During our decade-long NYG agony, we’ve repeatedly heard about how the team’s improving records in the second half of seasons shows progress. In fact, this pattern of late improvement happened in both 2018 and 2020.
This improvement is a mirage and I believe is the outcome of a naturally-occurring distribution of injuries.
Take the following thought experiment: you have a group of teams at the beginning of a season, with different levels of talent, but not so different that they don’t cluster around mean. That’s the NFL in the free agency period: most teams have about the same talent levels, with some outliers. As the season goes along, the teams start out fairly healthy but injuries occur randomly with some teams losing key plus players and others not affected so much.
So there’s a tendency of some teams with slightly below average talent levels to become increasingly dysfunctional as key players fall out. That’s a natural progression. And certain teams will completely fall apart, as street level players are forced into bigger and bigger roles. This is all random, so you’d expect teams that don’t lose as many key players to win more. Morale and motivation also play a role here, although I don’t want to oversell it. But it’s human nature for a losing team to ride out the string late in the season. And those losing teams are often lacking key players.
Now look at the Giants of 2020, who won 5 of their last 8 games. There’s no doubt that the victory over Seattle was a terrific win and that their week 9 23-20 victory over Washington was a tough win against a motivated opponent (although a hobbled Alex Smith was playing for WFT).
But the other three wins were over troubled teams.
The Eagles wk 10 were reeling. Wentz was getting sacked constantly, throwing to street level receivers and was in the middle of locker room controversies.
The Bengals wk 12 were lousy to begin with but had just lost Joe Burrow. (And the game was quite close, anyway.)
And week 17, the Giants beat a Cowboys team without their starting QB, eliminated from the playoffs and with rumors of dissension emanating from their locker room. Those are easy NFL wins.
But when they faced winning opponents, they won once (Seattle) and were close to noncompetitive in the three other games, being beaten by 2 TDs each time. I think the 5-3 is a mirage but what’s more, it’s entirely predictable. Three of their opponents during this sequence had lost key talent and were undermanned. A fourth one (WFT) had a hobbled QB returning from injury. I loved the Seattle win but would really dispute whether there was any sign of progress.
Late season surges earlier on look suspicious, too. In 2019, Shurmur’s Giants won 2 of their last 3, but those were against terrible teams. In 2018, the Giants won 4 out of 5 in a streak in November and December. But that included wins against the 49ers (4-12 and starting Nick Mullens), the Bears (Chase Daniels in at QB) and Washington (Josh Johnson and Mr Buttfumble splitting time at QB).
And this pattern recurs. In 2014, the Coughlin-led Giants strung out 3 wins in a row against awful competition late in the season. 2 of those teams had backup QBs starting. In 2013, the team started 0-6 and regained its balance to go 7-3, but that 7-3 records included 4 straight games against teams without their starting QBs and the Giants added to their wins twice against a wobbly Washington at the end of the RGIII period. Did it carry over? Nope, the 2014 season started off 3-9. The late 2013 wins were a mirage.
Now I’m not arguing that not all losing teams will benefit from this random pattern of injuries. But logically there will be some teams that for scheduling reasons play quite a few depleted, dispirited opponents and so have a much higher chance of winning. And the chance for a team to be depleted and dispirited is higher later on in the grind of an NFL season.
Don’t over-rely on late season games. And apply a healthy skepticism to what wins over depleted opponents mean.
it's not a silly theory. giants beat a bunch of teams with backup QBs and the organization viewed it (wrongly) as progress
Playing backup QBs is killing our "true" draft positioning...
Shurmur never turned it around. Joe Judge may have started turning it around the second half of 2020, we'll see.
Eagles game 1
Cowboys game 1
Bears
Rams
That all plays out the same way.
Is the OP suggesting the FO has been lulled into a false sense of success?
They have fired 3 coaches and a GM s in the last 7 seasons, doesn’t seem to fit that narrative.
A couple more plays in those close games and we would have won 9 games last year.
lol
I am so tired of it.
As a fan, Im here for a good experience. I hope, week in and week out, that that good experience includes good football.
But, my complaining as a fan feeds a bad experience…
…can’t let something that I have no control over waste my time.
But, I hear you.
Is the OP suggesting the FO has been lulled into a false sense of success?
