fishgutmartyr

Somebody has yet to explain to me why this 4th rounder would end up any different than Phillip Dilliard or Brian Kehl, who were both 4th rounders. Our linebacking coach couldn't make chicken salad with chicken.

I didn't title the thread, Joe. And most of them are. I'm not even sure why Jacobs is back on this team. Every team does have injuries--but the general manager isn't at fault for them. And if they are career-ending, or as limiting as they were with a huge number of the drafted players I listed, that will really screw up any long-term strategy you might have. Would we have drafted Akamura if Thomas didn't go down? Would we have Rolle and his cap number if it wasn't for Phillip's knee? For all we know, those acquisitions might have been the linebackers we're missing now. If you have a general manager looking for the Chase Blackburns of the world rather than a Jack Lambert, then fire him. And remember: after 6 years of drafting and free agency, you also saw two SB victories, 5 winning seasons, and no losing seasons. It wasn't just what we saw today. I guess we're about due on the 7th.

What you wound up with: 1. A ghost and an out-patient at de, with a guy that should be playing LB and an overmatched rookie; all of whom seem to practice a drill that allows everyone to run outside of them. 2. 2 starting and 2 decent backup DTs, that keep the center of the line reasonably intact. 3. Nothing. Which is just as disturbing to me as it is to you. 4. An Oline that has now played 2 complete games as a unit all season and preseason. It was necessary to bring in those DL guys because we cut Canty to lower the cap, Austin to that point had shown nothing, and the interior line was ripped apart last season. We'd look even worse if Reese hadn't done what he did--they would be running at will all along the line of scrimmage, rather than mostly outside. Hey, I'm not happy either; I'm just pointing out that this team is falling apart from personnel, to how that personnel is being used, to indifference on the part of players, to just pure age and dumb luck. We're still playing defense like we have Strahan, a peaking Osi, and a healthy Tuck--and we just don't. We're trying to have a balanced offense at the coaching level, while the front office is trying to create a pass-protect line. I have no clue what they are trying to do at TE. The only thing that's giving me any sort of hope is that Tuck is not going to be here with his cap number and niether will Webster. Snee and Diehl I would bet retire, and Manning's cap number goes down a bit next year. That's without making any decisions regarding any other players with huge numbers, and that should free up some room for what comes next. I wouldn't be shocked if Coughlin retires as well, especially if Snee does; so everyone will get their wish for a new coaching staff. This team had too many ifs going into training camp, and way too many didn't go the right way. It happens. This team is snake-bit, and the players know it. It's going to be a long season.

Damn you Reese for not checking out Chad Jone's driving record! Or allowing Smith's, Phillips', Ballard's, Brown's, Sintim's, Goff's Koet's, and Thomas's knees to get blown out! How dare you draft guys that get concussions!! JPP--my god, man! His back! Fucking Bradshaw and his foot--YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!!! HOW THE FUCK DID YOU NOT KNOW ANDRE BROWN'S ACHILLE'S TENDON WAS GOING TO RUPTURE IN HIS FIRST PRESEASON--or for that matter, that he was going to break his leg this year!?! And your draft picks decline with age, too?!? WTF is that!?!?!? Your free agents, Reese--holy shit! You constantly get guys that their original teams think aren't as good as other players they have, or feel are overpriced! This bullshit has to stop. BTW, Ernie's guys are Tuck, Webster, Snee, Diehl, Kiwi--you know, the guys you folks want cut because they stink now, or cost too much...Yeah, Eli, too--and his $20 million cap hit. Make up your minds: do you want to re-sign our players and have them decline under contract (which they inevitably will), or let them go at around their peak, and miss their ability? That way, we can sign other team's players and pay a higher price for equivalent skill sets. I'm not saying Reese is perfect by any stretch (the proof is in the record), but it's not like everything worked out as planned, either.

I know this isn't a popular view right now, but this draft still has the potential to be one of the better ones of Reese's tenure, QB or not. Every one of those picks are on the team in one capacity or another, with only Cooper Taylor being a player that didn't stick out of merit (and he must have shown something, because he was only a 5th, after all). It won't have the 2007 immediate impact, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Hankins, Moore, and Cox seeing more playing time by the end of the year.

