortunately he lost the majority of the time. The vast majority.
Just look at the Clint Sintim pick, for example. Took a player who didn't project well to the system we were running. Adrian Robinson was more of a H-Back than a TE. He took guys in those rounds that had raw potential, but weren't very good at football.
And I'd disagree that Reese put an emphasis on the OL. He didn't look at it as an issue until it was too late. We can laugh at the Hog Mollie comments, but Gettleman believes very much in focusing on the lines, not just for the present, but for the future.
If reese took the same care in having depth on the OL as he did in the DL, we may not have had so many issues.
he had foot injury the next year and seemed to be rushed back and then had a knee injury - he was never the same player ...
instead of Giants having elite receiver Nicks career was done.. Remember Giants drafted OBJ when Nicks was still 26!!!!!!!!
Nicks career is over because of Compartment Syndrome and the after-effects. He has permanent nerve damage. I have no fucking clue how that relates to Strength and Conditioning.
The DL had talent leave in FA and replenished in the draft. They managed to pick both ends and tackles to replace players who were hurt or left on a regular basis.
The OL on the other hand had no such luck. Players who were brought in via FA (Baas, Schwartz) were disappointments. Players who were drafted (Pugh, Richburgh, Flowers) were no better. That's a lot of money and high draft picks that all didn't pan out. If anything, that suggests a pretty significant failure of both the pro personnel and scouting departments.
Which isn't to absolve Reese - he was responsible for both of them. The problem here is Reese is gone - and both those departments remain, untouched. The implication is that the focus of the GM will somehow make their player evaluations better, and that's some wishful thinking if I've ever heard it.
I'd love to have somebody corroborate that though. From what I heard, Reese took a lot of interest in the 1st round picks but after that relied more on the team.
Gettleman might be scouting every last prospect personally (and I would hope he would). If Reese hadn't been doing that (something we can only assume is true based on rumors), then he was more reliant on those same departments.
Even if Gettleman is doing all this extra due diligence - he's still one person, and this is a shit ton of work. If those departments were leaned on more heavily by Reese, it means that they were even more responsible for the bad drafting than previously thought, and that bad foundation still sits below Gettleman.
The team needed an enema, and didn't get one.
However, we shouldn't underestimate Marc Ross's departure. Ross had a lot of influence on the draft and he was basically the guy who represented the scouting team.
Was he a fall guy for their failings or was he a guy who mucked stuff up?
The Giants scouting department has a lot of long-time guys there. Ones that preceded Reese and who had some very good drafts prior.
As GM he started out well (Ross, KP, Nicks, JPP). While Ross was not a player I wanted (mostly b/c of his age) hard to argue with the success.
Prince. eh, this was one "we can't believe he's still here" and Prince wasn't awful, but It was one of the first signs of the team not having a draft plan IMO.
Wilson was next, and I won't judge this with hind sight, no one can predict injuries, but it just wasn't a good use of resources and almost reeked of arrogance as SB champs.
Then the wheels start to come off and some of this is hind sight but the signs were there.
Pugh. Pugh had some success, but when you draft a guy top 20 and immediately have questions (is he a LT, is he a RT, is he a G) then you show symptoms of not really knowing who you drafted. This is different than saying he will be our LT, but he's going to start at RT b/c we have a need there or b/c we want to bring him along slowly, etc.
Beckham, HR. No issues with this pick, now or at the time.
Then the wheels are fully off:
Flowers, Apple, Engram. Even if Engram salvages a career as a useful TE, almost every pick after Engram the rest of the round would have been better. I always say you can 2nd guess every draft pick, but when you do it on draft day that's different IMO.
So his 1st round misses IMO could have saved his job or bought him more time, but that led to the visible reasons why Reese needed to go.
and he had other draft failure (it's almost like the 3rd round was viewed as a throw-away pick for Reese) but IMO going from a solid 1st round track record to 4 out of 5 misses led to Reese's removal needing to happen.
I don't even know if McAdoo was even Reese's choice, but he gets far too much grief around here as successful as he was, for the most part.
It was time to make a change at GM, I can't understand why people think TC should still be here - he was part of the problem at the end. It's kind of like SU going downhill with Boeheim at 74 years old - team has been medicore for 5 straight years - I really wish he had stuck to the original plan and retired two years ago and let Hopkins take over.
