OL questions

As we're getting closer to opening game, only 13 days away from today, I want to focus on the one problem area with the Giants roster that can seriously undermine the entire season: the OL. Last season, the OL was terrible and there are several metrics to show that. Giants were near the bottom in the league in rushing yardage and Eli was among the most often pressured QBs in the league. Kareem MacKenzie's performance declined precipitously, from being a solid, better than average RT in 2010 to being really unproductive in 2011. I know Giants won two titles with Diehl at the all important LT position, but Diehl is far from a top shelf T and can probably be considered below average. He is graded as such by web sites like Profootballfocus that analyze each and every play of each and every game and grade out the players. Diehl is now over on the right side and we can hope that he plays a little better over there, now that his hands are no longer injured. I don't like hoping for improvement of a player that's been in the league for 10 years. On the left side is Beatty, if he can overcome his injuries and the jury is still out on him. In his place is Locklear who is a decent veteran who was acquired for depth, but certainly not a player that inspires great confidence in upgrading the running game and the pass blocking.

On the interior of the OL, Snee is very good and should have a rebound season from his injuries last year. Baas was mediocre last year, also was fighting head and neck injuries and has looked better this preseason. Boothe at the other G position is also not a stud OL-man and would be a very valuable player as a backup, but as a starter he is only average. He doesn't blow his assignments, but he is simply not very athletic and can get beaten by quick DTs.

Overall it's not a picture that makes you feel comfortable. Another way to look at things is to compare the different units on the team from their 2007 counterparts that won the first title in the Eli era. At WR, Giants have greatly upgraded with Nicks/Cruz much better that Burress/Toomer. The RBs were productive then, but Jacobs is gone replaced by faster and more dangerous Bradshaw/Wilson combination. At TE, it's too ealry to tell, but Bennet looks like a more physical player and a much better blocker than Kevin Boss was. On the defensive side, Giants have upgraded the CBs and definitely have upgraded the S position. The LB group has seen an influx of young, athletic speedy players mixed in with some experienced veterans. Even the DL that was the strength of the team back in 2007 has been upgraded with all-world JPP and with Tuck playing at a higher level than he did then. On the OL, however, Baas may be a downgrade at C compared to O'Hara, Boothe may be a downgrade compared to Seubert, Diehl at RT may be a downgrade compared to the way MacKenzie was playing the position back in 2007 and Beatty/Locklear is a question mark. Not a very pretty picture.

In summary, I would argue that the Giants have more talent and depth at every unit on the team than they did in 2007, with the exception of the OL, which is worse. Last year, of the 7 games the Giants lost, 3 were a direct result of the OL being outplayed by their opposing DL: the two Redskins games and the Eagles game. The OL may not sink the Giants season in 2012, but it is the weakest unit on a team that is otherwise deep and rich in talent.

Roster competition

The competition at WR is really interesting. Randle made a great cacth on a 50 yard pass thrown by Carr against the Jets. In that game, Jernigan made a few catches and looked quick and dangerous after the catch. Hixon made a great catch on Revis to convert a 3rd down. Barden dropped one catchable ball (Cormartie held him, but he could have caught it anyway). He also did not get open against Revis later in the game. It's looking to me like Randle and Jernigan are definitely going to get some playing time this year. Hixon probably will make the team also, his experience, reliability and knowledge of the offense tipping the scales in his favor. If the Giants carry 6 WRs, will they really carry Barden? How often does a 6th WR get into the game on offense..... answer - not very often. Consequently, you want someone in that slot who can play ST and Stanback might fit the bill. Truth is, other receivers have done well in camp, so Stanback might not grab it - Brandon Collins has played well also. My point is that, while he is most athletically gifted and was the highest draft choice - Barden might not be a lock to make the team.

At RB, I thought Ware might be on the bubble, but he has played so well in the games and so well in camp, that he is probably going to make the team. Bradshaw and Wilson are locks to make the team, so unless the Giants carry 5 RBs, there will be a battle for that 4th RB position between Andre Brown and Da'Rel Scott. I think Brown may get the nod because he is more physical than all the other RBs and Scott is too similar to Wilson in style to carry. he has been hurt and has missed practice time which also hurts,e ven though the coaches love his straight line speed.
How many DTs do the Giants carry this year? If they are limited to only 4, you can assume it will be Canty, Linval Joseph, Bernard and Austin. But Hendricks has looked great and Kuhn who was drafted this year, also has impressed the coaches. Canty may be on PUP first part of the year, so they will get to carry a different player in his place. But still ... is it 4 DTs or 5? If Hendricks or Kuhn get cut, and one of them surely will, my guess is they get picked up by some other team.
More on the rosters battles and numbers game later in the week.

