I know, I know, the last thing we need is another DG thread. I just read the most recent one about "his wings being clipped" and I really don't get it. I've been a fan since the late 70's so I've seen enough to have been around the block.
The dislike (hatred?) for this guy is really over the top. I think we can all agree that he inherited a pretty shitty roster two years ago and I'd like to think we can all agree (granted it's early to tell definitively) that he had two good drafts including finding what looks like our future franchise QB. No doubt he has had his misses in FA and at least one peculiar trade in LW (but personally I think he's a player and will be resigned).
Can someone explain this to me? Is it his persona and the way he speaks to the media? Do you really just hate his player moves (if so what has he done that's so heinous-and don't bring up the LW trade, we've all seen enough about that). Do you dislike his drafts that much?
I'm not saying I'm a huge fan at all but the hatred seems nuts to me.
Humans, being human, have a very high chance of fooling themselves.
And doesn't an intelligent person change as new information and perspectives get taken in?
What's more by self nominating as a group you are nominating all others as "others"
How's that square with being analytically sound and only fact based?
Not a debate I'm asking to have nor wish to keep going. I pose them as questions that might be worthwhile for you to self examine over time.
To me. Self nominating into a label or group is a mental occlusion that hardens into blind spots
As a point of logic, No one can be realistic until the results are in. Not possible
And No one can be realistic until you know for sure what the degree of marching orders and constraints DG had to work with. We dont know so we all speculate this aspect. Which makes no one realistic. We cant be. We have to adjust to the reality of not knowing.
A realist in this situation is the ones who confess they dont know and get comfortable with that "realism"
Way too much speculation of all different kinds from all angles for anyone to be a realist. And no one knows how the story plays out just yet.
That's not me talking. That's just reality
I was actually a proud "Pollyanna" then.
Don't really care if you call me a pessimist, at least with the current team and its state... Whatever...
What I don't like is the broad brush painting of everybody in the group as Smug. That's a word I usually hear from another poster. Not you.
Look at some of the predictions in the early season threads at some of the outsized expectations many, many posters had.
As it turned out, those expectations were unrealistic. Thus the pessimistic voices were the "Realists" once the results were in. I didn't see the term being widely revived until near the end of the season... So not quite what you are thinking. But you are doing your analysis these days from one side of the tribal views. Something the Bill from a year ago would have shunned.
Its about getting you to think harder and more in depth. Just you. The way you are thinking. No one else
Not the term and not about tribes or sides or labels.
Btw, you resist being self reflective and noticing that you are the one who could be seeing things incorrectly. Psychologically well defended. And attack the messenger in order to resist the point.
Going to be hard to be a good analyst
Ah well
And they hardened because you are angry at a particular poster and conflated from there
You are better than that
Balanced against his gamble on DJ and Barks, for me, the irrational trades and signings and letting guys go for nothing and the Shurmur signing and the bizarre press conferences are enough to convince me that he’s way out of his capability set.
Thank you, Ty.
Its about getting you to think harder and more in depth. Just you. The way you are thinking. No one else
Not the term and not about tribes or sides or labels.
Btw, you resist being self reflective and noticing that you are the one who could be seeing things incorrectly. Psychologically well defended. And attack the messenger in order to resist the point.
Going to be hard to be a good analyst
Ah well
No, I'm not eager to perpetuate the tribalism. Part of the reason I stepped back, as I said before. But I will call it as I see it.
I have actually never used the term "realist" until this thread. I saw it starting to be used often late in the season, but I never self proclaimed it. I only started using it after you used it as a smear earlier. You are better than that.
Mara's impatience with the status quo fired or caused the firing of 3 HC/ One GM/One head of scouting/ 6 coordinators and about 30 coaches in five years trying to get a much better foundation for the team. Facts.
Fault the execution/fault some moves...but the mossy old does nothing Jints Central motif lives on without full alignment with the actual facts only in some heads on BBI.
And they consider themselves realists.
I purposely took on the moniker after that.
Which came first Bill, the chicken or the egg?