However, we shouldn't underestimate Marc Ross's departure. Ross had a lot of influence on the draft and he was basically the guy who represented the scouting team.
Was he a fall guy for their failings or was he a guy who mucked stuff up?
The Giants scouting department has a lot of long-time guys there. Ones that preceded Reese and who had some very good drafts prior.
Considering Marc Ross does not have a track record of success anywhere, I go with the latter. The drafting seemed to be for bodies at positions rather than fitting schemes. Flowers was built for a completely different type of offensive scheme than Pugh or Richburg. Tom Coughlin in his prime knew exactly what he wanted at each position and when he was able to convey that to Reese and Accorsi they focused on that. Was Coughlin losing that ability at the end of his tenure which compounded the problem of Marc Ross?
I think the jury is still out on both Gettleman and Shurmur, but both showed enough signs of encouragement in year 1 that there's some hope we're heading in the right direction. Zeitler is an early sign of encouragement for me heading into offseason 2. This wasn't a simple situation to turn around.
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A lot of the last 2 years can be pointed to how pathetic the fans acted during the Eli benching at 2-9. Fans bought fucking billboards.
If you haven't listened to the Evan Silva podcast from a few days ago (Big Blue Bubble Boy), listen to it. I'm sure it overstates Mike Francesa's influence, but the points hold. It's a good summary of why the Giants are where they are.
Just listened to this. Damn, that was depressing.
In that "mediocre" time, they have 2 berths in the Sweet 16, including a Semifinal loss to UNC. And going back 7 years, they have 2 losses in the Semifinal.
From a titular perspective he's an important part of all of this. And if that title is not just in name only, then he's also largely to blame for the current state of the roster.
Who really knows, though? Does anyone know whether Reese really only looked after the 1st round scouting reports and disengaged later? Or if Chris Mara would rather hit up the racetrack than be involved in the front office, and he only retains the title so that he can make small talk at cocktail parties? I don't. But like Terps said - from the outside looking in, there are a lot more signs of dysfunction than of a solid organization working through a down period.
Excellent question.
Could be as simple as that
The part about getting rid of Barkley and starting Lauletta should have lost you, too.
Some of their points were terrible.
I don't know when Evan Silva became a guy we actually care about around here, but I guess as long as he trashes the Giants, he's relevant.
As GM he started out well (Ross, KP, Nicks, JPP). While Ross was not a player I wanted (mostly b/c of his age) hard to argue with the success.
Prince. eh, this was one "we can't believe he's still here" and Prince wasn't awful, but It was one of the first signs of the team not having a draft plan IMO.
Wilson was next, and I won't judge this with hind sight, no one can predict injuries, but it just wasn't a good use of resources and almost reeked of arrogance as SB champs.
Then the wheels start to come off and some of this is hind sight but the signs were there.
Pugh. Pugh had some success, but when you draft a guy top 20 and immediately have questions (is he a LT, is he a RT, is he a G) then you show symptoms of not really knowing who you drafted. This is different than saying he will be our LT, but he's going to start at RT b/c we have a need there or b/c we want to bring him along slowly, etc.
Beckham, HR. No issues with this pick, now or at the time.
Then the wheels are fully off:
Flowers, Apple, Engram. Even if Engram salvages a career as a useful TE, almost every pick after Engram the rest of the round would have been better. I always say you can 2nd guess every draft pick, but when you do it on draft day that's different IMO.
So his 1st round misses IMO could have saved his job or bought him more time, but that led to the visible reasons why Reese needed to go.
and he had other draft failure (it's almost like the 3rd round was viewed as a throw-away pick for Reese) but IMO going from a solid 1st round track record to 4 out of 5 misses led to Reese's removal needing to happen.
He almost never hit on second round picks - you cannot miss on these either. And there are some real dogs there.
Here's the list from 2008 to 2017:
Terrell Thomas
Clint Sintim and Will Beatty
Linval Joseph
Marvin Austin
Rueben Randle
Jonathan Hankins
Weston Richburg
Landon Collins
Sterling Shepard
Dalvin Tomlinson
By far the best player on that list is Joseph - and he chose not to keep him.