Jets game review part I

By now you've read all the comments and the simple straightforward analysis of the Giants - Jets game, so here goes with some of the other stuff you may not have caught about the game.
OL looked poor - everyone agrees with that. Giants running game was poor and Eli got pressured once or twice. But that doesn't really tell the whole story and, while I of course would've liked to have seen a better running game, I think there are some factors that should mitigate our concern. First, the Jets 3-4 is a difficult scheme to run against. They played very aggressively and had LBs and DBs coming hard and crowding the middle. That's not an excuse, it's just that in a preseason game, when your offense doesn't watch film and doesn't game plan at all for what the opposing defense will do, it's not surprising that the OL had some trouble. Even with that excuse, I'd like to see better OL play and better running game. Baas was OK in the middle, but Boothe got beat a few times at his LG position. Locklear was a good pickup as backup LT.
The NFL better get the real referees back on the field. This is the second week in a row where a sure TD pass for the Giants was broken up by a DB who blatantly and egregiously held the arms of the WR as he was trying to make a play on the ball. This time it was Kyle WIlson on Cruz. Cruz had him beat and Eli lobbed up a soft one for Cruz to make a play on. Wilson grabbed both Cruz' arms so he couldn't catch the ball. Earlier in the evening, Jets CB Cromartie got away with a hold on Barden, but it was just for a first down, not a TD.
Hosely looks like a perfect fit for this Giants defense. And I'm not just saying that because of his pick 6. Giants have two big CBs (3 if you include Thomas) to play those bigger outside WRs in the league, but have nobody obvious to play the smaller, quicker slot receivers in nickle packages. Hosely has great CB skills, cover skills and instincts. He has outstanding ball skills, speed and toughness. The reason he slipped to the 3rd round in the draft is because he is a bit on the small side. But if he's covering insider where the smaller WRs roam, he will be a good fit for Fewell's system.
Hosely made a fabulous play on his INT. He was lined up on the right side of the defense at the line of scrimmage right on top of the WR. He had to back pedal, change directions and cut across the field trailing the WR on his crossing route, had to avoid a Jets WR, Patrick Turner, who was standing in the middle of the field in his way setting a legal "natural pick". He did that successfully and immediately turned on the burners to use his impressive closing speed. Sanchez threw the ball about a foot behind the WR and Hosely, who never stopped pumping his legs to catch up to the intended WR reached out, plucked the ball out of the air and went all the way with it. I know it's only one play, but he might be a real great addition to the Giants DB-field this year.

The Giants DL looked dominant, but we can't get too excited about that, because in truth the Jets don't have a lot of talent on offense and seem to be struggling in the OL. The impressive thing to me is how smooth JPP looked. Last year he made his hay by relying on his instincts, power and quickness. This past Saturday night, he used some real technique on his sacks, by getting the RT to lean one way and just pushing by him on a strong inside move. If he actually develops some sophisticate football moves like most "normal" DEs, he will be completely unblockable.

Injuries

My friend Ray, always a cerebral observer of the NFL scene, gave me an interesting view into the results of the NFL season. The NFL is such a hard hitting violent sport, and the injury rate for players is virtually 100% - i.e every single player appears on the injury report at least once in his career and nearly 100% miss some games due to injury during their careers. The incidence of injuries influence a team's results greatly. There's nothing really deep or insightful there, but Ray went a step further in his analysis. Because injuries are generally random in nature, you expect them to even out for each team over time. That doesn't necessarily mean that a team with a lot of injuries one year will have very few the next, but certainly over a longer span of several years time frame they can be expected to equalize. Ray asserted that because the 49ers were relatively injury free last year, especially on defense, and because that defense has little depth behind its front line quality, it's possible that they could be really vulnerable to some injuries this year.  It's safe to assume that a few key injuries there could really hurt the team. I searched on line for some analysis of injuries in 2011 season and found an interesting analysis on Football Outsiders that comes up with a stat called adjusted games lost. It indeed shows that the 49ers were in the top 1/4th of the league in terms of lack of injuries. Specifically,  49ers were 8th least injured team in 2011 and 4th least injured the year before, so they have had a run of good luck for last two years. Interesting that the two Super Bowl teams, Giants and Patriots suffered lots of injuries and were the 26th and 30th most injured teams in the league. It is a statement of depth of the roster and the fact that the Giants could stay afloat until their players got healthy to how they overcame the adversity.  Giants were also the 22nd most injured team in 2010, so maybe the Giants are in for a few years of better luck on the injury front to even things out.