A team loses 10 or more games in 5/6 seasons, fires 3 coaches in 5 years, jettisons virtually all of the players, spends deep into their future budget not once but twice with virtually nothing to show. Something deep and broad is wrong. The last two years haven't shown the growth to warrant new trust. When a common refrain is "what was the alternative," I don't get convinced.
On to coach number 4 in 6 years. Now we're entering blind squirrel territory.
The problems most certainly start with Mara. He's THE reason for this spiral.
But Mara has anointed DG head of all football operations. Completely responsible for building this team. So he shoulders a ton of blame until proven otherwise...
A team loses 10 or more games in 5/6 seasons, fires 3 coaches in 5 years, jettisons virtually all of the players, spends deep into their future budget not once but twice with virtually nothing to show. Something deep and broad is wrong. The last two years haven't shown the growth to warrant new trust. When a common refrain is "what was the alternative," I don't get convinced.
On to coach number 4 in 6 years. Now we're entering blind squirrel territory.
I tend to agree that DG is the symptom, not the disease.
That Super Bowl win hid a lot and the problems of today were set in spiral 2010 to 2016.
Even the win one more time with Eli mistake was set in motion 2010-2016.
Lets say you did want to win with Eli one more time. Why was the backup Geno Smith? How is that for preparation? Why stay with Flowers and Hart as opposed to cut one year earlier? They were habit, learning and technique messes from the get go. On and On.
Im not saying DG had a mess as an excuse for DG's pros and cons. I have no idea who ( and it might have been DG for all we know) finally woke up the mindset and said "we got a big mess".
Im saying the mess was not Reese and Ross (symptoms) and far before 2016. Sleeping when the core success factors were gone was the problem.
The proof is that when they needed to go bold they got it done ( results to be seen but the decision set was in the necessary bolder category).
What person though the strengths of Eli matched a WCO? The weaknesses of ELI matched a WCO. that's just one example
What I quickly learned and learned each time is that any mental energy past the basic understanding of how they got bad was completely pointless and foolish.
The only thing you can do is focus on the few things that are best to do going forward
We are spending ( me too) endless games of Clue with no chance to ever figure out who shot the butler and when.
We are beyond impotent when we discuss who's to blame and why. It doesnt matter now, we cant change the owner and we wont ever know how and when some decisions were made and what the colonel thought when the old maid suddenky fell down the stairs in the dark.
No organization I ever knew was really as bad as thought when bad. Or as good when things looked good.
Nor does any decision in a turnaround look good until later. Nothing feels good. What you do most often looks foolish and the outside world has endless and often pointless ammunition to tie you up so they feel better about themselves.
Forward or leave are the choices.
Nothing about messy situations is provable or can be pinned down. And if it could you still can only go forward in some compromised way or walk away.
First step for me is to stop caring about Clue
So I see one of the jobs done badly and I suspect there is a lot of sloppiness elsewhere. I don’t expect excellence in public speaking. that’s not a job requirement. But the train wreck of DG’s interviews is on another level of bad.
We can harp on about the poor OL protecting him but this team wasn’t winning anything with a QB like Eli after 2015. He was just as responsible for this awful team the last few seasons as anyone.
And like you, when I see one role of the job so badly done its unusual when all the others ones are being done well.
It could be that the entire nyg fo is more than bitter about the media and just sees the job as keeping them at bay.
The New York Yankees took that approach from Mattingly onwards. Just saw the media as an enemy and made it hard for them to tell stories and drive distractions into the organization.
Now that was in the tailspin years of Steinbrenner and the most toxic years of Levine...but the under siege mentality happens to teams in sports.
Winning kinda solves that for the media cant stray too far from good results
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And it was from a fairly small, but extremely vocal, group.
Britt, we may not agree on much, but I actually like you as a poster... A lot...
I think of you as one of the good guys, and I have a lot of admiration for you with how you held up under a pretty withering assault. Some of it unnecessarily personal. And you never descended into the petty attacks.
I think for you in particular it probably felt more overwhelming because as the team's play descended into the far depths, you were the sole defender of your faith. You bore that weight almost entirely alone. I can understand your feelings in this manner.
