Loading ...
Although the New York Giants are heading into the 2012 season with one of the most talented, versatile rosters in the NFL, there is still a glaring weakness on the offensive line.
Prior to the 2010 season, Big Blue had one of the most consistent and productive offensive lines in the league. In fact, veterans Chris Snee, David Diehl, Kareem McKenzie, Shaun O'Hara, and Rich Seubert all started 59 of 69 games dating back to the 2006 season. However, Snee and Diehl are the only members of that group currently on the roster, as the team has decided to go with younger, yet unproven players to fill the voids left by the veterans.
One of those younger players is Will Beatty, who is in his fourth year out of UConn. Beatty is a big (6'6"/ 319lbs), strong, athletic specimen that played relatively well for the Giants at left tackle for the majority of last season. However, a detached retina left him sidelined for the final third of the teams improbable Super Bowl run.
While many expect Beatty to come back and improve in 2012, a back injury has left him sidelined for the latter part of training camp so far, and his prognosis seems to be uncertain. On Wednesday, New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin did not discount the notion of moving David Diehl back to left tackle.
“There are all kinds of thought of lots of stuff, but Beatty comes back next week,” Coughlin said. “The idea is to get the best five out there.”
While Sean Locklear is currently lining up as the starting left tackle, there is no way the team will head into week one with that set-up. So although moving Diehl back to the left side would be the team's most sensible option, it would be a sobering reality check for just about every Giants fan.
Diehl's versatility is an extremely valuable asset. However, Pro Football Focus recently ranked him last in pass blocking efficiency among NFL tackles over the last three seasons. Diehl is going to be 31 this year, and he has already showed serious signs of decline in his play. While the team won a Super Bowl with him at left tackle a year ago, there are no guarantees that his play will not deteriorate further in 2012.
Will Beatty should be able to return in time for the season opener against the Dallas Cowboys. With that, David Diehl would be fine protecting Eli Manning's blind side for a game or two. However, for the Giants' to improve their offensive line play from a year ago, David Diehl can not be the team's left tackle in 2012.
While Diehl has been a stalwart on the offensive line for his entire career, he is currently an aging player whose physical abilities are becoming increasingly limited. We have seen him have trouble keeping up with the league's more athletic defensive linemen last season, and we will most likely see it again in 2012. Hopefully Will Beatty's health will not prevent him from becoming the team's long-term solution at one of the most important positions on the roster.
Also…
- Be sure to "like" Giants 101 on Facebook and to follow Giants 101 on Twitter
- Text "oneteam" to 20222 to donate $10 to the One Team for the Lights charity initiative.
Related Videos
Returning Soon!!!!No related posts.
Short URL: http://sport-ne.ws/ikd
Well, of course TC will not “rule out” Diehl at LT. What is his best option if Beatty cannot get healthy? It’s Diehl until proven otherwise.
I’ve said many times, the quality of the O-line will be determined in 2012 by whether Will Beatty stays healthy and improves. That’s the whole ball game. But let’s not panic because back issues for LTs immediately bring to mind Luke Pettigout. There are back issues and back issues. If Beatty’s problem really did result strictly from over-stressing his muscles doing weight-lifting, and he has no disc problem, then he will probably be fine.
And Tom Coughlin, being a very smart football coach, is not going to hand Beatty a position when he has missed a lot of practice and still needs to prove himself to the coaches. If Coughlin said anything else this would be a story. What he said is not that.
Hold your grounds Jacobs!
——————————————–
It looks like quite a few people within the San Francisco 49ers organization are still grumbling over last season’s NFC Championship loss to the New York Giants. And one former Giant, running back Brandon Jacobs gets to hear all about it.
“Brandon Jacobs learned it was still a touchy subject soon after the ex-Giant signed with San Francisco in March. Jim Harbaugh pulled him aside one day to complain about the forward-progress call that wiped away an apparent fumble late in the game by Jacobs’ former teammate, Ahmad Bradshaw,” wrote Mathew Barrows of The Sacramento Bee.
“I don’t feel bad for you, coach,” Jacobs told Harbaugh, per the Bee. “That’s how I leave it, and I’ll go on with practice.”
49ers running back Frank Gore spoke out during a meeting regarding the overtime loss to the Giants.
“You could hear it in his voice,” Jacobs said. “The guy was angry. And I would have been angry, as well. No question about it.”
The San Francisco Forty Whiners…
… ably led by Complainer in Chief, Jim Harwaaaaaagh.
I live in California and have to hear about that “fumble” once a week. I can not stand the Niners and their fans.
They are definitely one of the worst, least football savvy, most fair weather fanbases in all the NFL.
When times are good, they puff themselves up with an overblown sense of pride and entitlement. And when times are bad, they are nowhere to be found.
I’l take Raider fans – with all of their flaws and craziness – 10 times out of 10. Their devotion to the Silver & Black is real and deeply felt, making them the only true football fanbase in the SF Bay Area.
If you ask any Niners fan this offseason, they’ll tell you they are the frontrunners to win Super Bowl. It would really make my year if they fall flat and miss playoffs. Too bad its the worst division in NFL
Continuing the RB discussion from the previous thread:
I do not accept it as a given that Wilson is going to see limited playing time this year.
And yet there seems to be a growing consensus here that this could be the case. I think the reasoning for that viewpoint is flawed, as it appears to be largely based on the limited playing time that the Giants have allocated to other highly drafted offensive rookies in the past.
But there’s a significant difference this year. Many of those rookies were WRs – unschooled in the ways of Killdrive’s Chinese Arithmetic Offense. Wilson is a RB. Moreover, he’s the first highly drafted running back seen around these parts since *gulp* No Gain Dayne in 2000. So we’re talking about uncharted waters here.
