Final preseason game: roster spots - offense

The offensive performance was less than inspiring last night. We have to hope the defense will carry the team until the new coach can fix the OL problems. Because if the OL gets fixed, there are plenty of weapons on this team to be productive. I have to say that I just don't love Nassib. He has not thrown the ball accurately this preseason and he missed a bunch of deep throws last night. He also missed some reads - King was wide open in the middle of the field on one scramble and he didn't see him.

At RB, it's a very close call as to who makes the roster. The RBs did a little better last night, but nobody really shined. Jennings, Vereen and Perkins are surely on the team. Rainey, Williams and Darkwa are fighting for the remaining spots and it is unclear whether the Giants will carry 4 or 5 RBs. The Giants OL and run blocking on the outside behind poor blocking TEs is questionable, so Giants might do a lot of their running up the middle, between the tackles, just as they did last year. If that's the case, Rainey's speed might be redundant and his skill set is similar to Vereen's and Perkins. If they keep only 4 RBs, and it comes down to Darkwa and Williams, I just have a feeling that they will keep Darkwa who is a little more versatile than Williams. However, it should be stated that Williams is ahead on the unofficial depth chart on the Giants website.

The decision on how many RBs they keep could well depend on how many WRs the Giants keep. Typically, they would keep 6, but dress only 5 on game day. The first 4 WRs, OBJ, Cruz, Sheppard and Harris are set. After that, it comes down to keeping 2 players from among Geremy Davis, Tavares King and Roger Lewis. You might think that Davis has an edge since he was a draft choice and Giants don't like to waste their picks.  However, King clearly is the most NFL ready of the three right now, while Lewis might have the biggest upside of the three down the road. King has been kicking around the league for a few years on a few different teams, which is probably what makes him more ready; but it also might give you the feeling that what you see from him now is all you're ever going to get out of him. Lewis, an undrafted FA and Davis who hardly played last year carry the hope of promise and optimism, which might be in their favor. If it was me - I would keep King and Lewis and cut Davis. Other WRs, Powe and Dable might make the practice squad.

On the OL, Jones, the CFL import did not look very good at C last night. He's pretty athletic, but he's just not big enough. Flowers was uneven in his performance as was Bobby Hart. Hart looked good at times and was playing LT in the 2nd half, but I saw him get beaten badly on a pass rush. The other backups - Cleary and Gettis look pretty average at best.

At TE, this is now a position I am worried about. Tye and Donnell were both a little better blocking last night and Donnell did make one really good catch. But Jerrel Adams looked totally lost in the passing game. When he knows exactly what to do, he does fine. But when he has to feel his way, read the soft spots in the zone or improvise a little bit, he seems uncomfortable. His blocking was fine, but not outstanding or particularly noticeable. If Giants keep 4 TEs and we include Will Johnson in that group, the Giants may actually look over the cuts from other training camps and sign one of them to replace Will Tye.

When the coaches cut a guy and say it is a numbers game, I know what they mean, the analysis above informs as to why every decision is related to other decisions within other units. If you really like this WR group and want to keep an extra one because you want to develop him for the future, it means that you have to keep one fewer player at another position group. It can have  a cascading affect on other units on the entire roster.

Final preseason game: roster spots - defense

Thoughts from the final preseason game and roster spots on defense:

Giants defense has a chance to be really good this year. They went without many starters on defense last night, in particular, the entire DL did not play and they still did well against Patriots first team offense. The CBs look capable and deep. Trevin Wade, our 4th or 5th CB made several plays last night including INT of Brady. Landon Collins looks like a totally different player than last year - still aggressive, attacking in the box, but with enough speed and coverage skills to make plays in the passing game as well. His partner at S last night was Berhe who also looked very good - fast, hard hitter and always in good position. Eli Apple looks absolutely great and has looked good the entire preseason.

There is a numbers game to be played in the DB-field and it is pretty confusing. If Giants want to carry 5 CBs and 4 at the S position, then it will be: Rodgers-Cromartie, Jenkins, Apple, Hall and Wade at CB. Wade played great last night and merits a spot on the roster. At S it would be: Collins, Thomson, Berhe and probably Mykelle Thompson. Currie and Adams, two other contenders at S just don't look athletic enough to me to play in the NFL. Deayon at CB is a feel-good story, tries hard but is just way too small to be effective at CB in the league. The Giants may like McFadden and want to keep him on the roster and may talk themselves into doing this and cutting Mykelle Thompson at S because Hall can play S. I would keep Thompson because I don't think Hall has looked good this camp - he looks slow and does not show a lot of fire.