I tend to think SS is a JAG, I'm not sure how Tomlinson will turn out. And these guys are out of the league:
Thomas
Austin
Randle
Sintim and Beatty (Sintim only played two seasons)
Hankins signed with the Raiders but I doubt he makes it out of camp.
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round that was the beginning of the end.
As GM he started out well (Ross, KP, Nicks, JPP). While Ross was not a player I wanted (mostly b/c of his age) hard to argue with the success.
Prince. eh, this was one "we can't believe he's still here" and Prince wasn't awful, but It was one of the first signs of the team not having a draft plan IMO.
Wilson was next, and I won't judge this with hind sight, no one can predict injuries, but it just wasn't a good use of resources and almost reeked of arrogance as SB champs.
Then the wheels start to come off and some of this is hind sight but the signs were there.
Pugh. Pugh had some success, but when you draft a guy top 20 and immediately have questions (is he a LT, is he a RT, is he a G) then you show symptoms of not really knowing who you drafted. This is different than saying he will be our LT, but he's going to start at RT b/c we have a need there or b/c we want to bring him along slowly, etc.
Beckham, HR. No issues with this pick, now or at the time.
Then the wheels are fully off:
Flowers, Apple, Engram. Even if Engram salvages a career as a useful TE, almost every pick after Engram the rest of the round would have been better. I always say you can 2nd guess every draft pick, but when you do it on draft day that's different IMO.
So his 1st round misses IMO could have saved his job or bought him more time, but that led to the visible reasons why Reese needed to go.
and he had other draft failure (it's almost like the 3rd round was viewed as a throw-away pick for Reese) but IMO going from a solid 1st round track record to 4 out of 5 misses led to Reese's removal needing to happen.
He almost never hit on second round picks - you cannot miss on these either. And there are some real dogs there.
Here's the list from 2008 to 2017:
Terrell Thomas
Clint Sintim and Will Beatty
Linval Joseph
Marvin Austin
Rueben Randle
Jonathan Hankins
Weston Richburg
Landon Collins
Sterling Shepard
Dalvin Tomlinson
By far the best player on that list is Joseph - and he chose not to keep him.
I tend to think SS is a JAG, I'm not sure how Tomlinson will turn out. And these guys are out of the league:
Thomas
Austin
Randle
Sintim and Beatty (Sintim only played two seasons)
Hankins signed with the Raiders but I doubt he makes it out of camp.
Agree to a point, but 2nd round picks b/c of the contract being less, etc. if you miss it's not quite is debilitating to the team. You should still hit on your 2nd round picks and worst case should be a JAG, but his 2nd round wasn't as bad as the catastrophic misses of Flowers and Apple IMO.
I'd put Collins up there with Linval, mainly because Collins plays close to 100% of the snaps and Linval played around 50-60% with the Giants.
I'd call these players hits for 2nd round picks:
Shepard
Collins
Hankins
Linval
Steve Smith
I'd say massive whiff on:
Austin
Richburg
incomplete:
Tomlinson
not whiff or hit:
Terrell Thomas
Will Beatty
Randle - look at his stats, he was a bonehead, but he put up #'s
- listening to Reese's excuses and finger pointing which resulted in firing competent people with proven track records and placing a $100 million bet on his competency when it should have been obvious that the team had been losing more talent to retirements, free agency and injuries than Reese was bringing in and had been doing so since 2009.
This did not need to happen.
I think this was biggest mistake. And Reese not doing anything about it 2nd.
Hankins was a whiff too. And Steve Smith had one good season. Randle was finished in the NFL at age 25.
I agree that most of his first round picks were terrible, but you cannot miss on these second round picks either and expect to be competitive.
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and Sintim was a massive whiff, I omitted him.
Hankins was a whiff too. And Steve Smith had one good season. Randle was finished in the NFL at age 25.
I agree that most of his first round picks were terrible, but you cannot miss on these second round picks either and expect to be competitive.
Hankins was a serviceable player (at a minimum). Hey, at least he's still in the league.
Smith was injury related.
Randle is an interesting discussion when you try and figure out what went wrong.
Yes, he's out of the league, and he was not a great player, but it's hard to debate his production.
There are only 7 players from that entire draft class, at any position, with more receiving TD's than Randle (and he hasn't played a down in three seasons)
He's top 15 in that class for receptions. And again, he hasn't played a down in 3 years.
