A type of sports journalism that annoys me

[Lubeck]

NFC East: New York Giants (Going down) -- Unless you're Jeremy Shockey, it's good to be a Giant these days. But the NFC East is one treacherous landscape to navigate, and New York's three division opponents have all upgraded. When I try to ordain how the Giants' title defense will go, I keep coming back to the following statistic: In the seasons after its previous three Super Bowl appearances, New York won six, eight and seven games, respectively, missing the playoffs each time. Staying hungry after the ultimate success is particularly difficult in the fishbowl that is the New York market. The Giants never seem to respond as well when the target is on their backs.

 

From Don Banks at SI.

 

My criticism is....this is an entirely different team! The only two players on the team that were there after the last SB are Toomer (for sure) and Strahan (hopefully). New coaching staff. New front office head.

 

These ridiculous statistics they come up with to fill their word-count requirements that have no basis as being useful analytical tools annoy me.

[Treehugger]

Precisely. Total bullshit.

[BIGBLUE01]

Where is that from?

[Lubeck]

From Don Banks at SI.

 

[boohyah]

earth to Don, I believe the Giants have also improved this offseason

[BIGBLUE01]

LOL...I even checked back to make sure it didn't say who wrote it.

 

 

[Storm]

Why are you so pissed? A lot of us on here also believe the Giants respond better when the target isn't on their back and often fail when expectations are high...

[Lubeck]

Why are you so pissed? A lot of us on here also believe the Giants respond better when the target isn't on their back and often fail when expectations are high...

 

I am not "so pissed" I am annoyed, not because he is dissing the Giants but because of the reason why he is. His reason is statistics of an organization, not of a team. It is like saying "Well the Giants historically are 3-11 following a bye so I think they are going to have to fight for a win." 3-11 as an organization, not 3-11 as a team. It is, like I said, a typically used form of analysis that has no real basis.

[fishgutmartyr]

I am not "so pissed" I am annoyed, not because he is dissing the Giants but because of the reason why he is. His reason is statistics of an organization, not of a team. It is like saying "Well the Giants historically are 3-11 following a bye so I think they are going to have to fight for a win." 3-11 as an organization, not 3-11 as a team. It is, like I said, a typically used form of analysis that has no real basis.

You're absolutely right as far as I'm concerned. It's not even a reasonable statement as far as the franchise is concerned, since one SB was followed by a strike where a scab team went winless, and another was followed by wholesale coaching changes. Neither of these events are happening this year, so how valuable can this information be, even from the standpoint that he's trying to use?

[Storm]

I am not "so pissed" I am annoyed, not because he is dissing the Giants but because of the reason why he is. His reason is statistics of an organization, not of a team. It is like saying "Well the Giants historically are 3-11 following a bye so I think they are going to have to fight for a win." 3-11 as an organization, not 3-11 as a team. It is, like I said, a typically used form of analysis that has no real basis.

 

Then I really don't want to hear anyone on here bitching when Mel Kiper gives us a C+, everyone on Sportscenter picks us to lose, etc, etc...none of the "That's fine, we're better when we're the underdogs and no one gives us respek," because that's the same bullshit this guy is talking about(only pro-Giants style homer, with no statistical backup). I see nothing wrong with it. He's absolutely right, we HISTORICALLY, as to I'm not gonna nitpick the difference between an organization and team, fold when we are expected to do well.

[Lubeck]

This TEAM does like being the underdog. That is not a historical organization thing. So believe me you are going to hear plenty from people talking about how this TEAM likes being the underdog.

 

And if you can't differentiate between a team and an organization I completely understand why this topic goes right over your head.

[BleedinBlue]

As a degreed statistician, I can assure you that stats such as, "only 3 teams have won 3 games in a row after losing 6 in a row....blah, blah, blah". It's meaningless information that is worthless from a mathematical standpoint and only math-challenged fools think it means something. It ranks up there in worthless information such as, "a plane crashed yesterday, therefore the plane you are flying in today can't crash because on average, one plane crashes every 4.37 months...blah, blah".

 

Regardless....history doesn't mean a thing when it comes to the current team...just as you pointed out. Secondly, for all practical purposes, the current team (2nd youngest age median in the NFL) is almost entirely intact from the team that kicked Dallas, Green Bay, and New England in the ass....and took home the silver football. And the coaching staff is still intact from that superbowl champion team. Plus, Eli dramatically improved the last half of the season and is maturing to the point of being a great one and a real leader.

 

We would have been a good team if we didn't have a single pick coming in the recent draft. However, we had 7 picks and dramatically improved the depth of the team. Our defensive backfield is much improved and we've added another deep ball threat.

 

Oh well....the Giants have never been the darling of media and the talking heads. They're our team....not their's....and we know a whole lot more about the team than some talking head who is supposed to be intimately familiar and an expert on every team in the NFL. Hell....last season the "football gurus" were saying the Giants didn't stand a chance in the superbowl....yet man-of-few-words Belichek told them that the Giants were the toughest team they had played all year and that the Giants definitely had the players to win the game. But his insight and comments were virtually ignored in favor of highly biased Aikmen, Johnson, etc.

 

Oh well, let them be shocked again as they get it all wrong. Giants are going to be great this season.

[Storm]

This TEAM does like being the underdog. That is not a historical organization thing. So believe me you are going to hear plenty from people talking about how this TEAM likes being the underdog.

 

And if you can't differentiate between a team and an organization I completely understand why this topic goes right over your head.

 

And it's also historical that teams do terrible following the Super Bowl. I don't understand at all why you're complaining about this article. He's right. The Giants are terrible when they are a marked team, the Giants do horrible after Super Bowl Wins or appearances, most other teams do terrible the years following the Super Bowl. It's just what happens when a team is expected to come back and do well and has an off year.

 

He isn't saying it is going to happen JUST because we won the Super Bowl. He's saying that it often does and cites historical examples. I could list about 15 other historical examples of teams doing shitty after Super Bowl wins.

 

Like I said, I don't want to ever hear anyone on this board complain when no one picks us to win, then, in the next post, someone claim "It's all good! We do better when we are the underdog." It's the same flawed logic, winning as the underdog, compared to losing as the guy on top. And I've heard numerous people agree with "we're the underdog team" stance. There's no statistics to prove we are better when we play under the radar, but we seem to, historically.

[xxi-xxv]

Why do I care what the fuck Don Banks says? Great, we have a history of down years in the previous times the franchise went to the SB. Is it relevant to this team? Probably not. Is it good for this team to read this? Yes, they have shown that they relish being underappreciated, so IMO this is a good thing.

 

As far as the scenarios that will occur this year after our post SB, a case can be made that this is the most stable team of the previous 4. In 1987 the Giants were unable to recover from an 0-2 start as the strike occured and the replacement team they put out there had no shot. Its concieveable that under normal circumstances that team could have recovered from 0-2, by the time the strike was over they were 0-5. The finished 6-9, so they did go 6-6 with their regular squad, even after the 0-2 start.

 

In 1991 they had to endure one thing, ray Handley. If myself and you guys here coached that team we could have done better than the 8-8 Handley got us.

 

In 2001 it was a case of we were never that good to begin with in 2000 and beat no one, thus this was when the NFl had less of a balanced schedule and instead of beting up on shitty teams like in 2000 we had to play better teams that kicked our ass.

 

This team has less of those issues the others had and should have less exuses(at least now)

 

I hope this type of talk keeps coming.