They have fired 3 coaches and a GM s in the last 7 seasons, doesn’t seem to fit that narrative.
What are kidding?
Do you know how many posters referenced the Giants winning 5 of their last 8 games and that Jones getting injured was the only reason why that wasn't higher. This was the arrow was pointing up fro many...
It's much easier to look past small stuff when the team's winning, or at least looking prepared and professional and with talent to compete. But, this team's got issues. Time for NYG to engage the motor and catch up to the NFL.
People will fool themselves into "gotta build a culture" by this year's end as well. It's clockwork.
The homerism from some of you is just sooo astounding.
Incredible.
There was another poster on another thread - he didn't want to understand that the Giants had OL problems last year.
C'mon.
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Get the premise and f the post. Who has been deluded into thinking wins at the end of one season mean anything for the next , obviously not true, Giants have been bad for many seasons now.
Is the OP suggesting the FO has been lulled into a false sense of success?
They have fired 3 coaches and a GM s in the last 7 seasons, doesn’t seem to fit that narrative.
What are kidding?
Do you know how many posters referenced the Giants winning 5 of their last 8 games and that Jones getting injured was the only reason why that wasn't higher. This was the arrow was pointing up fro many...
Gottcha, My bad, I read it as inferring management and people around the league were using last year s finish as a barometer for success.
Yes, I remember fans siting last year s finish, I probably even did it. I felt it was indication the arrow was pointing up, but every year is a new season and if you don’t continue to build on the moderate success you quickly slide backwards.
But this season has yet to play out, maybe it will be successful and we can look back and conclude they did turn a corner of sorts the second half of last season.
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to prove a silly theory..
it's not a silly theory. giants beat a bunch of teams with backup QBs and the organization viewed it (wrongly) as progress
It is silly because of the huge turnover in players. This is not the same team that ended 2020 by beating the Cowboys. It remains to be seen if there is improvement.
And our backup beat the Seahawks!
WTF people. Each team, each year, is different from the one that ended the previous season. Better teams have less turnover, but generally 30% of the players are turned over. I think the Giants are close to 40%.
Geez, I wonder if the Packers are panicking? They got destroyed by Jameis Winston 38 to 3.
But in the three preceding games, all against winning teams - Cards, Cleveland, and at Baltimore - we lost soundly to each. Scoring a total of 26 points.
Had we won just one of those games, we win the NFCE.
So in the last quarter of the season we went 1-3. Enough said.
You are talking front office- or fans?
The injuries aren’t an accident. Many teams shut down players in lost seasons, not just to “tank” but also letting your older players rest and getting younger players valuable experience is a great way to have better seasons.
The Giants seem so intent to prove and manage a story around not being inept that frankly those games matter a lot more to them than other teams. They really depend on those “we are on the upswing!!” narratives to justify their ongoing nepotism and cronyism.
This emphasis, makes them very reactive and not proactive. It means whatever long term strategy they try to have can become inconsistent very quickly. (Like “going for it” with Eli, Saquon and Solder etc. yet also tons of dead money)
How do you stay as bad as they are for as long as they have? Bad game theory, caring more about short term optics with fans than sticking with a long term strategy. Typing on fake computers and mocking the people other teams are aggressively courting. Actually fucking telling yourself you can create Eli Manning’s just by grabbing someone that looks like him, had the same coach and you like the cut of his jib.
Not sure it even matters though. So many fans allow them to wiggle out of everything. I feel like some of you could have your kids kicked out of a game and you’d be here explaining to us why they deserved it
I think no one should be optimistic until this team wins a playoff game to guard against being overly excited. Not some ridiculous hurdle but sure seems like it after a decade.
might take another few years at this rate ;)
But in the three preceding games, all against winning teams - Cards, Cleveland, and at Baltimore - we lost soundly to each. Scoring a total of 26 points.
Had we won just one of those games, we win the NFCE.
So in the last quarter of the season we went 1-3. Enough said.
With a hurt QB and LT...
!00% agree. And if you are going to work hard, let's get comparisons to other teams.... you'll see this is the norm would be my bet.
There will be random runs of winning for bad teams at all times in a season but those are particularly marked at the end of the season because of injuries. NGD makes the really good point above about how “semi-hurt” players are shut down at the end of the season if a team is eliminated from the playoffs.