At LB, for the first time in a while, Giants have some players. I am not sure how many LBs Giants will keep on the roster, but if it comes down to a battle between Herzlich and J T Thomas, it's going to be a really tough one. Off of the game last night, Herzlich looks much better and more game ready right now. But if you're combining performance in this camp with what you have seen from each player in the past, you might go with Thomas.He is faster and has more pedigree at LB on the defense, though perhaps not on ST. Herzlich actually looked a little trimmer and faster than I remember him being in the past  and is a pretty good ST player, so Herzlich might get the nod.

Overall on defense, I have to say that this is the best Giants tackling team I've seen in a while. I know it's only preseason, but their tackling is very sure - I hardly have seen a missed tackle. It could be because they have better athletes on the defense, but it also could be a corollary outcome of the new strength and conditioning program. It's not just there for reduced injuries, but better core strength, balance and flexibility means defenders in better position and becoming better tacklers. Let's hope it carries over to the regular season and it's not just a mirage.

More roster follow ups

Yesterday's blog post, where I took a shot at Donnell and said I did not like him as TE is moot ---- both LaCosse and now Maleck have been waived because of injury and even the other TE option TE/FB Will Johnson has been on the shelf because of an injury - a stinger. The other player who theoretically could have served as a functional blocking TE, Nikita Whitlock, last year's FB, was waived with an injury. So a position, TE/FB that a week ago looked like it was crowded and filled with competition now is sparsely populated and Donnell will definitely make the team. But both he and in particular Tye have been called out by the coaching staff because of poor blocking, so I think Will Johnson, when healthy will play a lot. And the point of this post is to say that I would promote Jerell Adams on the depth chart and give him a a lot of snaps, even ahead of Donnell. Adams came out of college as somewhat raw, with a reputation as  a good blocking TE but questionable in the passing game. He looks like he is progressing in the passing game and that is a more natural part of everyone's game  who has ever played football, so I expect it to improve. He is playing great on ST so there is little doubt he will make the team now, but I would elevate him and see what he's got; see if he can be developed sooner rather than sitting on the bench as a long term project.

Will Beatty was resigned to prop up the OL. This makes a great deal of sense - he was never a stud LT, but he was capable; a solid NFL caliber OT. I presume that they will leave Flowers at LT and let Beatty supplant Newhouse at RT. While Beatty may not be a star, he still represents a significant upgrade to the OL. It's ironic - I had just been discussing with all my Giants buddies that the Giants in the off-season upgraded, in some cases significantly upgraded EVERY unit on the team (except for QB). We have two new DL-men in Vernon and Harrison. Really we have 4 if you count JPP and OO's emergence from the injury hell of last year. We added two LBs - Shepard and Goodson and got Casillas back to good health. Giants added 2 CBs and a safety. They added a WR (Sheppard) and RB (Perkins) in the draft. We even added a pair in the TE/FB position by drafting Adams and signing Johnson. It sure seems to me like the only unit we did not upgrade was the OL and, while the OL wasn't horrible last year, it certainly was not a unit of strength. It was one of the units that we all felt was in need of improvement. We've read all the stories from the draft room that Giants were intending to draft a T, but got outmaneuvered, ending up with Eli Apple. I think this will end up being a blessing in disguise because I think Apple will be  a stud. Nevertheless, Giants needed to upgrade the OL. With this Beatty signing, they did.

Roster moves

If this were my team, Larry Donnell would be a roster cut. He is just not good enough - he can't block at all and the poor TE work in the blocking department is one reason the OL looks worse and the running game looks worse than it should be. Donnell is a completely one dimensional player and even as a pass catcher he is somewhat limited. He is a big target, convenient for the red zone, and occasionally able to catch those seam routes. But he fumbles too often, drops too many balls, runs too upright and therefore gets attacked at his knees. He is constantly looking to protect himself from those chop-at-the-ankles-and-knees tackles and so he goes down way too easily. I haven't looked at the stats, but just viscerally, his YAC yards have to be close to 0. The only thing keeping him on the roster is that LaCosse is always injured, in fact he was waived injured today. Ryan Malleck is just not talented enough to nudge Donnell off the roster, but he is just not a quality NFL TE. If he were in his first year, we would be salivating about his upside and would be hopeful that his blocking would immprove. But let's face it - he's not a rookie, he's been in the league 4 years, if you count his year on the practice squad. If his blocking hasn't improved up until now, it probably just ain't gonna' get any better. I would promote Jerell Adams above Donnell on the depth chart. Adams was a blocking TE in college, so maybe he can do a better job than Donnell and so far, from the little I have seen of him on film from games and practice, he is flexible, quick, a decent route runner and has good hands. He's got a learning curve, to be sure, but I have given up on investing time in Donnell.

