Another thought about team depth

With the depth of the roster that our front office has built and with the commitment of the coaching staff to playing the entire roster, we get to take advantge of every player, from 1 to 53. One of the things that drove me nuts about ex-coach Jim Fassel was his insistence on playing only the starters for every snap of the game. As a result, we suffered with the following consequences: (1) players got injured more often because they played even when they were tired; (2) they were less effective as the game wore on; (3) when a starter went down, you were putting in a player that had absolutely no game experience. And, perhaps most important, (4) when a player retired, left via FA, or got cut, you had no idea what you had on your roster - whether the subs were worthy of keeping or whether you had to go out and get new players. By contrast, under Coughlin, because players now know they are going to get into the games, they practice harder and prepare harder and are actually ready when called upon. Looking at the playoff run last year, in every game our pass rush got better as the game wore on, certainly because we had a 6-7 man rotation on the DL and stayed fresh. Very important.

I shared this thought with my friend Ray Murphy and he made the following great point that highlights the depth on the team and the commitment of the coaches to use the entire roster. The most important defensive series that the Giants had in probably the last 15 years was when the Patriots got the ball back with less than a minute to go in the Superbowl after Manning-to-Tyree and Manning-to-Burress TD put us ahead. The biggest play in that series was a sack of Brady on 2nd down that was done by Jay Alford, a rookie DT, who plays probably about 1/5 of the snaps of the game. But - it was his turn in the DL rotation, so he was in there.

I love this coaching staff.