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.

Mocking Mock Drafts

These mock drafts are hilarious, really. They're fun and they get eyeballs on the screen or perusing the newspaper, I understand that part. But they are seriously flawed from two important perspectives. First - the mock drafters put their draft together purely on the basis of the need of the team, or at least their perceived need of the team. The teams on the other hand, at least pay lip service to the philosophy of drafting the BPA, best player available. On the surface, these approaches directly conflict with each other. Occasionally at the top end of the draft, the team's needs coincide with the BPA and everyone is happy. On the other hand, I think the teams always tint their player evaluations with team need, or with some other subjective measure. For example, the best QB in the draft will be more important and will have a higher grade than the best LG in the draft. But player evaluations are more complex than that, because it is not only a question of who is the best player, or what is the ranking of all the players at a particular position. It is also a question of whether the player is NFL ready. In one year it could be a very weak draft for WR, for example. Obviously, the best WR in that draft may not warrant a high first round pick. Each team puts together their draft board based on quality of player, importance of position, overall grade compared to the ideal player at the position and they must sprinkle in at least some part of team need. In the early rounds of the draft, the contribution of team need plays less into the decision making, because the team really is looking for a star, regardless (almost) of position. In the later rounds, when the players are more bunched together in talent and the team is less likely to find a star, team need will factor more into the selection. If you believe the teams, they use these factors to calculate a score for each player and list them in order from highest to lowest. They take the best player left on their board whenever their turn comes up. Last year, Giants needed a S and they loved Collins, who was high on their board. It was a moment when need coincided with the draft board, so they traded up to get him in the 2nd round.

Two great stories about drafting BPA vs. team need.

In 1980, Giants were coming off an awful season and had the second overall pick in the draft, behind New Orleans Saints. The Giants were just an awful team, no offensive talent to speak of - they did have Phil Simms at QB, though he was going through his early career injury period, but their OL and skill position talent was really poor. On defense they had a player or two on the DL and in the secondary, George Martin and Mark Haynes to be specific, but that's it. What they did have was three outstanding LBs in Harry Carson, Brian Kelly and Brad Van Pelt, which was the only strong unit on the team. With that second overall pick, the fans, the TV/radio media and the print media were campaigning for the Giants to pick some offensive talent or perhaps some defensive players on the DL and in the DB-field, but not a LB. The first pick was by Bum Phillips, newly appointed coach / GM of the Saints and he took George Rogers, Heisman Trophy winner, RB out of South Carolina. George Young picked Lawrence Taylor and the rest is history. George Young said that the fastest he has ever run was to get the pick of Taylor up to the podium.  LT was clearly the BPA and Young picked him despite having the only real talent on the team at his LB position. Phillips, on the other hand, made a need pick with Rogers - he believed that the RB was the most important position on the team, having just coached Earl Campbell in Houston. How'd that work out for those teams?

Second story is about the Dallas Cowboys and their legendary HC, Tom Landry. He was famous for drafting good players and for being faithful to the best player available philosophy. He said that he deviated from this strategy just once - in the 1979 draft - and it cost him greatly. He had an aging Roger Staubach at QB on the roster, who would retire after the 1979 season. He also had the QB in waiting, the QB of the future on the roster, a young good QB named Danny White. Consequently, he deviated from his BPA philosophy just this once and drafted some nondescript players in first few rounds. The BPA, the player he passed up because he had his QB of the future already on the roster was Joe Montana. 'Nuff said.

Statistics and Injuries

Those of you who know me know that I am interested in mathematics and statistics and will occasionally look at them in order to prove a point or guide a discussion. In the e-world, many Giants fans have been pointing to the strength and conditioning program and how the many injuries that the Giants have had are entirely the fault of the S&C program not keeping up with modern training techniques. The flip side is the Coughlin perspective who said over and over again that the piling up of injuries is just bad luck. The truth probably lies somewhere in between - you certainly cannot blame every injury that occurred on a flawed S&C program. Football is a violent sport, with heavy collisions that put a medical and orthopedic strain on the body. No doubt injuries will occur no matter how well conditioned the athletes are. Having said that, there are certainly training programs that can limit or contain some of the injuries, especially those that are not direct result of collisions and are more muscular and soft tissue injuries. Last year, after Beatty tore his pectoral muscle while working in the weight room, Coughlin instituted some changes in the program. There were "spa days" or recovery days, they used GPS devices to track the number of hits and the force of the collisions that each player experienced during practice, but still the injuries continued. (Note: later Beatty tore the rotator cuff in his shoulder while rehabbing from his pectoral injury.) The changes that Coughlin instituted after the Beatty injury, I believe were effective in reducing injuries. But they didn't address the core problem - a strength and conditioning program that was mostly focused on the "strength" part of the program and not enough on the "conditioning" part. Core strength, balance, flexibility, long lean muscles, efficiency of movement and pure conditioning are more important than how much weight the player can lift. Strength is important, but not at the expense of conditioning. Better conditioning contributes not only to reduced injuries but also to more effective play on the field.

Now to my statistical analysis of why this injury bug just can't be luck. Football Outsiders tracks a statistic called adjusted games lost (AGL) for each team. The reason it is adjusted games lost and not just total games lost is that they adjust the number on basis of which player was lost. They value loss of a starter or regular rotation player more than a bench player, rendering the statistic a little more meaningful. The Giants finished last of all 32 teams in the league in this AGL statistic for the last 3 years, something that's very hard to do. But it's too easy to simply say, it's unlikely and that this could happen by chance without putting some hard measurements around it. Here goes.

I looked at the AGL statistics for the last two years, 2015 and 2014. I made the fairly safe assumption that the  AGL sample for each year was normally distributed. I then calculated the average and standard deviation for each year. The standard deviation is a measure for how widely spread the measurements are around the mean. For example, if a student's average score on two tests that he took is 80, he may have gotten 75 and 85 on his two tests or may have gotten scores of 100 and 60. In both cases the average is 80, but in the second case the standard deviation is greater because the scores are more widely spread around the mean. For a "normal distribution" 99.7% of all the possible measurements are within 3 standard deviations of the mean. In 2015 the Giants' AGL was more than 3 standard deviations away from the mean and in 2014 it was slightly less than that, about 2.59 standard deviations away. Using these statistics and the normal distribution, you can calculate the probability that a team will get a sample score less than (or greater than) a particular number.

OK ---- for those of you whose eyes are glazed over with these boring statistics, let me turn this into English. The probability that by pure chance a number would be less than or equal to the Giants AGL for year 2015 is 99.88%. The same probability for year 2014 is 99.5%.
Looking at it another way, the probability that a random score would be greater than the Giants for 2015 and 2014 are respectively: .119% and .482%

Putting these together - the probability that any team could do as badly as the Giants in both years together is .000574%

Understanding this better - that is 5.7 chances out of a million.
(With apologies to D&D, quoting Lloyd Christmas... " so you're saying there's a chance")

Looking at the second worst team in the two year period, the Washington Redskins were .38%

In other words, Giants were roughly 1,000 times worse than the second worst team in the league over the 2 year period.

Here's hoping the new S&C coach does a little better than the last one.