The players all ahead of him in receiving TD's and receptions all had at least 20 more games played (many played 40 games more).
Not saying he was a good player, but I'm not sure I fault Reese for his failure. Seemed like the talent was there.
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I guess 2007 & 2011 SB titles don’t count?
The part about getting rid of Barkley and starting Lauletta should have lost you, too.
Some of their points were terrible.
I don't know when Evan Silva became a guy we actually care about around here, but I guess as long as he trashes the Giants, he's relevant.
Arc, as I continued to listen it struck me as a hit piece.
-Eli Apple was ascending? I thought that wa a good trade.
-How could you trade Snacks Harrison?
-Landon Collins is a star safety.
It’s easy to bash Mara right now, he deserves it. But, so much of this relates to a star player who has 2 SB’s with this franchise ending his career. It’s very difficult to do & I think once there is a new QB here everyone will be looking at things with a clear set of eyes.
Mara deserves credit for 2007 & 2011, the entire fan base or just about wanted Coughlin gone after 2006.
of hiring MacAdoo.
Trifecta of shit..........
The team headed straight to the toilet character wise under Mac, and Big Blue Pride was almost non-existent.
Mistake my arse. Not firing Reese and Ross along with TC was the the mistake, FO wise. We ended up with several smug narcissists in the FO instead of dudes with real roots in the game.
Let's see what product Gets puts on the field this year before we castigate him further. I want to see a team that's at least level at the LOS with the majority of the league. Gaining Zeitler was nice, but losing OV made that deal nearly a wash. We need 2-3 plus players added on the D front 7 now along with that RT.
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In comment 14323882 pjcas18 said:
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and Sintim was a massive whiff, I omitted him.
Hankins was a whiff too. And Steve Smith had one good season. Randle was finished in the NFL at age 25.
I agree that most of his first round picks were terrible, but you cannot miss on these second round picks either and expect to be competitive.
Hankins was a serviceable player (at a minimum). Hey, at least he's still in the league.
Smith was injury related.
Randle is an interesting discussion when you try and figure out what went wrong.
Yes, he's out of the league, and he was not a great player, but it's hard to debate his production.
There are only 7 players from that entire draft class, at any position, with more receiving TD's than Randle (and he hasn't played a down in three seasons)
He's top 15 in that class for receptions. And again, he hasn't played a down in 3 years.
The players all ahead of him in receiving TD's and receptions all had at least 20 more games played (many played 40 games more).
Not saying he was a good player, but I'm not sure I fault Reese for his failure. Seemed like the talent was there.
Fair point on Hankins - but I think he'll be out of the league soon. And I'd forgotten about Smith's injury issues.
Randle had talent, but he had dropped into the second round for a reason. Every other team's GM seemed to know why, except for Reese. And the fact that he was out of the league when he was 25 speaks volumes. Hilton and Sanu at the WR slot would have been better choices than Randle.
And once he knew Eli was the problem, he was fired for it. Even though you guys were littered with injuries in 2017, he was fired after going 2-10.
The Giants finished the 2016 season with an 11–5 record under McAdoo, tying the franchise record held by Dan Reeves for most regular season wins by a first year head coach. The Giants returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2011, but lost to the Green Bay Packers 38–13.
How you fire a coach that quick, is crazy. Whether you like him or not? He didn't deserve that & had the balls to replace Eli.
He knew what needed to be done. Unfortunately, he doesn't own the team.
McAdoo was losing the team and had no control.
Even more ironically, arguably our best WR during that time was UDFA Victor Cruz. So we didn't NEED TO BE INVESTING IN THOSE SKILLS GUYS at that concentration of picks that we should have been dedicating to OL to improve on and replace the DD, Seubert, Snee, MacKenzie and O'Hara OL.
When the wheels came off that unit, we didn't have even a broken bicycle of OL replacement parts in the garage.
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In comment 14323716 Sean said:
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I guess 2007 & 2011 SB titles don’t count?
The part about getting rid of Barkley and starting Lauletta should have lost you, too.
Some of their points were terrible.
I don't know when Evan Silva became a guy we actually care about around here, but I guess as long as he trashes the Giants, he's relevant.