Why would you play a rookie out of position when you have Kiwi who has already played the position?

If anything, the defensive tackles have been the standouts on the line so far. JPP isn't in shape yet, and Tuck seems to have disappeared after looking pretty good in preseason. So I'm not sure what you're getting at here. I know for sure I don't want Hankins starting right now, since that would mean that the line was already decimated by injuries. And if Austin hadn't been injured his rookie season, he might have made it this year. We'll never know. What I do know is that if Reese hadn't put in the effort at DT, we would be beyond hope right now. Meanwhile, Diehl was 5th round, O'Hara was UDFA, Seubert was undrafted, and McKenzie was 3rd round. Out of one of the best Giants olines I've seen, only Snee was drafted 2nd round or higher. So, no, you don't necessarily have to draft high for quality. Although I'll grant you that McKenzie had already proven himself by the time we signed him.

I saw more from Donnell in the few minutes he played than I did from Myers. The point isn't that things have been particularly successful, just that the line hasn't been ignored. One less injury, and the line could have been Beatty, Brewer, Koets, Snee and Pugh at this point. Mosely could still possibly replace Snee down the road. There's also Eric Hermann on the practice squad. If this happened, we wouldn't have Baas and his contract. But unfortunately Koets blew out his knee right when he started to show some life as a center. And frankly, I don't think the oline will be as horrible as you guys are painting them--they've played with each other for 1 game--they need time to gel. The same thing could have happened at LB. I'll grant you that we haven't had prime cuts to work with, but we were always aiming to make stew. The biggest difference between the oline and lbs is in the coaching--one coach knows what he's doing, and the other one doesn't. All we really needed was ONE of the young LBs to develop into something resembling competent. Rivers is OK, so long as he's healthy. If Moore develops quickly, we could still bring Kiwi back into the linebackers, where he was all right. It's not like he's changing the world at DE. I'm harping on the defense, and it's not really fair--on the whole, they've been doing OK. It's the turnovers that need to stop. This is looking like 2010 all over again, except we aren't good enough yet to overcome them.

We drafted a guard and a tackle this year. We've been drafting tackles pretty consistently over the years, and moving them along the line. Koets, McCants, Mosely, Brewer come right to mind. We drafted Mitch Petrus. We have a small fortune invested in Baas and Snee. The line hasn't been ignored, it just hasn't panned out yet, if it ever does. A couple of breaks, a few less injuries (Koets was looking pretty good at center before his knee injury), and we might be praising Reese for his fine management of the oline. The linebackers were always a risk--I mentioned it months ago; with Conner and Rivers being health concerns, none of our young players appear to have developed into anything of value, and the Curry experiment was a complete failure--this is the worst case scenario. On the other hand, how do you get a good free agent linebacker when you have to think in terms of re-signing Cruz, Nicks, and JPP? Who else are you going to cut? Rolle, who has definitely been one of the better defensive players on the team? Snee, and replace him with who? Baas we're stuck with for another season because of his contract. Our linebacker corp has nothing. NOTHING. Its problems would not be solved with a 4th round draft pick. Greene wouldn't be able to pull Herzlich out of the molasses he's apparently mired in; nor would he keep Williams from being dragged a few yards by a running back while holding on for dear life. The LBs needed either Connor or Curry to show something. They didn't. Now we're fucked. Personally, I'm upset with Myer, who has shown precious little at tight end. Maybe that's where the FA money should have come from. It's going to be a travesty when Robinson comes back and one of the other guys are cut, to keep this crystal lummox. We better hope that JPP gets into playing form pretty fucking soon--same with Hynoski, or this season is pretty much done. Eli and the receivers showing up to the same game would be kind of nice as well. The fact of the matter is that in certain areas the talent isn't there; in others, the talent isn't game ready.

IR on a 1-year deal? For a burner? Expect an Injury settlement--they just cut him.

I mentioned it in another thread, but I think the problem was he tried to do spin moves in a crowd both times when he fumbled. It makes it much easier to pull his arm away from his body, since his body weight and momentum are both working against him. It's not as risky in the open field, but when you have a bunch of guys grabbing at your arm, that's a real dumb thing to do. But it was good to see Thomas back on the field, and he played well, too.

