New York Giants display characteristics of a losing team
By Curt Macysyn
Endless chatter about play-calling, personnel, inferior production and game planning is not anything new in the NFL.
It is something new for the New York Giants, however. Even toward the end of Tom Coughlin’s coaching reign, the team avoided this nonsense. It was a credit to Coughlin that his teams largely kept their focus, despite numerous challenges. The most glaring challenge seemed always to be a lack of personnel.
In our continual effort to always turn the page, be reminded that general manager Jerry Reese provided Coughlin, players like Craig Dahl and Brandon Meriweather. Dahl and Meriweather were Coughlin’s starting safeties. It is doubtful that Vince Lombardi, George Halas or Bill Belichick could win consistently with some of the personnel groupings found at the end of the Coughlin-era.
New York Giants
For anyone keeping score, the noise under Coughlin was abated by giving the masses what they wanted: the heads of coordinators Kevin Gilbride and Perry Fewell. A few years after the fact, hopefully everyone has seen the light. The best coaching staff on earth cannot make something out of nothing. Neither guy was at fault.
Ben McAdon’t
Ironically enough, head coach Ben McAdoo doesn’t exist in Tom Coughlin’s shadow. After receiving a shiny, brand new defense, purchased by Reese, McAdoo can’t say he’s cleaning up Coughlin’s old mess.
It’s called accountability.
Personnel on these New York Giants teams appears to be far better than it was in Coughlin’s latter years. The 11-5 record and playoff berth masked deeper issues that have reared their ugly head in spades so far in 2017.
The roster is better with the gigantic exception of the offensive line. And don’t get me wrong, Coughlin could not have won with this unit either. But maybe the old ball coach would have had enough credibility with the owner to get an offensive lineman or three in here.
It’s time to look at the entire New York Giants operation and evaluate the capacity to produce a winner. For example, the Los Angeles Rams used addition by subtraction by jettisoning head coach Jeff Fisher.
It was about time.
With franchise quarterback Jared Goff now being protected by Andrew Whitworth, the offense became productive. The team has a bell cow back in Todd Gurley. And wideout Sammy Watkins may rise to the level of his potential on the Left Coast. Head coach Sean McVay may be 31-years old, but he appears to have control over the operation. Right now, Ben McAdoo cannot make the same claim.
Don’t believe what you see
In the world of the New York Giants, we continue to get excuses. NJ Advance Media reports that one of the main culprit for the current firestorm, Ereck Flowers, spoke to the media on Thursday. As you can imagine Flowers’ media skills are about as refined as his pass blocking skills.
"“Minus those few plays, I thought I played all right. Those three plays were big, so it overshadows any good work I did. But other than that, I’m on to the next week.”"
Really? So outside of the three sacks Flowers gave up, everything else was clean?
Even during Coughlin’s personnel-deficient campaigns, there always seemed to be hope. Currently, this team plays badly, and the coaches and players head to the microphone afterwards to suggest that fans don’t know what they just witnessed.
Losing teams lose for a reason. The aforementioned Los Angeles Rams’ former head coach Jeff Fisher thought he deserved an extension. In his five years with the Rams, Fisher did not have a winning record.
The coaching world often times becomes disconnected from reality.
By the way, did we mention that Sean McVay is the grandson of former New York Giants head coach John McVay?
Happy Friday everyone.