A harsh reality in building the OL re: investing in the line

not allocating resources to the position...the guys they took just never seemed to work out.

They absolutely invested a ton of capital, both through the draft and FA bucks, in the line. It's amazing how badly they whiffed throughout the years.

Go get mike munchak and pay him to come to the Giants to coach our OL!

so they spent there but he hasn't taken the starting role.

Jurgens was a second found pick. So even with Stoutland they've consistently invested in their line. hopefully our guys take a step forward next year.

or guys that the coaching staff cannot develop, then are you really investing in the OL?

I think the context of investing in the OL should infer when you can't observe a reasonable ROI, that you invest more until you do.

It’s not only how he coaches but he has a big hand in identifying the talent and is obviously the run game coordinator for the most dynamic rushing attack in the league.

And Sean, both McAdoo and Judge tried to add Stoutland to their staffs and Roseman said no way.

there is a large contingent on here thinking every lineman needs to be a first or 2nd round pick.

Meanwhile the Eagles have 2 first round stud WRs on their team that take a hell of a lot of pressure off the O-line

Very few late round pick OL turn into quality starters. Plenty of them start but there are very few that are good. The teams that win championships have deep drafts, just look at our 07-08 team and where we drafted a lot of those guys. In my view, talent > coaching and the Eagles OL success says more about their scouting department than their coaches.

When you have a revolving door of coaches. We have invested in the OL in the draft and FA and have failed whether is was development or just bringing in the wrong guys. Some of our draft picks have gone on to be successful in other places. It also takes a bit of luck too.

Kelce was a 6th round pick, it’s not often that a 6th rounder has that type of impact. Even the Eagles didn’t know if he would have been drafted sooner. The Giants got lucky like that years ago with Diehl and it helped solidify the OL but our Super Bowl OLs were a mix of Draft and FAs. I would go get a top OC in FA if one were available. We haven’t had a great OC in a long time. Even when Gates was the starter he was just average, we tend to over value him because he was an UDFA.

Find a high quality OL coach and make him a permanent part of the staff.

If Bobby Johnson is that level of quality, the Giants should do the same with him.

And just for old time's sake, the high water mark for the Coughlin Glory Years Line in 2008:

LT Diehl: 5th round converted guard
LG Suebert: UDFA
C O'hara: UFA converted guard/center
RG Snee: 2nd round pick
LT McKenzie: premium UFA

The reality is you cannot continue to throw first and second round picks at the OL and expect that to automatically solve the problem. The OL, probably more than any other position in the league, benefits from great coaching and development. Many great teams that have had great Olines featured top notch Oline coaches.

The Giants have invested top resources in the position, they've simply just failed to develop many of these players, which has, in large part, led to a decade of bad football.

it about the talent that can be developed. The big mistake was not being prepared to replace the last good OL the Giants had.

O'Hara retires after 2011. They went to FA with Baas who winds up getting hurt. Should have someone ready to step in from the draft who had been developed. Then McKenzie leaves after 2011. Nobody to step in. Snee. They went FA with Schwartz and he gets hurt. Etc. Gilbride warned of this but the front office did little.

Reese was just terrible outside his first few years. Deal with reality imv. We just went through the BOG concept thread couple weeks ago where some dope was saying Reese's mistake was not drafting more skill players instead of OL.

Until the lines are fully restored don't expect much to change.

who insist we need to spend 1 if not 2 of our premium picks on the OL this year.

In comment 16019577 WillieYoung said:

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who insist we need to spend 1 if not 2 of our premium picks on the OL this year.

There was also a thread a couple of weeks ago cautioning us against overemphasizing the WR position. Compare those OL resources to what the Eagles have invested in the WR position. The reality of the NFL now is that playmakers are needed - even if overvalued. Anyone watch Burrough just chuck it up yesterday hoping Chase would come down with it? He does that all the time. Worked out at least once on a long conversion, other was an INT.

They need playmakers, desperately.

In comment 16019567 christian said:

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And just for old time's sake, the high water mark for the Coughlin Glory Years Line in 2008: LT Diehl: 5th round converted guard LG Suebert: UDFA C O'hara: UFA converted guard/center RG Snee: 2nd round pick LT McKenzie: premium UFA

And McKenzie was originally a third round pick.

It's a real black mark on Coughlin's resume that he didn't stock the offensive line with the depth needed to withstand the injuries the very good 2012 offensive line had.

