Loading ...In what has become routine, expected and in some cases accepted, the New York Giants are once again facing an offseason of doubt. Many pundits have already written them off, claiming their chances to repeat as Super Bowl champions are slim to none. As has become the norm, focus has shifted to the other NFC East teams and how talented they are, or in the case of the Washington Redskins, how much they've improved.
The confetti had not yet hit the ground following Super Bowl XLVI before talk began about how 2012 would be the year of the Philadelphia Eagles -which, in the mind of Michael Vick, will be the first step towards a dynasty- or how Tony Romo is the premiere quarterback in the NFC East and will inevitably lead the Dallas Cowboys back to prominence. Meanwhile, in New York, the headlines have centered around the arrival of Tim Tebow and how how two quarterbacks with bottom five total QBR's will eventually find themselves in a controversy.
Ho-hum says Big Blue and their legions of fans. Welcome to the land of the Giants.
The football "experts" that talk of the Giants' long odds to repeat aren't saying anything that isn't obvious. In the history of the NFL, only seven teams have ever repeated as Super Bowl champions, with the Pittsburgh Steelers having done it twice. Thus, it's a pretty safe bet to assume the Giants won't do it. However, it's not nearly as impossible as some are making it out to be.
On the surface, the 9-7 New York Giants were, technically, the "worst" team to ever win a Super Bowl. Couple that will the unlikely odds of repeating and another quiet offseason from General Manager Jerry Reese, and the line of thinking for these highly paid football analysts becomes clear: there is no need to take a leap of faith, or even use any actual logic, when the odds don't favor a repeat. Instead, take the safe bet and maybe, just maybe, look smart when the season shakes out.
Alas, games are not won or lost and paper, and what happened a year ago will not influence what happens now. The fact that the Giants won the Super Bowl last season in no way, shape or form impacts what will happen in 2012 … it just puts them in a position none of the other 31 teams are in: a chance for two in a row. In other words, they're halfway there and now face 1 in 32 odds of winning it again – the same odds everyone else in this league has going into the season.
Another common argument for why the Giants will not, and cannot repeat in 2012 is their lack of a free agent splash in the offseason. Sound familiar? It should, because it's like a broken record that's set to repeat every year like horrible elevator music. Reese is routinely criticized for not doing enough to patch holes on his team, but very rarely praised for his ability to keep and maintain continuity – a strength, not a weakness, that is often overlooked in today's NFL.
Moreover, it's quickly forgotten by National media how devastated the Giants were by injury in 2011. And while the team may not have signed a plethora of free agents, they will have a small army of extremely talented players returning in 2012 to bolster what is already a very talented depth chart. Players like Terrell Thomas, Marvin Austin and Domenik Hixon will all be back and making an immediate impact, while other players like Clint Sintim, Justin Tryon and Bruce Johnson will return and push for jobs and add depth. Of course, that doesn't even take into consideration the health of Will Beatty, Osi Umenyiora, Mark Herzlich, Justin Tuck and David Diehl – all players who suffered through some lingering injuries a year ago.
Meanwhile, their 32nd ranked run offense only has one direction to go, and that's up. The addition of David Wilson, an explosive threat capable of breaking every play open, will likely go a long way in improving what was a futile run game. So long as Ahmad Bradshaw can remain healthy himself, the new-look ground attack should see significant improvement in 2012.
Then there's the obvious: Tom Coughlin and his staff are arguably the best the league have to offer. His players are going to be prepared for every single game and every single scenario within a game.
Oh yeah, there's also that guy named Eli Manning. You know, the one who gives his team a chance to win every single week.
At the end of the day (royalties to Antrel Rolle, who will also see significant improvement in 2012 now that he no longer has to play nickel corner), the New York Football Giants are built to win … right now. Not three years from now, not when they find another franchise player or find another coach, but this instant. They are as talented and deep as any team in the league, and are run by men -Jerry Reese upstairs in the office, and Tom Coughlin down on the field- who have only one goal in mind: Win. Win. Win. And win right now.