Arc, as I continued to listen it struck me as a hit piece.
-Eli Apple was ascending? I thought that wa a good trade.
-How could you trade Snacks Harrison?
-Landon Collins is a star safety.
It’s easy to bash Mara right now, he deserves it. But, so much of this relates to a star player who has 2 SB’s with this franchise ending his career. It’s very difficult to do & I think once there is a new QB here everyone will be looking at things with a clear set of eyes.
Mara deserves credit for 2007 & 2011, the entire fan base or just about wanted Coughlin gone after 2006.
I agree - the way the team is trying to bend over backwards to usher Eli out the right way now is just creating this overhang effect and I think once we finally just get out from under it, a lot of other stuff about the team will come into focus and be easier to make decisions on without all of this Eli stuff.
I wish it wouldn't continue to go this way with the band aid getting ripped off hair by painful hair... but at least we can be pretty sure that once the contract ends, it's over.
Still hope we draft Haskins or make a move for Rosen, personally. But if we go BPA and it's someone like Rashan Gary - I'm good with that too.
Even more ironically, arguably our best WR during that time was UDFA Victor Cruz. So we didn't NEED TO BE INVESTING IN THOSE SKILLS GUYS at that concentration of picks that we should have been dedicating to OL to improve on and replace the DD, Seubert, Snee, MacKenzie and O'Hara OL.
When the wheels came off that unit, we didn't have even a broken bicycle of OL replacement parts in the garage.
Agree with this but what should have been happening all along was drafting OL projects (like other teams do) that were drafted and developed to eventually replace the veterans.
Guys like Adam Koets, Mitch Petrus, James Brewer, Matt McCants, Brandon Mosely, etc.
those guys are supposed to be your bridge to using premium picks again on the OL.
When the Giants had Diehl, Suebert, O'Hara, Snee and McKenzie all locked up and all young(ish) it didn't make sense to use a premium pick on the OL, especially with needs elsewhere.
That OL played an NFL record 34 consecutive games with the same OL configuration and Beatty was added to the mix to help replace a tackle.
Whether the OL failure was with those late round projects, the coaching, wrong FA's brought it, all of the above, etc. the execution failed - no doubt about it - but I'm not sure the approach was wrong.
THIS. I think this is the moment it started to go the wrong direction. As everyone stated it's allowing the OL to decline. And after winning the SB with a terrible OL, you take David F'ing Wilson with our first pick in the draft??? What the hell were they thinking?? This is definitely the first domino in a string of a terrible terrible drafting. Reese built too much credit with ownership after winning the second ring and we are paying for it today.
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re #s but just misjudged the prospects because of the picks Pugh, Richburg, and Flowers starting in 2013 completely mischaracterizes what Reese failed to do from 2007 through 2012. Do the math! Tons of picks in the first 3 rounds on WRs and TE types. Only one top pick (Will Beatty) on the OL. And you need 5 OL on ALL DOWNS. You need only 3-4 (WR + TE) the vast majority of downs. Yet we drafted lots of skills guys, and no OL (among the first 3 rounds) for 6 Fooking years. I will bet anyone the Giants were the only team in the NFL with that ratio of draft asset allocation of skills guys to OL. Yes he did bring in OL FAs who simply didn't work out. But I am talking about his draft philosophy. It failed, miserably.
Even more ironically, arguably our best WR during that time was UDFA Victor Cruz. So we didn't NEED TO BE INVESTING IN THOSE SKILLS GUYS at that concentration of picks that we should have been dedicating to OL to improve on and replace the DD, Seubert, Snee, MacKenzie and O'Hara OL.
When the wheels came off that unit, we didn't have even a broken bicycle of OL replacement parts in the garage.
Agree with this but what should have been happening all along was drafting OL projects (like other teams do) that were drafted and developed to eventually replace the veterans.
Guys like Adam Koets, Mitch Petrus, James Brewer, Matt McCants, Brandon Mosely, etc.
those guys are supposed to be your bridge to using premium picks again on the OL.
When the Giants had Diehl, Suebert, O'Hara, Snee and McKenzie all locked up and all young(ish) it didn't make sense to use a premium pick on the OL, especially with needs elsewhere.