Reese destroyed the franchise. There is a reason he was never hired again. He destroyed the foundation of the franchise.

They have some pieces on both lines now but they need to continue to bring those lines to a more competitive level.

When that happens again then the Giants will again play in the big games like yesterday.

All started with the SB clock.

But didn't you tell me Coughlin was largely in charge of the drafts and personnel up until 2012, and picking David Wilson was a sign something changed?

So is that true or false? One word will suffice.

when Wellington was alive TC had a lot of input. He said he was going to control the LOS in his intro the Giants. Welling said it was "music to his ears".

He did just that. Destroyed under Reese.

Get over it. Be smarter.

In comment 16019577 WillieYoung said:

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who insist we need to spend 1 if not 2 of our premium picks on the OL this year.

You better be able to find 50 posters that insist we spend 1 premium pick on OL (assuming premium means Day1 & Day2)

If not, we should all be reading another Board.

In comment 16019576 Lines of Scrimmage said:

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it about the talent that can be developed. The big mistake was not being prepared to replace the last good OL the Giants had. O'Hara retires after 2011. They went to FA with Baas who winds up getting hurt. Should have someone ready to step in from the draft who had been developed. Then McKenzie leaves after 2011. Nobody to step in. Snee. They went FA with Schwartz and he gets hurt. Etc. Gilbride warned of this but the front office did little. Reese was just terrible outside his first few years. Deal with reality imv. We just went through the BOG concept thread couple weeks ago where some dope was saying Reese's mistake was not drafting more skill players instead of OL. Until the lines are fully restored don't expect much to change.

I've always been an adherent of GY's Planet Theory. There's only so many of them on the planet. TC's quote about big men allowing you to compete was also spot on. Gilbride did warn them. Instead of taking Cordy Glenn in 2012 they took lil David Wilson, lol.

I'm just trying to understand your ever evolving timelines.

So Coughlin had personnel control in 2004 and 2005, then Wellington Mara died, and he lost control?

I thought Coughlin was in charge until 2012, now you're saying he was only in charge until 2005?

Take a minute and catch your breath before you answer with some other wild about face.

Correct. Wilson is a good pick to see the changing of the guard. TC always had big backs going back to Jax with Taylor. Then Jacobs and Ward at 260 and 240.

we already have established you are not a man with high integrity. Let's not start making things up now. I never said that in 2012. Be better my man.

Plenty.

1. You have to get the draft picks RIGHT. The Giants didn't until Andrew Thomas.

2. You have to CONTINUALLY DRAFT OLs REGULARLY. Even if they're mid-to-low rounders. The Giants didn't. There were MANY drafts during the hell years the Giants drafted ZERO OLs.

Under Accorsi and Reese, the Giants PREFERRED to fill out their OL with vet FAs. That CAN work in the short term (guys like O'Hara and McKenzie were truly GREAT additions), but it rarely keeps the OL competitive over time.

3. YOUR SCOUTS HAVE TO KNOW A GOOD OL WHEN THEY SEE ONE.
IMO, this is the real KEY. And it has been the Giants' big failure over the last 10 years of OL hell.

And I'm not talking about taking an A. Thomas 4th overall. When you have that high a pick and your choice of all the top blue chip guys, and you take one, it doesn't make you a scouting genius. And for his first two years, most though Thomas was the weakest of the four DG could have chosen. Now he appears to be the best. But all the mid round OL picks? Ugh. But THAT is where you truly BUILD your OL with guys who aren't particularly expensive at first. Your scouts HAVE to be able to look at those guys and NOT draft Matt Peart, Will Hernandez (granted, that looked like a good pick at the time). You can say they hit on Lemieux and Gates, but those guys were never IDEALLY slated to be starters.

The good news is that Schoen and crew seem to get this right more often than past staffs did.

So, yes, Coaching matters. But it's amazing how the coaches who have talented players look like geniuses, and the ones who don't, look like bums.

The line needs to better whether they pumped 100 draft picks or zero into it during Reese or whomever. The fact remains the Giants OL went from the most dominant in the league to one of the worst in 3 years and it’s still a work in progress 12 years later.

In comment 16019630 Lines of Scrimmage said:

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we already have established you are not a man with high integrity. Let's not start making things up now. I never said that in 2012. Be better my man.

Link to thread

Your quote from said thread:

Quote:

I told you already. The 2012 draft shows the clear change who was calling the shots. Then the clock in the locker room. On what planet would TC draft a 205 pound scat back in round 1 with the state of his fronts? He drafted Fred Taylor in Jax. Ward added in 2004 and Jacobs in 2005. In Jax they added 240 pound Fournette. You have to start keeping up with previous convo's my friend. Basketball on grass.