Wilson absolutely needed to be pulled last night, but his problem is fixable. He did the same thing on those fumbles: He tried to spin out of tackles in traffic. That works real nice out in the open, but when you have arms grabbing you from every direction, your momentum will work against you and the ball gets far easier to pull away from your body. If he builds his arm strength, he might be able to do that next year; but this year, that simply has to stop. I'm no coach, but it's obvious to me--I have no doubt that this will be picked up during the week. If he can't pass block, or is unwilling, maybe Hynoski is the 3rd down back when he is back in shape. He can catch, although not last night. But then again, Myers didn't seem to do so hot for chunks of the game last night, either. Jacobs was done when we let him go; I don't think he improved since then.

If Diehl has played his last down as a regular starter, this offense can be one of the best in the league, easily. Because that would mean Pugh is strong and consistent enough, and that will help to rejuvenate Snee's play. The defense is going to be sad. Assuming the defensive line can stop the run early on, we'll be good against that and the long ball early in the season. Tight ends and receiving RBs will kill us. That will force the backfield to be more active towards the line, until the long ball starts killing us towards the end of the season. If the dline gets too many injuries and wears down, we're completely screwed.

They're all good topics, Jim. I'm partial to the oline topic--and would love to see a compare/contrast between this line and the 2008 oline. The 2008 oline is a great one to make comparisons against since it has about as clear an origin season as one can get (2004--only Diehl played with any sort of regularity in 2003, and he was a rookie), the players were relatively injury-free for 4-5 seasons, and the changes to it were mostly positional than personnel changes in that the only "new" starters were MacKenzie and Seubert. So you get this nice, evolutionary timeline from utter suck (2003) to solid(2004-2006), from solid to one of the best in the league(2007-2009), and finally, to decline. It becomes almost a textbook study on what has to happen when building a great oline. You could contrast this line with what went on with the 2008 line, and even guess the year we would be on as far as evolution goes. Hope you don't mind--it's your gig, but that's a really intriguing angle for me. Best of luck, big guy!

Yeah, but they've got an entrenched starter at his position, so they kind of blew it. Probably should have gone with a center. Why draft someone in the 4th round who isn't going to start?

Guess they forget the shit-show Manning was in the 2004 preseason.

Wouldn't be surprised if we traded out Scott, either. Other than a couple of great runs his rookie year in preseason, what has he shown?

Have to think we're in the market for a linebacker. I can't believe we're going into the season with 5, especially with Rivers and Conner and their tendency to get injured. Williams and Herzlich don't exactly have reps as iron men, either. We might be wiping the dust off of some retired guy at the end of the season. Should be ok with 3 safeties for now, since we're getting Hill back in Oct, and Ross has played the position, too. Don't understand putting Barden on IR instead of waived/injured. It's a injury settlement either way. It might just be a "years of service" thing... Cutting Carr doesn't surprise me that much, since he's getting old even for a backup. Keeping Painter does, however. I don't see where he'd be any better on this team than he was with the Colts when the other Manning went down.

We have to keep 6 LBs--Conner, Rivers are known for not playing complete seasons; Williams tends to be in and out of lineups, and the same for Herzlich. That's been a worry for me all preseason.

We've had enough bodies to get at least 1 decent starter. I'm not talking Harry Carson, I'm talking Brandon Short level. Hell, Adrian Tracey started off here as a LB, and had to become a DE--suddenly, he has a shot at making the team? How can a no-talent manage to make this team as a DE? I'll grant you that we haven't had the best picks in the world, but show me any player in the last few years whose play has improved under this coach. Free agent, draftee, whoever.

Joe, they did EXACTLY what we did, but with a different position.

Wait, they picked him to play behind a starter?! What a waste of a pick!

Bulluck was so old when we got him, his joints weren't calcified, they were fossilized.

So we couldn't coach up a motivated 1st rounder (who admittedly wasn't as good as his draft position) to at least play a reserve on a scrub squad, and we should expect a third rounder to become an all-pro for us? A guy who became a linebacker 2 years into his Rutgers career? Getting drafted by Chicago was probably the best thing that could have happened to Greene.