The same thing really happened to the Packers in their 2010 Super Bowl run. They had a lot of injuries all year long, but stayed afloat near the .500 mark and got a lot of injured players back at the end of the 2010 season to be ready for their playoff run. In 2010 the Packers were the 30th most injured team in the league, where in 2011 they were in the middle of the league.

It's really unclear what is going on with the starting LT Beatty. He has some back issues, which typically can be managed, but he is up and down with this. The Giants have good talent up and down the roster; the two biggest question marks are in the OL and at the Amukama's starting spot at CB. Amukamara has flashed some talent but also got beaten badly in the Jacksonville game. As far as the OL - they were awful last year opening nothing for the running game. I saw the 49ers - Vikings game the other day and the 49er OL was really handling the Vikings. Jacobs even looked great, because he was getting himself running down hill into big holes before an DLman could put a hand on him. The Vikings are not very good, but the quality of their OL is evident. Giants need to really improve there and Beatty being out does not help.

Roster moves

As you've already heard, Rogers is done for the season as is another DT Parker. Austin's back problem seems to be minor; he may miss some training camp time but it shouldn't affect his availability for the season. But with Canty still on PUP, Giants went out and signed a few other DTs at least to have enough bodies to go through all the drills in training camp until the cut down dates. Some of the players they signed have previous NFL experience and will probably at the very least be serviceable players until Canty and Austin get back to full strength. Giants also signed a kick returner, Laron Scott, a rookie undrafted FA from Georgia Southern. With all the depth the Giants have on their team, and the difficult decisions they will have to make to arrive at the final roster, I am sure they don't love the idea of carrying a specialist that does nothing but return kicks, that only puts more pressure on the "numbers game".  But with two muffed punts in the opener, they may bite the bullet and take him.

The interesting side note to these roster moves is that in addition to signing DTs Wilson, Skinner and Powell; and the rumored plan to sign Marcus Thomas who played in the league for the Broncos last year, the Giants also released two other DL/LBs: they cut Justin Trattou and Clint Sintim, both because of injury. Trattou had  a bad ankle and Sintim never recovered from his multiple knee injuries. The reason I am bringing up the Sintim thing is that it is one of the very few unproductive high round draft pick that Reese has ever made. I was always somewhat suspect of this draft pick, because he was a DE in college that was shifted to LB in the pros. I've gone back to a post I made on this blog on 8/25/2010,  the summer after he was drafted and wrote as follows:

One interesting player to watch is Sintim. When he was drafted, I was unsure of where he might fit. He might be a 'tweener: he played with his hand on the ground, as a pass rushing DE in college. But he is too light to play DE in the NFL and the Giants shifted him to LB. The question is, obviously, does he have the speed and the instincts to play in space in the NFL. He may be a good run stopper because of his size, but may have trouble tracking TEs and RBs running pass patterns on defense. The Giants may envision him not as a 3-down player, but with all the defenses and offenses so situational nowadays, they may view him as playing on running downs only. This is of course risky, because (if you know the rules of football) offenses are in fact allowed to pass on downs that appear to be running downs. He could be a liability if he cannot play in space.

In retrospect, I have to say that my worries back then proved to be well founded. Sintim made a few plays from the LB position - some sacks and some run stops, showed that he was strong and athletic, but had an unmemorable stint as LB and never quite made it. The coup de grace of course, were his knee injuries which put the nails in the coffin of his career. Drafting a guy who played one position in college and expecting him to make the shift to another in the NFL is very suspect. Kiwanuka seems to be managing at LB, but the Giants really use him as a blend DE/LB and there are many others who failed trying to do this. One notable example that comes to mind is Vernon Gholston of the Jets, who was drafted very high, was unable to make the shift and never had his pro career get started.

Reese has been a wonderful talent evaluator and an excellent drafter of talent. The reason the Giants have such talent and depth on this roster is all because of the the master skills of JR. Nobody has a 100% success rate drafting and Sintim is one that he missed on.

Lot's wife

Some of you may be students of the bible, but if you're not, let me give you a little lesson. Lot, the nephew of Abraham, lived in the sinful city of Sodom. When God destroyed Sodom (and Gomorrah) Lot and his wife were saved and escaped the city, but they were warned not to turn back and observe the destruction of those cities they were fleeing from. Lot obeyed this commandment and was saved, but Lot's wife just couldn't resist, took a little peak over her shoulder and was punished by being turned into a pillar of salt. Presumably, the lesson of this biblical story, recounted to us in the book of Genesis is that we should not take pleasure in the pain and suffering of others. I consider myself a moral, ethcial, empathetic and religious person and I scrupulously and carefully follow this lesson and do not enjoy when others have pain.