Have I not said that Reese was calling the shots?

So just to be clear -- your view is Coughlin was calling the shots until 2012, then something clearly changed?

They have stayed healthy most of the year with the exception of Johnson at the end, but he came back for the playoffs.

Lets look at the fact that they ran the ball more than 55% of the time in the 2 play off games. That is a linemens dream. They have a running QB, 3 RB's that all have speed, a great 2 way TE and 2 dominant WR the secondary must account for.

You don't need to draft OL in rounds 1 or 2 to have a successful OL. You better be able to develope these players though. Having chemistry and having the unit play together is imperative.

The most important position is the Center and Kelce makes that unit go.

I hope NYG solidifies the Center position this year.

when Coughlin arrived in 2004 Accorsi was the GM, until 2007.

o'hara was one of the first free agents signed by them in 04.
the first draft in 04 was Eli/Snee.
in 05 mckenzie became the highest paid NYG UFA ever (he got more than plax and pierce).

Diehl had been drafted in 2003 and Seubert was a holdover UDFA all the way back to 2001.

That was all before Reese was GM and a primary decision maker. He was in the organization the entire time, and of course he deserves credit for the draft picks since that was his domain but just by proxy of him not being 1 of the 2 most senior decision makers in the organization it's hard to give him any sort of significant credit either way for resource allocation strategy. also from the horses mouth we know the final call on snee for example was coughlins.

i know im a broken record on this boogeymab but you know who wasn't in the org and whose ascent to specific positions lines up with the organizations biggest failings? Marc Ross. he became director of college scouting in 2007 backfilling reese and then further promoted to EVP in 2012 right around the 2nd super bowl when he was getting GM interviews elsewhere. whatever shift happened post-Accorsi retirement in the power structure of decreased OL investment it's inarguable that the OL drafting was abysmal from roughly 08-16, and that the drafting in general fell off a cliff from the Accorsi/Reese/Coughlin years to the Reese/Ross/Coughlin years.

In comment 16019663 christian said:

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So just to be clear -- your view is Coughlin was calling the shots until 2012, then something clearly changed?

I get it. The old "just to be clear".

You just are not following things. I'm sorry you seem a little fragile to understand the conversation. Maybe best to engage elsewhere.

In comment 16019668 Lines of Scrimmage said:

Quote:

In comment 16019663 christian said: Quote: So just to be clear -- your view is Coughlin was calling the shots until 2012, then something clearly changed? I get it. The old "just to be clear". You just are not following things. I'm sorry you seem a little fragile to understand the conversation. Maybe best to engage elsewhere.

LOL, the moment you give up gives me enormous satisfaction.

Go back to your hole now.

.

Ross is probably a good one to look at. He was hired by Reese but I do think he had different ideas of team building what had been a Giants staple.

It is incredibly hard to navigate the NFCE without lines that can compete.

People who go berserk over Jerry Reese tend to gloss over the fact that, as was the case at almost every position, the Giants had lousy injury luck at OL.

Top offensive linemen tend to have rather long careers. Jason Peters is older than Chris Snee and was STILL playing this year, a decade after Snee retired.

Snee was finished by age 31. Seubert was finished by age 31. McKenzie was finished by age 32, and had been in rapid, severe decline for a few seasons. O'Hara retired at 33. The overall decline of the OL was rather swift and came earlier than expected, no matter how much after the fact ass-covering Kevin Gilbride attempts.

In comment 16019688 Greg from LI said:

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People who go berserk over Jerry Reese tend to gloss over the fact that, as was the case at almost every position, the Giants had lousy injury luck at OL. Top offensive linemen tend to have rather long careers. Jason Peters is older than Chris Snee and was STILL playing this year, a decade after Snee retired. Snee was finished by age 31. Seubert was finished by age 31. McKenzie was finished by age 32, and had been in rapid, severe decline for a few seasons. O'Hara retired at 33. The overall decline of the OL was rather swift and came earlier than expected, no matter how much after the fact ass-covering Kevin Gilbride attempts.

Great post. Reese was really saddled with awful injury luck.