That OL played an NFL record 34 consecutive games with the same OL configuration and Beatty was added to the mix to help replace a tackle.
Whether the OL failure was with those late round projects, the coaching, wrong FA's brought it, all of the above, etc. the execution failed - no doubt about it - but I'm not sure the approach was wrong.
No, the approach was wrong.
OL guys need more time to develop than other positions. Since the mid-2000s they have not been coming out of college with the same level of prep and experience to be pro-ready.
On top of taking more time, the change over to these spread systems means evaluators have less to go on. So the evaluations have become more hit and miss.
Taken together it means you need to be selecting guys with premium picks on a regular basis, and cycle through them. When you find a good one, move him in and replace the veteran. Rinse and repeat.
The fact that that O-line played a record 34 games together is a MASSIVE red flag that O-Line pipeline wasn't functioning properly.
I said before that paying attention to the O-Line was the big mistake. At a surface level this is true.
As folks have stated, the lack of a well stocked pipeline led to the situations where by '09/'10 the wheels were coming off '07 line and there was nobody in the wings. Which led to ill-fated forays into FA for replacements
Have we forgotten the Andrews Brothers, Tony Ugoh, to go along with Baas, Schwartz, Jerry, and Fluker...
None of them lasted and by 2012 the line consisted of Beatty, the ghosts of Diehl and Snee, the wreckage of Baas, Boothe's ass, and a shit ton of duct tape. The "development pipeline" consisted of such luminaries as Selvish Capers, Jim Cordle, James Brewer and a whole lot of wishful thinking.
Between 2007 and 2012 the only premium pick used for OL was Beatty. Midway through that period the OL was a scramble drill to patch all the leaks. Which led to the reaches for players such as Pugh, Richberg and Flowers. And at that point 3 forced premium picks was simply not enough to fix the problem. DG seems to be making moves to fix it, but Omameh was another FA failure, Solder is wildly expensive. The problem remains to this day, and the jury is still out on the new regime.
The failure to properly address the OL was the catalyst that set in motion one bad decision after another both in the draft and FA. Bad luck with injuries to top draft picks is not an excuse since it wasn't OL players that went down.
The abject failure to realize that the OL is the heart and soul of the team suggests that Reese was a poor GM from the start. He inherited a core, but had no idea of how to build a roster himself.
At the end of the day, the real mistake was promoting Reese and sticking with him, long after his faults were plainly obvious. A very poor job of evaluation of executives by the ownership over an extended period of time.
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At a time when the OL was in decline it showed they didn't understand what was important in building a team. Also, Wilson's size (he wasn't big enough to execute his blitz protections) meant he wasn't an every down back and you don't take a gadget back with a #1 pick.
THIS. I think this is the moment it started to go the wrong direction. As everyone stated it's allowing the OL to decline. And after winning the SB with a terrible OL, you take David F'ing Wilson with our first pick in the draft??? What the hell were they thinking?? This is definitely the first domino in a string of a terrible terrible drafting. Reese built too much credit with ownership after winning the second ring and we are paying for it today.
Well I think my feelings on taking RBs with 1st round picks is well known. And as stated above and undersized one that can't be an every down player at that. Horrible choice.
I wrote a long write up after a Ravens game when the Giants rushed for over 200 yards vs a Ravens run D that was giving up an avg of maybe 50 per game... That it was fool's gold if one thought the Giants OL beat up on the Ravens front 7. It was a really long post with a lot of detail about what a great job Bradshaw and Jacobs did that game reading their cutback lanesand maximizing damn near ever rush.
At the POA, the Giants' OL was getting stuffed, but BJ and AB found every backside crack.
Aside from Beatty, they brought in a string of 4th and latter round drafters that McL noted above, and none were worth their weight in fertilizer.
Meanwhile 2nd & 3rd round picks were languished on Randle, Barden, Beckum, Jernigan - look it was definitely a philosophy to draft skills players 1st and grunts last. Wilson over Glenn, when we all knew we were getting desperate for OL.
Lousy coaching on offense and defense and assistants and trainers and probably janitors
Worse drafting history than coaching- Eli Apple???
Worse free agent signings...Oh, free agent trades- what team doesn't need 67 4th and 5th round picks?
Keeping overpaid, over the hill quarterbacks. Yep...went there