So late season wins need to be viewed through the lens of the opponent quality, especially if you are playing against a backup QB.
That win against Seattle last season was a great game but pointing to the Giants going 5-3 to the end it is just pure self-deception because 3 of those wins came against beleaguered teams. And this pattern also occurred in 2013 and 2018, and each time was entirely deceptive.
Counting the second HALF of a season is a bit dishonest and meant to slide the 1-3 record under the rug. They absolutely did not 'finish strong'.
Too many "theories" start with a premise and a weak construction of 'logic' to prove the point... case in point.
Sometimes they benefit (2020) and sometimes they are the team in crisis (like in 2017 during the McAdoo spiral).
Do you think a team that beat the Giants in late 2017 should see it as a sign of progress?
That brings up a perfect example. In December 2017, the Cards pasted the Giants 23-0 in maybe one of the worst games in recent NYG history. In fact, the Cards were in the middle of a late 4-2 run that included some good wins and wins against dysfunctional opponents. Sign of progress? No. In 2018, they went 3-13.
Sometimes they benefit (2020) and sometimes they are the team in crisis (like in 2017 during the McAdoo spiral).
Do you think a team that beat the Giants in late 2017 should see it as a sign of progress?
That brings up a perfect example. In December 2017, the Cards pasted the Giants 23-0 in maybe one of the worst games in recent NYG history. In fact, the Cards were in the middle of a late 4-2 run that included some good wins and wins against dysfunctional opponents. Sign of progress? No. In 2018, they went 3-13.
You've done what most contemporary sports writers do today... starting with a premise. Every game is a random confluence of factors that determine the outcome. Sorting them into a this kind of outcome is only useful if you want to cherry pick complementary factors (and ignore factors that don't support your conclusion).
Counting the second HALF of a season is a bit dishonest and meant to slide the 1-3 record under the rug. They absolutely did not 'finish strong'.
Correct. Look, with the average turnover most NFL teams experience today, the carryover from one season to the next isn't really something to bank on. In light of what we've seen from NYG the past ten years, and I've harped on this constantly, I'd rather have the higher draft picks and the opportunity to get more talented than win a meaningless late season game or two. TALENT has long been the problem for NYG, they're not very good at identifying it, even when picking top six.
Some people spend all day and night here trying to convince others to think like them like it will actually change anything. Pretty hilarious, actually.
It's just a highly disappointing culture. Judge saying he knows the rules while throwing a very stupid challenge flag is a sign of it a sign of the major problems in that building. They seem to think projecting confidence is a substitute for building good processes. Troubling, sad. Then there are people surprised that there is an attempt to keep them accountable. Silly fans, in the end you are right, they don't care about accountability. Joe Judge should have just owned up, said he got caught up in the heat of the game and move on. This thing where the Giants try to twist obvious oversights into strategic thinking is gross
>>>The Giants seem so intent to prove and manage a story around not being inept<<
Sometimes the true problem can be fully stated in the shortest of sentences.
This is preseason. Even the most critical BBIers weren't expecting some sort of excuse from the team for a practice game. Yet a PR effort was launched.
And then the PR line made Judge look bad. It was a preseason game. If one of his most important players can't breathe well, Judge should know about it and should bench him as a precaution. This isn't f**** Super Bowl LVI.
The story's genesis was: stupid. hypersensitive. and pointed fingers at someone else in the organization.
The Giants org is very defensive right now and that story displayed it.
If your employer acts like that, for lack of better words, fucking stupid. Hell, I have questions about you if that doesn't lower your morale. And that is squarely on team management for not having systems like that sorted when some teams were starting to have streaming game theory in their headsets, the Giants couldn't even get very very basic stuff right.
As I always enjoyed Christian saying, they could have teams of rocket scientists in the parking lot and it wouldn't matter if they fail at stuff like that. Yet we saw hyper defense, people favorable to the team, probably people that were close to them or even work for the team try to discredit anyone that even pointed out these thinks. That's straight out of the counter-revolutionary handbook, it's not even a complex tactic. Or a particularly subtle one. But that's where the Giants are. They'd honestly prefer to discredit people that question them vs. taking a real look at their problems and how to fix them. Gross.
