Nov 8, 2009; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning (left) and San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers talk prior to game at Giants Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jim O

Take a look at this brief off-season quarterback carousel just so that you can understand where I’m coming from:

• The Indianapolis Colts cut Peyton Manning so they can draft Andrew Luck.
• Peyton Manning signs with the Denver Broncos after putting the NFL on a three year waiting list. Wait, what? It wasn’t three years? Sure seemed like it.
• The St. Louis Rams got a fortune in return from the Washington Redskins so they can take RG3 right after the Colts select Luck.
• Matt Flynn signs with the Seattle Seahawks after being Aaron Rodgers’ backup.
• Jason Campbell leaves Oakland after having his starting job taken away and signs with the Chicago Bears to become Jay Cutler’s backup.
• Kyle Orton does the same thing and goes to backup Tony Romo in Dallas after starting for two teams last year: the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos.
• Denver Broncos’ third string QB Brady Quinn moves to Kansas City to become that team’s newest backup QB.
• Chad Henne left the Dolphins to challenge for the starting QB job with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
• The New York Jets brought in Drew Stanton to be Mark Sanchez’s new body double.
• David Garrard comes back to the league after a one year absence to join the Miami Dolphins.

We have backups becoming starters, starters becoming backups, rookies being drafted presumably to start from day, guys out of the league for a year and one of the greatest QBs to ever play in the NFL cut for a player to have never played a down of professional football before. Confused yet? That’s because it is confusing to keep track of which quarterback is on which team now in the new quarterback driven NFL.

With the signing of Manning to the Broncos there is now another starting quarterback that could be had for the right price: Tim Tebow for a 5th round pick, presumably. The two teams with a most glaring need at a QB, if the 49ers don’t bring back Alex Smith, that is, are the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins. You have to include Miami because a Matt Moore/David Garrard combo doesn’t scare anyone.

The Browns were never in the hunt for Manning but aren’t enamored with incumbent QB Colt McCoy and lost out on the RG3 sweepstakes. The Dolphins went all in on Manning but came back empty handed; then their second choice Flynn spurned them for the Seahawks. That leaves the potential of either one of those two teams signing Alex Smith, he of the 49ers, who has no idea of his job status thanks to the Peyton Derby, and the aforementioned Tebow.

Plus there are other potential first round quarterbacks besides Luck and RG3 that could be taken by the Browns or Dolphins like Ryan Tannehill or Brandon Weeden, both of whom, if you ask me aren’t worthy of being selected in the top ten of the draft but might be taken that early because the Dolphins (picking 8^th overall) and the Browns (picking 4^th overall) won’t have any choice other than dangling a future first round draft pick in order to trade back into the latter part of the upcoming 2012 NFL Draft.

By my calculations we might have a total of 11 teams with a new starting QB/quarterback question marks entering next season:

-Redskins – RG3, Vikings – Ponder/Webb?, Jaguars – Gabbert/Henne? Or maybe even Tebow?, San Fran – Smith/Kaepernick/Josh Johnson?, Arizona – Kolb/Skelton? Cleveland – McCoy?, Seattle – Flynn/T-Jax? Titans – Locker/Hasselbeck?, Indy – Luck, Miami – Moore/Garrard? and Denver – Peyton Manning.

11! That is a ridiculous amount of turnover at the most important position in football.

Now you can see why I’m pretty happy that the Giants have Eli Manning and we didn’t have to put up with the Peyton circus and the revolving game of quarterback musical chairs that teams like the Redskins and Dolphins plus players like Tebow and Smith have had to put up with this offseason. Heck, the Giants are even keeping their back-up QB David Carr.

You better watch out

You surely will cry

Better to pout

I’m telling you why

Kevin Gilbrides’ coming to town

He’s calling a play

On 3rd down and 3 

Gonna be a draw play thats not successful, you see

Kevin Gilbrides’ coming to town

He dreams of screen passes when he’s sleeping

He knows a 1st down he wont make

 He knows that he’s been bad not good

So fire him for goodness sake!

 Oh! You better watch out!

 You surely will cry

 Better to pout

 I’m telling you why

Kevin Gilbrides’ coming to town!

Merry Christmas Kevin!

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So without further delay, here we go.

Antrel Rolle’s NY Debut

Many forget that the state of the NY Giants secondary in 2009 was completely miserable. I will spare the details, but the Giants had the second worst passing defense in the NFL. Exit C.C. Brown and Michael Johnson, enter Pro Bowl caliber safety Antrel Rolle from Arizona, the veteran Deon Grant, and a rehabbed Kenny Phillips in 2010 and the Giants safeties were fortified with a vengeance. And the year started out with a bang for Antrel Rolle as evidenced by this classic welcome wagon interception in his first game as a NY Giant:

Welcome to NY Antrel Rolle…

Rolle went on to record 87 total tackles, a forced fumble and an interception for the Giants in 2010, he had a solid year that was overshadowed by his willingness to let it all hang out behind the microphone of WFAN. Antrel was a lightning rod when it came to criticism of descent in the Giants locker room, and Rolle’s outspoken nature did little to silence the debate surrounding Tom Coughlin’s grip on the discipline of his team.

In the end, the Giants showed enough resolve in their 10-6 finish to barely miss the playoffs with key losses to the Eagles and the Packers. Aaron Rodgers’ performance against the Giants was nothing short of flawless, and it was the start of their run that took Green Bay right through to their decisive victory in the Superbowl. There really is no defense for the perfect pass…

But looking ahead to next year I like the fact that Antrel Rolle is on the Giants roster holding down all things deep. The Giants adequately addressed their safety issues from 2009 by bringing in Rolle, and for most of the year the Giants had one of the better secondaries in the league. We’ll have to see if Kenny Phillips can rebound from his arthritic knee condition even stronger in 2011, and perhaps the Giants will look to the later rounds of the draft to provide some young talent for depth at corner back and safety positions.