Yes, Wilson has to show himself capable in the areas of pass protection and ball security before he sees the field. But unless Wilson is a total idiot, that figures to be a much easier learning curve than that negotiated by the typical rookie Giant WR. I doubt it’s going to take him most or all of his first year to figure it out, as has often been the case with the wideouts.
The much discussed complexities of pass protection aside, RBs have historically shown to have one of the easiest and quickest transitions from college to the pros. It’s not rocket science – or even Chinese Arithmetic. More like: Get ball; run with ball; hold on to ball. And given Wilson’s much ballyhooed, utterly unique (especially on this Giants team) physical gifts and game changing potential, it’s going to be very hard for the coaches to keep him off the field in lieu of a perennially banged up Bradshaw or a mediocre Ware.
Wilson will play this year. A lot. Maybe not in Weeks 1, 2, or 3… but not long thereafter. And once he gets on the field he’ll be tough to get off, if he stays healthy. And that would obviate the need for carrying a fourth back.
Ingram said yesterday they plan on Wilson being a big part of the offense even if he hasn’t mastered the pass protection
he said Wilson is so explosive they have to have him on the field, even if it means specifically designed plays
and what’s all the angst over the backs?
we know that Bradshaw is tough as nails and damn good, even if injury prone and not quite what many of us hoped back in ’07
by all accounts, Wilson has world class ability
Andre Brown is now 3 summers removed from his achilles, has fresh unbattered legs, and coming out of college was being compared to Rodney Hampton
Ware we know is serviceable, if unspectacular
and Scott is freaky fast and still could develop if his injuries don’t get him cut
there’s a lot of talent there
Not so much an issue of angst as it is a question of whether the team should carry four RBs, as they did last year.
Given the fact that neither Brown, Scott, or Martinek appear to have distinguished themselves from your typical NFL journeyman back who can be picked up pretty much anywhere, anytime I argued that carrying a fourth back makes no sense. Especially not this year where that roster spot might be put to much better use elsewhere.
This article is just flame bait for me
That was my first thought when it went up. Figured you’d be all over it.
Housework and watching my goddaughter is keeping me at bay.
Well duhhhhhh.
I don’t see why they just don’t start him at LT. We know he can play there. Not at an elite level but a pretty reliable one. Move Beattys punk a$# back to RT.
Speaking of the NFC Championship game.
- We did get very lucky on that call. The same exact play happened the week before when we held up Ryan Grant and he fumbled. They didn’t blow the whistle there and they did in San Fran.
- To quote JR on what it takes to win a championship
1. Good coaches
2. Good players
3. A little bit of luck
You need all 3. The people who claim we won purely on luck are haters. But we did get a few nice bounces, and took advantage of them like champions do. Thats the difference between us and the Jets. We capitalized on our lucky bounces / whistles in our favor. The Jets had two Cinderella rides to the AFC title game and couldn’t capitalize on either trip. Losers.
I used to like the Niners. I used to like Harbaugh. No longer can stand either of them. I lived in San Francisco and never knew I was surrounded by such a bunch of sissies and whiners (although the Summer of Love might have been a reasonable hint). Two of my kids went to school near there and wound up living in San Francisco for some period of time but thankfully left quickly enough to not get close to liking the Niners (although both became almost-fans of the SF Giants because they loved their home field, for which I cannot blame them).
San Francisco = second-rate town that masquerades as a more sophisticated place than it is, and will always have a small-town mentality. Jim Harbaugh was a great coach for Stanford because they needed a bullying jerk to convince the players and recruits that they could compete with the likes of USC. But his tough guy act will wear thin after a few more big losses when he publicly cries foul once too often and his bellyaching shows him to be the town bully who can’t handle adversity.
I can’t help but love the fact that between 2007 and 2011 the New York Football Giants have left a lot of elite teams convinced that they really shouldn’t have lost to the Giants and there has to be an explanation other than that they were beaten by a better team. The Cowboys were bewildered in 2007; the Packers claimed the Giants were lucky because of the fumble recovery on McQuarters’ drop and Favre’s ill-advised pass; the Pats insisted they were the best team in the league regardless of the outcome in Arizona; and no one except the Falcons admitted the Giants were the better team in 2011 all the way through a second championship in five years. All this whining and rationalizing does wonders in the Giants’ locker room, where Tom Coughlin doesn’t need to do much convincing to have the players believe that they STILL haven’t earned the respect they deserve. It’s priceless.
To be fair I heard Greg Jennings on NFL Network a month ago say that the giants just outplayed the packers and that the giants were simply the better team and he looks forward to next season
Anyway if any other fan tries to make a skip bayless comment about luck ie
“Well if Asante Samuel catches that interception in the SB, then the Giants don’t win SB42.”
Answer: But he DIDN’T catch that ball, and we DID win SB42.
Thats what I say to people who try and hate. Or I just start singing “I got a ring.”
When the Niner fans bring up the fumble I remind them about that blown debauchery of a play in 2003 when the Giants lost to San Fran on that miss snap on the field goal… the NFL said a few days later the calls should have off set and Giants should have been allowed to rekick
“Hey coach … would you rule out some of the player moves you might make? You know, voluntarily restrict your options for no appreciable advantage or gain?”
“Ummmmm … errrr … no.”
Norm – my concern is strictly pass protection with Wilson. But I’m not saying he can’t prove good enough during the preseason, it’s something he has to prove. If he does then carrying 3 RBs becomes a much more realistic option. I do believe that Scott and/or Brown can offer something worth keeping but they do have to prove it.
I don’t buy that TC won’t play rookies. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hosley wins the nickel CB job this preseason well at least until TT is healthy enough to contribute. Randle as well.
I think Coe is Hosley’s competion at slot corner. But he’s made solid progress for a rook. The kid is shaping up as a fine pick.