Anyway this person close to the team leadership referred to DG as a "visionary" in analytics. In writing. And that's the thing, include me, don't include me, whatever. I have plenty to do, I could honestly care less but would have loved to help them even if I lost sleep for it just so I did not have to witness this hack job we have for managing a pro football franchise. But what struck me about this is just like I don't care if you are a rocket scientist, I don't care if you are genuinely smarter than literally everyone else. DG shouldn't be making this public apology like he did then have the team and him probably walking around thinking you are some "visionary."
And that's the same thing, I am just some random person that definitely hasn't worked in Football or own a franchise or whatever and I was never suggesting I was by any means the only person that could take care of these things. I believe I called the timeout problem a 10K job two years ago. It's these obvious things, it's these glaring holes you don't even need college degree to see that somehow their processes are missing that is just unbelievably frustrating and honestly like a Giant middle finger to anyone who cares enough about them to suffer through it. You shouldn't need to send a 5th and 7th round pick and 3rd round draft pick to get two people that were essentially bottom of the roster players, one of which had a terrible offensive line, one of which was one of your most competent starters who you let go instead of paying a measly $4M salary. I don't even care if they reel off a bunch of wins this year.
They shouldn't need to do it that way, they shouldn't need to have us all sitting here all offseason being like, hey it looks like we haven't really addressed the offensive line only for them to take a desperate stab to fix it at the end of training camp. Especially after talking up how important the cohesion that had as an offensive line was.
It's just a staggering level of denial and systemic oversight. Oversight. Too much "Giants pride." Whatever that is at this point. It's difficult to watch. This is the first year in my life I've not even contemplated going to a game. I used to look forward to Giants games the whole latter part of the week and woke up excited on Sundays. All my years on the west coast I didn't miss one 10 AM start, even if that meant I was watching as to not wake someone else up. Now I mostly just watch with expectations like, I hope I don't turn this game off in frustration before it ends.
The problem is that for all the talk of what good people they are they clearly don't care, or care in real ways. It honestly is a more disappointing situation than I ever imagined I could experience as a sports fan from a city that's been one of the centers of civilization. With access to the best talent, the best minds in the world. The fact that anyone even defends them at this point, is not something that is even very easy to understand.
Check out the end of half sequence Saints / Giants 2019 - ( New Window )
Haven’t checked every possibility but I think it’s highly unlikely that any team has gone 5 seasons without a winning record at any point. So a loss to WFT tonight raises the probability by quite a lot that the Giants can set that glorious “5 years without a winning record at any point” which had never been reached before.
It’s like the Guinness World Records in Hell. I’m saying this to underline just how dysfunctional this franchise has become. It’s one f*** up after another.
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Get the premise and f the post. Who has been deluded into thinking wins at the end of one season mean anything for the next , obviously not true, Giants have been bad for many seasons now.
Is the OP suggesting the FO has been lulled into a false sense of success?
They have fired 3 coaches and a GM s in the last 7 seasons, doesn’t seem to fit that narrative.
What are kidding?
Do you know how many posters referenced the Giants winning 5 of their last 8 games and that Jones getting injured was the only reason why that wasn't higher. This was the arrow was pointing up fro many...
Yes...and those same folks ignored the fact that we finished 1-3 and looked absolutely horrible in doing so.
Anyway this person close to the team leadership referred to DG as a "visionary" in analytics.
This is very scary. I have to question the judgement of anyone who actually believes Gettleman is a visionary in analytics or even remotely competent as a GM. He is a scout, nothing more nothing less.
It also lends credence to my fear, that regardless of our record this season, both Gettleman and Daniel Jones jobs may be secure for 2022. If we don't post *at least* 9 wins this season, there is no way that should happen. However under John Mara's management, it is a distinct possibility.
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Anyway this person close to the team leadership referred to DG as a "visionary" in analytics.
This is very scary. I have to question the judgement of anyone who actually believes Gettleman is a visionary in analytics or even remotely competent as a GM. He is a scout, nothing more nothing less.
It also lends credence to my fear, that regardless of our record this season, both Gettleman and Daniel Jones jobs may be secure for 2022. If we don't post *at least* 9 wins this season, there is no way that should happen. However under John Mara's management, it is a distinct possibility.
It was frightening. Honestly when I saw that I lost all interest in even communicating with anyone close to the team anymore. They don't want to be the best, they want to pal around with their friends and tell each other they are football visionaries