But that’s all for today’s edition of Do You Remember? Tomorrow we’ll continue with the preseason goodness (I just said that, right? God I miss football…) with a little flashback from a young man named Victor. Till then, stay Blue.

[via NFL Videos]

The expectations for the 2010 New York Giants safety regime were quite high, to put it mildly. This “inimitable” squadron turned out to be…well..not too bad. This, of course, is debatable. Despite a few bumps in the road, one of the Big Blue safeties was voted to the Pro Bowl.

Paralleling the children’s tale, “Goldilocks And The Three Bears” (minus Goldilocks), Deon Grant, Antrel Rolle and Kenny Phillips represent the three facets of a professional football player’s career. Phillips – a relative rookie. Rolle – close to the midpoint of his profession. Grant – a seasoned veteran with more days behind him than in front.
(more…)

He led his team to victory in what was arguably the greatest game ever played. He was the MVP of Super Bowl XLII. This season, he moved up one slot, overtaking Charlie Conerly, to become #2 on the New York Giants‘ Top Ten Passers list. Why then were so many fans calling for the head of Eli Manning at season’s end?

An abundance of interceptions can easily stir up the “angry mob” mentality amongst football fans. Manning led the league in interceptions this season and told the media, the day after the New York Giants’ disappointing season finale, ”

I am not a 25 interception quarterback.”

That is the exact number of times he threw the ball into the opposition’s hands, however. Manning went on to say,

“I think obviously that’s got to be fixed. We have to fix that. That’s on me, the receivers, and everybody doing that, but most of it’s on me.”

(more…)

Anyway, onto the Not-So-Special Teams breakdown from the Giants 2010 season.

According to Pro Football Focus, the Giants would have been a top overall contender this year if it hadn’t been for the cumulative -20.2 rating they got for their efforts in all things Special Teams related.  That’s the worst Special Teams in the entire NFL folks.  Care to find out the details?

RETURNS

Not surprisingly, the Giants finished at the bottom of the NFL in several important categories here…  including kick return yards (1082 yds, 32nd), kick return avg (19, 31st), and punt return avg (6.1, 32nd) — considering the Giants had the 4th most forced punts in the league the Giants offense was not given as good field position as they could’ve.  Also, how sad is it that the great work consistently done by the defense wasn’t capitalized on CONSISTENTLY by poor Special Teams execution.

Obviously, field position is a huge factor that did not benefit the Giants offense as well as it should have.  KR/PR Darius Reynaud was completely unproductive and is the main reason for these stats, he was simply awful. With the hopeful return of Domenik Hixon, the Giants should improve these numbers across the board assuming he’s once again relegated to his role as token return man and 4th string WR.  Keep him healthy at all costs, because the Giants cannot afford another lack luster year in their return game.

PUNTING

Of his 73 punts, Matt Dodge averaged 44.1 yards per punt, 10th in the NFL.  He landed only 20 of those inside the 20 however, g0od enough for 26th in the league.  The Raiders Pro Bowl Punter Shane Lechler may become available in the coming days, the Giants should think about adding him to the training camp roster to provide some competition for Dodge, the would-be 2nd year rookie.

The biggest problem though as everyone knows (from the Eagles game especially) was the punt coverage team – 14.9 yards per return on average allowed by the Giants. Second worst in the NFL only to the Chargers.  Allowing 1 TD all season is forgivable, and typical, but the manner in which that 1 TD occurred is both unforgettable and unforgivable. Let the evaluation process begin indeed…

KICKING

Lawrence Tynes had a much better year overall.  He nailed 100% of his PATs, 47 for 47 which is 4th most in the NFL.  He also went 19 for 23 in FG tries for 82.6%…  Tynes also hit a long FG of 53 yards, both good enough to land him in the top half of the league.  Tynes reformed his motion, looked a lot smoother this year and is taking a more straight on approach to the ball.  He seems to have ironed out a lot of his issues and he was much more consistent this year.  Good for him.

The Giants had the 3rd fewest FG attempts though with 23, no doubt due to the offense having a better year in the red zone and Eli Manning converting on 31 TD passes and the running game amassing 17 TDs between the two backs.  However, late in games the Giants would consistently fail to sustain any drives into their opponents territory.  The down field goal numbers also point to a failure on offense as much as it points to converting TDs.  Both

And it should also be mentioned that Tynes only had 7 touchbacks and 77 returns, 8th and 3rd worst respectively.  Considering Tynes only kicked the ball 61.9 yards on average, 2nd worst, t’s a miracle that the Giants only allowed 19.7 yards on kick returns on average and allowed 0 TDs on kick returns.

CONCLUSION

Bill Belichick always said that if you win 2 out of 3 facets of your football game —  Offense, Defense, Special Teams — you typically win. If the Giants are going to help themselves win more games in 2011, I can’t think of a better place to start than ramping up their Special Teams play.

1) Bring in Shane Lechler if he’s available.  If not, another veteran punter to provide some competition with Matt Dodge is needed.

2) Punt returns — a new strategy in limiting return yards is needed if we don’t have a punter who can consistently bury the ball inside the 20′s.

3) Get Domenik Hixon back in the return game and keep him healthy at all costs!