The core/vocal group of realists is a pretty small group. They are for the most part respectful posters. Admittedly, there were a handful of times I felt compelled to call one or another of them of them out for behaving badly. But in general, the core group is respectful. There are other posters, who at least I do not consider part of that core group. The posters outside the core group are far more likely to engage in the ad-hominem attacks that I think are now being turned on all the core group of realists unjustly.
Appreciate that.
Going back to my original point, I don't believe I was the sole "defender of my faith". I just believe, as I stated originally, there was a silent majority that had just gone tired of the negativity over the years and stopped posting because they were frustrated. Frustrated with the Giants, and quite honestly, frustrated with the level of discourse over the Giants struggles. I know this because I keep in touch with many of them in spaces that are not BBI. I think when the negativity reached fever pitch around the Saquon pick and continued into the frenzy it did, people came out of "retirement" so to say and just posted mad because they were fed up with it all. Many still have not, but they are out there.
One thing Bill said that really resonated with me (and I don't think it was on this thread but one of the previous many on this topic), more than ever this place just became an echo chamber. And the echo became overwhelming for many, myself included. And so I became one of the sole "defenders of the faith" because I just felt like I had to put on the breaks and say "wait a minute, things are bad, but it's not ALL bad.". Because barely anybody was doing that, but it's true. There are positive things to build on and we have to focus on those to move this thing forward. There is no sense in rehashing right vs. wrong, how we got here, etc... Exercise in futility. This is where we are.
"Do you want to be here?"
"This is where I am"
-Odell Beckham/Lil Wayne, October 2018.
So I see one of the jobs done badly and I suspect there is a lot of sloppiness elsewhere. I don’t expect excellence in public speaking. that’s not a job requirement. But the train wreck of DG’s interviews is on another level of bad.
That’s been a point I have harped on. And I do the same exercise - if Gettleman is this unprepared and disorganized when he faces out to the public/media than why should I not think those traits exist inside the walls of Jints Central? These face outs should be layups, but with Gettleman they become landslides. And I really don’t know how anyone can feel confident that the organization is in good hands when he can’t do the easy stuff.
I watched Judge’s presser the other day. I have no idea what to expect from as the HC but he controls the presser, stays on message, and gives the great impression of having a plan. Whether it’s the right plan, or if he has the skills to execute the plan, remains to be seen, but he conducts himself like a professional and is buttoned up.
Then Gettleman gets up there and it’s hard to tell if that’s the GM of the Giants or the team plumber.
If the goal is to in-point-of-fact figure something out, I can see something less than satisfying on the other side.
Exchanging opinions with good intentioned people, and if by some miracle learning something about football, is plenty enough for me to come back.
Britt, I think you hit something on the head in a way: "There are positive things to build on and we have to focus on those to move this thing forward."
Who's the "we" and what are we moving "forward?"
We (loosely), being the Giants, should also look at what they have, the young core they've built, and continue to add talent to that.
We (loosely), being the Giants, should also look at what they have, the young core they've built, and continue to add talent to that.
That's fair. Can you respect that some feel it's not an echo chamber and the Giants haven't built a young core yet?
The echo chamber exists on both sides. It is just as strong, if not stronger with the perma-optimists.
At this point, it's very well documented where those posters think it all went wrong. Very well documented.
If you want to move on from blaming Reese and Ross, and to a lesser extent Shurmur and the other coaches, I’m all for that.
At this point, it's very well documented where those posters think it all went wrong. Very well documented.
Can you accept that some fans don't get angry when they look back, and that they feel the doers of what is done are still doing?
Bill's right that none of us can truly know what's going on internally in the organization......but we all know the results, and they've been awful.
I don't see any reason to give them the benefit of the doubt until we see real, tangible improvement in results. Right now, all optimism is based solely on projection and wishcasting.
Do you think there are some that are still unaware of the record?
Do you think there are some that are still unaware of the record?
It’s just as informative as predicting a 10-6 record every single year.
Refuting that he isn't the most incompetent guy in the NFL isn't lavishing praise. It is just counter-pointing the overly negative takes on him.
I guess you have, because they certainly exist. Not as many as a year ago, since his team failed miserably for the second straight year, but they're still out there.
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is informative or inflammatory?
Do you think there are some that are still unaware of the record?