If the 2012 New York Giants can avoid the same injury bug that nearly crippled them a year ago, the odds to repeat as Super Bowl champions are not nearly as long as the talking heads would have you believe. Yes, it is difficult to win the Lombardi Trophy in an extremely competitive league, and no, it will not be easy. But of all the team to win the Super Bowl since the last repeat champions (New England Patriots in 2005/2006), Big Blue appears to be the most talented and most motivated.
Their journey from a year ago, at least in their minds, is not over yet. Super Bowl XLVI was merely step one, and they remain "All In" for Super Bowl XLVII.
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This is really starting to get to me haha.
Did I miss something? Is this some kind of inside joke that I’m not in on?
Barring either of those possibilities, I fail to see how posting the first comment on a forum that has barely averaged one comment per thread recently is anything worthy of note.
Of course, anything beyond a single comment these days should be enthusiastically celebrated.
That said… second!!!
Things were picking up, but the quiet time in the NFL coupled with the passing of JD really changed the overall mood around here (understandably so).
Ahhh… you know I’m just breaking chops, Dan.
I fully expect things to pick up around here next week when the Giants open camp.
Besides, I suspect I’m not the only one around here who has spent some time over the past few days reading Knick blogs, what with Lin-gate being the hot topic du jour (for the record, I’m one of the few people who are utterly indifferent that the Knicks did not match Houston’s offer. With or without him, they aren’t beating Miami. But James Dolan is still a schmvck and the worst owner in all professional sports)
Knicks 101 I hope. :)
+1000 on both the indifference about Lin and the contempt for Jimmy Dolan and his playpen at the Garden.
I grew up on the Frasier/Barnett (later Monroe)/Bradley/Reed/ DeBusschere team (including Phil Jackson) and haven’t seen the likes of that in 40 years thanks to the brainless ownership.
Tough to generate traffic when its the middle of July and we have been in self-congratulatory (justifiably) mode since February. The absence of controversey, or at least angst, reduces the interest. Obviously, once the pre-season actually starts and meaningful moments occur, people will wander back. and as soon as bad stuff starts to happen then the darts will fly and things will get interesting again.
That said, the one chestnut I repeatedly hear around here these days is one that I think is completely bogus: that is, “Tom coughlin always has his players ready to play.”
That is nonsense. At least 3 or 4 times a season the Giants get run off the field and look for all the world like they could care less. Last year it was Washington 2x(especially the second), New Orleans, Philly 2. Horrible horrible performances.
In earlier Coughlin seasons, the giants experienced at least 2 blowouts each year — remember Indy in ’10?
Coughlin’s teams routinely under-perform; lose when they should win; never demonstrate the killer instinct; and leave you flustered and frustrated. Then occasionally they pull off the greatest playoff run of all time.
So if one wonders whether the Giants can repeat, the answer is sure.
If one asks to handicap whether they will repeat, the answer is just as resounding a no because history tells us they will play erratically throughout the regular season and be lucky just to make the playoffs, and they likely will once again be the most injured team in the league playing the toughest schedule.
With the personnel on this team they could (some might say should) easily win 14 games, take the No. 1 seed, and run through the playoffs and head-long into a title defense against the Denver Broncos.
But history tells us that at least 4 key starters will be lost during the course of the season, and a dozen more for parts thereof, the team will take 4 games off, and they’ll finish around 9-7 or 10-6, leaving us all biting our nails for a playoff berth.
Jim in mid-season form. I’m feeling better already. Let’s play some football.
His comment made it feel like football season. Haha
The coach doesn’t play the game. All he can do is help them prepare, and inspire them to play great. Coughlin probably does fall short on the inspirational aspects of coaching. He expects his players to “do their job.” And like all jobs, some employees are not always at their best.