In comment 16019576 Lines of Scrimmage said:

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it about the talent that can be developed. The big mistake was not being prepared to replace the last good OL the Giants had. O'Hara retires after 2011. They went to FA with Baas who winds up getting hurt. Should have someone ready to step in from the draft who had been developed. Then McKenzie leaves after 2011. Nobody to step in. Snee. They went FA with Schwartz and he gets hurt. Etc. Gilbride warned of this but the front office did little. Reese was just terrible outside his first few years. Deal with reality imv. We just went through the BOG concept thread couple weeks ago where some dope was saying Reese's mistake was not drafting more skill players instead of OL. Until the lines are fully restored don't expect much to change.

Schwartz sucked anyway. An oft-injured career backup. Reese and Ross obviously used Peter King as their go to scout, because he is the only one who ever mentioned GS as a top FA.

In comment 16019673 Ten Ton Hammer said:

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.

Of course it's not.

Simple explanations to complex problems and outcomes rarely are.

The truth is probably that Accorsi, Reese, Ross, Gettleman, and Coughlin both made good and bad contributions to the personnel profile during the championship run.

And like all operations that are on top, the decline isn't attributable to one person or one set of decisions.

Anecdotally, I heard TC loved Flowers and was a big fan of the pick.

We also drafted Pugh and Richburg pretty high.

They made the investments. They just didn't work out.

I think both Reese and TC deserve blame for that. And they both deserve credit for winning two Super Bowls here.

Greg, Sean -- look at the pretty good 2012 the devils that are Reese and Ross assembled -- and the comedy of injuries that ensued.

Beatty (27)
Boothe (29)
Baas (31)
Snee (30)
Diehl (32)

Each of those guys effective careers are over in 1-2 years.

If Giants phase out Diehl and Boothe, and Pugh and Richburg work out, things look much different.

and let's not forget Sy56:

"On the Ourlads All-Pro team, PHI has the 1st-team center (Kelce), and the 2nd-team LG (Dickerson) and RT (Johnson). The other two starters are probably considered top-7 in the league at their positions. This line is one of the best I have ever seen. Their starters were brought in via the draft, every single one. 2011, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2021. Their backups? 2019, 2021, 2022, 2022. All in the draft or undrafted free agency. Feed the trenches. Draft better linemen. Then draft their backups. It will work."

I hope that Schoen continues to revamp the scouting department

name an OL player we picked recently, high pick or not, that worked out other than Andrew Thomas? Hernandez, Peart, Lemieux, Flowers, Hart, the list goes on. That's putting aside the FA, expensive or not, too. Neal is undetermined at this time, but he has work to do.

They've either had horrible luck, bad scouting, bad coaching or all three. Just by luck we should have a decent OL, but even after all this we still had a terrible pass-blocking OL.

If Schoen / Daboll are as competent as we think they are, we have to get to at least average next year.

In comment 16019688 Greg from LI said:

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People who go berserk over Jerry Reese tend to gloss over the fact that, as was the case at almost every position, the Giants had lousy injury luck at OL. Top offensive linemen tend to have rather long careers. Jason Peters is older than Chris Snee and was STILL playing this year, a decade after Snee retired. Snee was finished by age 31. Seubert was finished by age 31. McKenzie was finished by age 32, and had been in rapid, severe decline for a few seasons. O'Hara retired at 33. The overall decline of the OL was rather swift and came earlier than expected, no matter how much after the fact ass-covering Kevin Gilbride attempts.

You were a Marine with this type of mentality? Interesting. Very.

I'll never defend the JR's drafts the back nine of his tenure. He oversaw a series of duds. I was shocked and disappointed he was retained when Coughlin was pushed out.

And in retrospect the fix it or else direction from Mara to JR portended the coming years of disaster.

In comment 16019706 BrettNYG10 said:

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Anecdotally, I heard TC loved Flowers and was a big fan of the pick. We also drafted Pugh and Richburg pretty high. They made the investments. They just didn't work out. I think both Reese and TC deserve blame for that. And they both deserve credit for winning two Super Bowls here.

Absolutely true.

Since you know me so well

In comment 16019711 christian said:

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Greg, Sean -- look at the pretty good 2012 the devils that are Reese and Ross assembled -- and the comedy of injuries that ensued. Beatty (27) Boothe (29) Baas (31) Snee (30) Diehl (32) Each of those guys effective careers are over in 1-2 years. If Giants phase out Diehl and Boothe, and Pugh and Richburg work out, things look much different.

Absolutely. This idea that Reese didn’t care about the OL is way off base. Both the Eagles current line and the Giants 2007 line prove this.