With one exception - the Dallas Cowboys. I just love it when the arrogant, condescending, entitled group called America's team with an owner/GM who makes terrible football decisions for his franchise and then talks trash about beating the Super Bowl champs falls on his face. I know it's only one preseason game and maybe the Cowboys will get things worked out by the time the regular season rolls around, but they looked absolutely awful against the Raiders, who are themselves one of the worst teams in the league. Sometimes you can be shut out in preseason game and nobody worries too much - you can move the ball a little bit, make a few plays, show off some of the talented rookies you just added to the team, etc. In other words, take something positive out of the game even if you lost or your team didn't score offensively. But this performance by the Cowboys Monday night had to be worrying for Cowboys nation. Romo completely one pass for 20 yards and that was the only first down they achieved in 3 possessions. Their OL, particularly the interior part of it, which was said to be somewhat of a concern coming into training camp was in fact absolutely horrible. Raider DTs had a clear lane running at Romo on passing plays as soon as the ball was snapped. The Cowboys RBs didn't show anything, maybe because the OL didn't make any running lanes for them. I didn't watch that carefully, but I think Miles Austin, one of their starting WRs was out with a bad hammy (doesn't he perpetually have a hamstring injury?) and because they lost Laurent Robinson in FA, they do not have a defined third WR. On top of that, to make their outlook more bleak, there is a report in today's papers that said that Witten suffered some kind of serious injury in that Oakland game, may have a spleen injury and could miss substantial time, even into the regular season. Read about it here.

I hope I don't burn in hell for this, but hey.... it's the Cowboys

DT Injuries

Last year it was the CBs that got hammered with injuries in camp leaving the Giants with a  season long scramble to catch up and patch together sufficient coverage on the backend to provide representative defense. Coming together with the normal stream of injuries that inevitably happen during the year to other positions on the defense, it almost ruined the Giants season. Fortunately by the end of the season, some of the injured healed up and the season was saved. This year things looked quiet and relatively calm on the injury front. The one area where Reese was concerned was the DT position, because Canty was coming off serious knee surgery and Marvin Austin was in effect a red-shirted freshman who had no track record and had not played competitive football in 2 years. In response to this apparent lack of depth at DT, Reese drafted Kuhn and signed veterans Rocky Bernard and Shaun Rogers. As we blogged earlier, Reese was so concerned about this, he put Ballard at risk and lost him to the Patriots, but he felt bringing in the depth was critical. I don't know if we can say he was right or if he brought in the wrong players, but the injury bug that hit the CBs last year seems to have traveled to the DTs this year. Rogers was taken to the hospital and was diagnosed this morning with a blood clot in his leg. Martin Parker, another DT on the roster who I think had slim chance of making the roster is out with a bad back requiring surgery. Marvin Austin is also being looked at with a back problem, not really surprising because of his lack of playing time over the last two years. With Canty still on PUP and unlikely to be ready for the start of the season, if at all this year, the DT part of the roster looks thin. Bernard and Linval Jospeh are probably the current starters. Dwayne Hendricks, who has had a great camp and played very well against the Jaguars in the preseason opener will probably make the team now and get prominent playing time. I am worried about Canty - I think he will start the season on PUP and may not make it off, missing the entire season. Giants could go out and find some depth at DT after training camp cuts, or they could carry an extra DE/LB, give Tuck some extra snaps at DT and give Kiwanuka some more plays with his hands in the dirt to cover up the shortage at DT. I would not make Tuck a full time DT - his great value is his blend of strength and speed. Sticking him in the middle all the time makes him more prone to injury and mitigates his ability. We'll see.

UPDATE AT Aug 14; 16:12 -  The worst case seems confirmed; Coughlin is quoted as saying that Rogers is out for the season.

I took another look at the game the other night and came away really impressed with Herzlich. He was in on several running plays, looks very fast and physical and also showed good instincts in defending the pass.

There is so much talent and depth on this roster, the formulation of the team and the final cuts will be really tough. I wouldn't be surprised if Giants end up cutting some good players that end up on other rosters in the league. One simple example is at the WR position. It would be nice to carry 6 WRs and if the Giants do, the leading candidates are probably: Nicks, Cruz, Randle, Jenrigan, Hixon and Barden. But Stanback made a great catch the other night, has had a good camp and is a very good ST player. They also have some other WRs who look good: Douglas, Talley and DePalma, but let's assume they won't make the team. If you want to keep Stanback and can carry only 6 WRs, is there a chance that Hixon does not make the team? Or if Hixon makes the team is there a chance they cut Barden? Difficult decisions.