Sometimes I think these meltdowns might be the result of players not buying into what turns out to be a flawed gameplan. When the coach drums into head all week, “in order to win, we gotta run the ball,” and then the other team shuts you down, mentally a player might think, “we can’t run it, ergo we are gonna lose.”
Great piece Dan. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
It always befuddles me that the Knicks and Jets are almost always overrated before their season begins and the Giants and Devils are almost always underrated. I suspect that’s the result of “analysts” being influenced by the degree of press coverage, which is in turn influenced by the degree of dysfunction and drama that makes for good press but bad teams.
I absolutely agree with your statement that the Giants are the best-prepared team to defend an NFL title since the Patriots. I don’t care about that 9-7 record. First, it’s now irrelevant. Second, those seven losses were accrued while the team was badly diminished by injuries (and it isn’t really a coincidence that as players started to get healthy the team went on a streak). The “experts” seem not to have noticed that.
More important, those experts seem not to have noticed that the Giants are adding healthy players now who are not just solid role players, but are stars: Terrell Thomas (after showing he was ready for a Pro Bowl season he went down); Justin Tuck (played hurt all season and is now healthy); Chris Snee (finally admitting he played hurt last season); and a full season for Osi Umeniyora (who is also in a huge contract year for him and motivated by the $20MM+ at the end of the rainbow).
They also get a healthy Prince Amukamara who will now be familiar with the defense and a healthy Mark Herzlich (ditto). It’s really as if Jerry Reese went out and added a group of fabulous free agents within a tight cap and then, to top it off, had a phenomenal draft (yeah, they have to show it on the field, but any draft from the #32 spot that gets you Wilson, Randle and Hosley has to be considered remarkable….and then add Will Hill as an UDFA who may turn out to be a phenomenal player if he grows up).
Just the additions above make the Giants a MUCH more formidable team than the one that played one great game after another as they won their way through the playoffs against the best teams of 2011 (the best in 2011 were the Giants, the Packers, the Niners and the Pats, probably in that order). Unless injuries get them again, it is logically impossible to argue that this team will not be FAR better than the one that recently proved the best in the league when it counted. An objective observer who matches the Giants up against all the other teams this season would say that if they stay healthy and manage to get their offensive line working at a slightly-better-than-average NFL level in 2012 they have to be the favorites to win the Lombardi. But the experts don’t pay attention to all of the above so fall in love with the favorite flavors like the Eagles and Packers and Pats and find reasons to downgrade the Giants, Ravens and Niners, which I think is a big mistake.
Last season I picked Green Bay and the Ravens to meet in the Super Bowl. This season I’m going with the Giants and the Ravens.
norm,
Dan b*tched the other day that things are so slow that we’ll soon start to get posts bragging about being the first one to comment on a new article.
Thusly, I obliged.
Thanks for clearing that up.
The ways of you young ‘uns and the subtleties of your newfangled internet humor are all too often lost on this sclerotic ol’ brain.
When was the last time the preseason favorite to win the Super Bowl actually won it?
Perhaps someone far more motivated than I will actually put in the time to research the correct answer to that question. But my totally seat of the pants guess would be that you’d have to go back at least a decade to the heyday of the Video-Pats to find the most recent instance of a preseason favorite going all the way.
The NFL is NOT the NBA – where you go into every season knowing that only 3-4 teams have a realistic chance at a title (yes, you do have the occasional outlier such as Dallas or Detroit, but those are truly exceptional cases) In pro football, it’s almost impossible to foretell how things will play out in February from the vantage point of July. There are just too many unknown variables that cannot be accounted for at this point. So these preseason rankings often amount to little more than glorified popularity contests – something like an election for HS Class President (with the Eagles and Cowboys perennially playing the role of the “cool kids.”)