It’s just as informative as predicting a 10-6 record every single year.
On a pre-season predict the record thread? Isn't that the place for such a post?
And Id say I am learning the least amount about football from folks on the site at this time.
Now its true that last year was the most frustrating time to be a fan of the NYG since I was on BBI, so maybe that's a piece of it; and certainly the product they send out the last few years makes it hard to concentrate on the football content but for me, too many threads feel like we are all stuck in a badly written soap opera but think we are still talking about How The Giants Turn.
As always, take care and stay well my friend
And Id say I am learning the least amount about football from folks on the site at this time.
Now its true that last year was the most frustrating time to be a fan of the NYG since I was on BBI, so maybe that's a piece of it; and certainly the product they send out the last few years makes it hard to concentrate on the football content but for me, too many threads feel like we are all stuck in a badly written soap opera but think we are still talking about How The Giants Turn.
As always, take care and stay well my friend
Thanks for an honest and thoughtful response. My take is the negativity is a proportionate reaction to the quality of the product. I've never put more value on positive views inherently, maybe that's a character flaw for the analysts couch.
I am fascinated in the sense that this feels exactly how not to run a business after a prolonged period of success.
What irks me the most, though, is that the problems he identified when he was brought on board two years ago still exist. The offensive line is still a mess, and the defense is weak on all three levels. I hope some of that can be fixed with a better scheme and better coaching, but good coaching - even great coaching - can only take you so far if you don't have the talent to benefit from it. It seems to me that the Giants are pretty talent-deficient.
Anyway, I'm hesitant to say that this is a pivotal year for Gettleman, because, honestly I have no idea how short or long his "leash" is, so to speak, but I figure ownership expects him to put a much better product on the field than he has for the past two years. So, again, it's wait-and-see for me. I don't have much faith, but I do have hope, and I'll lean on that for as long as I can.
It's indeed mostly defensive remarks, but they are in attacking fashion at the posters themselves in order to provide deflection from the GM/front office. Posters who aren't willing to give the benefit of the doubt or are skeptical enough of Gettleman with his recent set of missteps to get this ship moving in the right direction.
But to be fair, I will be on the look out for those offering up lavish praise to DG.
So Mara thinks we have talent, but that talent wasn't being properly developed or deployed by the previous coaching regime. So he cut Shurmur; and in Dave He Trusts lives on.
Okay. But then he hires a complete unknown again for that coaching side. So that's three HC hires in a row who really haven't had real or successful HC experience (hard to quantify Shurmur's tenure in Cleveland).
While I think Judge sounds pretty good thus far, who the hell knows what to expect. And we could just as easily be back in this predicament in two years.
So do you measure Gettleman now with a HC who was never a HC in high school? If Judge starts to grow discontent with DG how do you really take that seriously from a guy who has never been in that role? If anything, the hiring of Judge, IMV, has bought DG even more time. And I'm not sure any of us can say that's a comforting this...
This is why I was in favor of a complete overhaul. Bring in all new people to run the organization. Or let the HC be HC/Head of Football Ops.
Now we're back in this loop that we've seen the last 6 years...where the ending has always been a bad one.
Same applies to the linebackers. He acquires Ogletree who is essentially a box LB with subpar movement skills. He's big and strong but can't make plays in space. If you can't run with it you can't tackle it or defend it. That's today's game.
I'm hoping DG self scouts and takes these type of failures into account and adapts his thinking. If he doesn't we better hope Judge can make him understand the types of players he actually needs to install his schemes.
Ogletree's strength was his ability to move ande his range. He's not particularly stout at the point of attack, but he was very good in coverage in the early part of his career.
He actually started out as a safety at Georgia and was a track star in High School
He was a better college player and never lived up to his draft status because he didn't have the range and movement skills to succeed in the NFL.
I actually liked him as a player, but thought the trade was idiotic at the time.
Refuting that he isn't the most incompetent guy in the NFL isn't lavishing praise. It is just counter-pointing the overly negative takes on him.
Just search "Gettledogman" or "Jay on the Island" or a handful of others.
They absolutely exist. And they're often more obnoxious and extreme than even the most Terpsian negative posters.