Maybe some team out there needs a TE, remembers the 3 TD performance by Donnell against the Redskins or maybe the game winning TD catch against the 49ers last year and gives us a reserve OL-man or a 3rd od 4th round draft choice in a trade.

By the way - speaking of a leopard not changing his spots - did you see that Reuben Randle was cut by the Eagles. Randle (or RFR as I call him) is one of my most unfavorite Giants players ever. OK, maybe Dave Brown is ahead of him on the list, but RFR is pretty darned close.

The other roster spot with lots of competition is WR. Tavarres King looked real good in practice and right behind him is Roger Lewis. Myles White got cut today, so it looks to me like the WR corps will be: OBJ, Sheppard, Cruz, Harris and these two neophytes: King and Lewis. Two others will probably make the practice squad: Powe and Dable.

Next question is what happens at RB. It's really hard to judge the RBs with this awful OL play. Jennings, Vereen and rookie Perkins are locks to make the team. After that, it depends if Giants carry 4 or 5 RBs. If they carry only 1 more RB and it comes down to Rainey, Darkwa and Williams, I think they may keep Darkwa and cut the otehr two. Pretty close call, though.

Maybe

Third preseason game review

A couple of years ago,  at the end of the season, John Mara famously complained to Gilbride Sr and Coach Coughlin "the offense is broken, fix it". He was rightly worried about all the INTs, lack of creativity and the great complexity and indecision in the routes that the WR were running and the many midroute adjustments they had to make. This meant that the QB and WR were often not on the same page. So, we fired Gilbride, hired McAdoo as new OC and the offense greatly improved in the succeeding two years. We have a Super Bowl caliber QB, lots of talent at the skill positions, but now, however, we seem to have another problem and that is that the OL and the TEs can't block anyone. Every play was completely exploded by the Jets DL; every running play the RB was clobbered as soon as he took the handoff from Eli; and there was never a clean comfortable pocket for Eli on passing plays.

Everyone in football talks about how important the work in the trenches is and it's true. But comparatively, the OL is even more important than the DL ---- here's why: if you have a weak DL, you can still field a somewhat representative defense and cover up weakness in the DL. You would need great LBs and/or a strong secondary and some creative coaching, but you can somehow compensate for it. The defense may not be great without a good DL, but you can field a defense that is somewhat functional. But on offense, there is just no getting around a terrible OL. No matter how good your QB or other skill position players are, they can't compensate for a terrible OL. A bad OL just ruins the offense.

It's only preseason and the Jets do have a very formidable DL, Buffalo plays multiple looks and blitzes up front a lot, so perhaps we shouldn't overreact. On the other hand---- if the OL had played poorly but at least showed something, we could grasp at some straws of optimism or at least hope. But this week, the OL was just completely dominated on every play and there is definitely cause for concern, if not total panic.

On the other side of the ball, however, I think the defense has a chance to be very good. The DL has strength and depth. The starters look great - two excellent DTs in Harrison and Hankins; two excellent DEs in Vernon and JPP. Some depth off the bench in Bromley and Odigizuwa, and even a young "comer" in Okwara who looks great. Towards the end of the game Okwara was abusing the Jets OL, looking like LT in his prime. Granted he was going against 2nd and 3rd string players --- but he just looks like a player. The LBs all of a sudden look like a formidable group with Casillas really standing out (hope the rib injury sin't too bad) and competnet depth behind all the LBs. I am really enthused about ELi Apple, he looks great. Right now, I think he s a better CB than expensive FA Janoris Jenkins. Collins looks better than last year, actually making some plays in the passing game.

The defense has a chance to be really good, but no team can be a playoff team or a serious contender without good OL play and right now, we're not showing it.

Training Camp observations I

I haven't  been out to training camp yet, planning to go next week sometime. Consequently, these observations are limited to the various reports from all the media outlets that I read voraciously and from the film that I watch, released by the Giants and from other sources.

It seems that our QB is having a great camp and is feeling very comfortable with the weapons and the offense. We can't get overconfident in this, because in camp, the OL and DL don't get to grit their teeth and go after it that hard - they don't hit the QB, the QB knows he's not going to get hit, so he just stands there and throws. Nevertheless, it's better that he looks great than not. He threw an INT on the first pass in camp and has not thrown one since. I said this before and it may sound ridiculous - but if it's possible for a two time Super Bowl MVP to be underrated, Eli is the one.

