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The Giant stink.
Look… I’m no expert. I’m not an analyst or a scout or in any way qualified to run a football team.
But folks the NFL is pretty fucking simple. Four things matter. Four things and four alone. Head coach, quarterback, offensive line, and defensive line.
That’s it. That’s the foundation. How you fare in those four areas determines your success as a football team. If you’re at least competent in those four areas you’ll have a competent team. If you excel in two or three of those areas, you’re going to have a really good football team.
Go back through the last ten Super Bowl winners and you’ll find teams that were built on being great to elite in two or three of those areas, but most importantly no worse than competent in any of them. Since most people reading this are Giants fans just think back on ’08 and ’12. Good/Great Coaching. Good/Great Quarterback play. Great Offensive Line Play. And Elite Defensive Line play.
Yes, of course the Plaxico Burress’s and Antonio Pierce’s and Brandon Jacobs’s and Jeff Feagles’s (BIG shoutout Jeff Feagles) of the team still mattered. But football has always and will always be an inside out game. It mattered when football was three yards and a cloud of dust. And I’d argue it matters even more now as the game becomes more spread out. Those receivers and those linebackers and those running backs and those cover corners can’t do their thing unless those guys in the trenches win their battles and the decision makers make good decisions. (Jeff Feagles always did is thing but that’s neither here nor there I just really wanted to shout out Jeff Feagles in this blog.)
Last night was a perfect example of that. None of these skill players matter if there’s no time to throw, or no room to run, or the balls aren’t catchable, or if penalties keep putting them in unfavorable situations.
The Giants are a bad football team because they are bad in three of those four areas. The offensive line is an abomination. McAdoo has been awful both as a decision maker and as the guy responsible for instilling discipline on a team that still takes entirely too many penalties. And… as hard as it is too admit… Eli has sucked.
He just has. I don’t know what else to say.
Yes, a ton of it is on his offensive line. Yes, a MASSIVE piece of the blame has to fall on Jerry Reese for not doing anything to fix the offensive line when he knew he had the least mobile QB in the league. And yes, the receivers have to catch those fucking passes. (RIP in Peace to Brandon Marshall’s career)
But Eli has just been bad. And it’s not even the infuriating delay of game or the atrocious turnovers… it’s the overall lack of accuracy and general mobility. I just don’t know how you can survive in this league, especially with this kind of offensive line, if 1) you can’t avoid some of the sacks he took, and 2) you can’t pinpoint the short throws that he was missing last night.
I mean look I’ll love Eli forever and always but it just… this just might be it for him. He’ll be 37 in January and although he owns Brady and Belichick’s souls and keeps them trapped in a special locket around his neck, he ain’t Tom Brady and he doesn’t have Bill Belichick over on that sideline and he sure as shit does not have Bill Belichick making personnel decisions.
I mean seriously how in the absolute fuck does Jerry Reese prioritize signing a 33-year-old receiver AND THEN drafting a receiving tight end when everyone could see the gaping holes in this offensive line? HOW? How does that happen?
Maybe the Giants turn it around. I don’t know. The defense is still incredible when they’re not worn down from spending two thirds of the game on the field. And Beckham, Shepherd, and Marshall Engram are an incredibly dangerous set of receivers.
But it still goes back to the offensive line. Maybe Jerry Reese tries to stave off his inevitable and much-deserved firing by going after a left tackle via trade and shooting Ereck Flowers off into the sun. Maybe a fully-healthy and properly utilized Odell can negate the shortcomings of Eli and the offensive line. Maybe Ben McAdoo can regain some of last year’s mojo by ditching this Long Island Mall Security Chief slick back and returning to the somehow less preposterous-looking middle part.
But I don’t feel good about it. It pretty much goes without saying that there’s no reason to believe in the line. I don’t really trust McAdoo at all, especially with that haircut. And for the first time ever… I’ve kind of started to lose faith in Eli. I really, really hate saying that. But hey… tell the truf, right?
On the bright side… the NFL stinks anyway right?
I said last night that I won’t drag this point out, and I won’t. Yesterday was my one and only day of saying the NFL isn’t fun. I promise.
All I’m trying to say is that in a way this would be kind of a relief. If the Giants are really this awful, then we don’t have to care as much about the awful product that is the NFL this year, right?
Fuck it. I’ve got Clemson football. I’ve got the Yankees. I’ve got the NBA. I’ll invest my time and energy and passion into those. I’ll watch Playoff Baseball over some garbage Monday Night game. I’ll watch the Celtics-Wizards, Warriors-Rockets TNT doubleheader over a Jags-Titans Color Rush Thursday game. I’ll catch up on Netflix shows with Redzone in the background on Sundays. I’ll invest all my energy and my gambling dollars into College Football since the one clear advantage the NFL had over College (quality of play) seems to be waning by the week and I at least get some excitement out of it.
And look before you get in your feelings about me being a “shitty fan” or puffing your chest out about “supporting the team through thick and thin”, there’s an actual justification for hoping for failure.
Bad season = Jerry Reese gets fired.
Offensive Line is a gaping hole = they draft and sign lineman.
Eli is in clear decline = they get more serious about grooming Davis Webb or whoever the successor may be.
Those are all things that should have happened already but that the Mara’s presumably haven’t felt justified in doing unless they see a 4-12 or 3-13 season. Bottom out, rebuild the line, prepare for life after Eli, and maybe even change the coach if this 80’s movie beat cop can’t crack the case of the missing pass protection.
The season’s not over. I’m not giving up or quitting. But if it is… eh, whatever. I’m cool with it.
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