The ONLY thing that appears to have any predictive value when separating contenders from pretenders early on is The Top-10 QB factor. In today’s pass happy NFL, it’s safe to say that the teams who don’t have one should just “fuhgeddaboudit” (although both the Ravens and 49ers both came within a hair’s breadth of upsetting that little applecart last year) But if we hold that to be true and narrow our focus only to only those team’s who have the top-10 signal callers, then the Giants are definitely in the conversation… along with Green Bay, New England, Denver(?), Pittsburgh, Houston*… and whichever four other teams whose QBs play at a very high level this season. If being one of ten realistic contenders qualifies as “poised to repeat,” then, yes, the Giants are indeed poised.
* Note to the site’s many Brees lovers: I excluded NO not out of disrespect for your boy. I just think that team is in too much of a mess this year to seriously contend. Apologies in advance for any hurt feelings this may have caused.
You’re, like many others, underrating Joe Flacco. He is a Top 10 (or awfully close) quarterback. And he shares with Alex Smith the great fortune of playing on a team with a tremendous defense and a good running game (a much better than good one in Baltimore).
The Ravens were no fluke. They should have been the Giants’ opponent in Indy. I figure that will be corrected this time around, although Peyton and Brady may have something to say about that.
I see a good chance of a down year for the Texans, the Saints and the Lions (lots of maturity issues there that could come back to haunt them if Schwartz can’t get a handle on them). I think the Bears will be formidable in 2012 and wouldn’t bet against them winning the NFC North despite having to contend with the Pack and the Lions. That conference will be as tough as the NFC East this season, if not more so.
Well, that’s why I only listed six teams and left four spots blank.
I think the list of top-10 QBs is fungible. The six teams I mentioned (with the possible exception of Houston) all have QBs who will inarguably be in the top-10 next year. I don’t discount the possibility that Flacco can improve his game enough to be included on that list in 2012 (although I continue to harbor serious doubts about Alex Smith – which is why I think the 49ers will regress this year)
Other QBs who could conceivably play at a top-10 level this year are Rivers, Romo, Cutler, Stafford, Ryan, and Dalton. Should that happen in any one of those cases, their teams appear to have enough pieces around them to realistically contend for a title.
There is no doubt that this team COULD BE a dominant force. The low-key building process has produced a team that should be balanced in nearly every aspect of the game. They are talented enough to exploit the weakness’ of every opponent, every week, while leaving very little for their foes to take advantage. All the pieces are there, but until the commentariat sees some production, the team will continue to slip under the radar. Here are the “show me’s.”
Will Beatty – Show me you don’t have a chronic back problem.
David Baas – Show me you can block at POA.
Terrell Thomas – Show me a player can return to form, 11 months after his second ACL surgery.
Prince Amukamara – Show me why you were the “steal” of the 2011 draft.
Jayron Hosley – Show me how to shut down 4 and 5 wide formations.
Mark Herzlich – Show me a stud at middle linebacker.
Keith Rivers – Show me too much talent to keep on the bench.
Justin Tuck – Show me the Tuck of the playoff run.
Marvin Austin – Show me that two years off doesn’t matter.
Marty Bennett – Show me what a real tight end looks like.
Dom Hixon – Show me that two ACL’s ain’t no big deal.
Ramses Barden – Show me something, ANYTHING.
Ruben Randle – Show me what “NFL ready” really means.
Ahmad Bradshaw – Show me production and durability.
David Wilson – Show me the future.
Ware/Scott/Brown – Show me why you are still here.
My guess is 31 other teams in the league have an equally long list of “Show me [xyz]” players.
Ah, but the difference is the Giants players will likely prove to be the real deal.
Great comment and all absolutely legit. The thing is, though, that the pessimists assume none of these will be shown to be true, the ridiculously optimistic assume all will be, and the cautiously optimistic among us assume that if half of these prove out this team is loaded.
I think Baas, Amukamara, Rivers, Tuck, Bennett, Randle, Bradshaw and Wilson are pretty good bets.
I think Beatty is the Big Kahuna. He really NEEDS to be the left tackle and have a good year unless Brewer or Locklear shows in camp that he can more-than-adequately handle the right side.