Everyone is excited about Sterling Shepard; he seems to make a big play every practice and is very polished and professional. You can't get too crazy about the highlights the Giants release of him, because they are after all highlights meant to show off the best in a player. But he does certainly look like a play maker. The flip side of that is that while everyone is saying that Cruz is coming along and if he ends up delivering 75% or 80% of what he used to be, all will be well in Giants land. I disagree. He's not and never has been a dominant physical presence. He is smallish and quick, not a speed merchant. He was dangerous for a slot receiver, perhaps the most dangerous slot receiver in the league. But it may be a very narrow margin and if he loses that step, that quickness that distinguished him, it's possible that he could become a very ordinary receiver. Parallel history lesson: There was an NBA player named Hal Greer - great player, played on the old 76er teams with Wilt Chamberlain. He was a 6'2" guard, quick as could be. He didn't have to worry about dropping down to help rebound, because Wilt had his back. When the opposing shot went up, he ran down court, caught an outlet pass from Chamberlain, dribbled hard to the basket, stopped at the foul line, let everyone run past him and scored 10 points a game on open jump shots from the foul line. As he aged, one year he lost a step and no longer could beat everyone down the court. He was out of the league in a year. Sometimes it's a very thin margin that makes a player special and when he loses that edge, he doesn't go from great to very good, he goes from great to ordinary.

From what I've seen on film of Cruz, he does not have the sharpness and separation ability in his routes. When he runs the hook / comeback routes, it looks like he has to take 4 or 5 little baby steps to slow down and stop before he comes back for the ball. This gives the DB a chance to break on the route and stop the play. The 4 or 5 steps could be an indication of weakness in his calf and knee or his mental uncertainty in trusting his legs. Or it could be that the Giants are asking him to proceed slowly and he is working his way back. But if you look at his physical condition, his upper body strength, he looks great; so you would expect his wheels to be equally strong. The fact that they don't look great to me is a warning signal.

TE is a really interesting position to handicap. LaCosse has played well but keeps getting hurt. Will Tye played very well last year and is a lock to make the team. Donnell is big, has talent the Giants love, but he drops the ball, fumbles after the catch, falls on his head after every catch and has a close to 0 YAC number. When this happens to a rookie, you hope for improvement, but he's been around too long to have strong expectations that this will change. The draftee Adams will probably show enough in camp and in game films that the Giants will not be able to sneak him through onto the practice squad. They have Will Johnson who will take up snaps at TE during the season...... my point is: I am not sure Donnell's roster spot is safe.

Draft Review Take 1

The draft of 2016 is history now and the experts, god bless them, have actually come out with their first mock drafts for 2017. That's pretty crazy because, of course, you don't know what order the teams will be drafting and what needs they will have. I am a little ambivalent about the draft results this year - so i  will try to take both the pessimistic and optimistic views and try to be objective about the draft bounty this year. On the surface, this was a very good draft, if we look at the players that were added. Eli Apple looks like he will be a very good CB in this league. He has excellent cover skills, good size and great hips and footwork. In the pass happy NFL, with most teams running out 3 WRs and pass receiving capable TEs, you need 3 good CBs, not 2. So the idea of drafting a CB is fine. The fact that nearly every draft expert had Hargreaves rated ahead of Apple should give us pause, especially with some spotty player evaluations that the personnel evaluators have brought in recent past. But Giants had both CBs available to them and obviously gave Apple higher grades, so i can't beat them up for that. The questionable side of this pick is that there was Myles Jack and Tunsil available for the taking at positions of need, LB and OL. It's clear that after the Damontre Moore and Marvin Austin disasters of last couple of years, Giants were being extra conservative and taking players that were squeaky clean. They also were taking players that performed well on the football field and were not taking players only because of their performance at the combine. The other factor shaping their decision making was the injury bug, so I can understand backing away from Jack. When Reese tells us Apple was the best player on the board ---- well maybe so, but this was clearly a need pick. You just have to hope that they did not reach too far and that Apple will develop into a star CB. You don't pick in the top 10 hoping for the player to just make the team and be a rotation player - you want excellence.

In the second round, Shepard is a terrific pick at WR. He has excellent route running skills, great hands and if he is playing opposite OBJ, enough speed to burn the DBs and make some plays. Everyone says he is a slot type WR and reminds them of the second coming of Victor Cruz. That may be his size and his style, but I think he can be a throwback to Steve Smith, who was an excellent WR for NYG until he suffered bad knee injury. The S in the third round from Boise State, Darian Thompson is someone who will definitely compete for a starting S job. With all the young talented athletes Giants have at that position - we can expect at least one of them to step forward and grow into a solid starting S.

In summary - Giants got good talent in these three picks, but may have overshot and reached for their first round pick Apple. My big worry from these first three picks and from the draft overall is that Giants did not get any help for that right side of the OL. That has to be addressed before the season with some veteran FA.