Big Blew It!

by JasonComack

Every fan loves the off-season. It represents a time of hope and joy for any fan. If you’re a Colts fan you get to spend the summer bragging and pimp’n all your new Super Bowl attire. If you’re a Browns fan you get to hope that you found a franchise left tackle and quarterback in the same draft. If you’re a Cardinal fan you get to rejoice at the hard nose attitude that your new coaching staff brings and hope Ken Whisenhunt can make Matt Leinart into the next Ben Roethlisberger. Hope, every fan has hope, you get to start fresh. Get rid of those awful players you watched get burned every Sunday, get rid of that wide out who dropped every clutch pass, fire that head coach that got bashed by his own team every week and looked outmatched on Sundays. Every fan should have hope…unless you’re a Giant Fan. The Giant’s were at a crossroads this off-season. Their longtime GM Ernie Acorsi had left the team and Jerry Reese was left in charge. Their coach was being bashed by not only the New York media every week but more importantly clashing with his own team. There most potent offensive weapon, Tiki Barber, retired to pursue other ventures. The team was in disarray. So what did Jerry Reese do to right the ship? Well, he made Tom Coughlin a lame duck head coach and he cut three significant players; Arrington, Emmons and Pettigut. Arrington and Emmons are understandable cuts; both were oft injured over the hill veterans. Pettitgut on the other hand still has some football left in him, more importantly the Giants didn’t have a feasible replacement on their roster. Well, logically Reese was making all the cuts to create cap room to make a splash in free agency…right? Sorry to say Giants fans but Reese neglected to make any significant moves in free agency, (besides resigning starting center Shaun O’Hara, had to throw that in before I got chastised by Anthony) he actually created more needs by bizarrely allowing reliable kicker Jay Feely to head out of town. His biggest acquisition was trading for Reuben Droughns…and that’s not saying much. Real teams aren’t built through the free agency (just ask the Washington Redskins) so we can give Reese a pass if he rebounds with a strong draft to put this team in a position to make a move in the loaded NFC East. However like free agency Reese blew his chance to make a major splash. As the Giants pick was approaching Brady Quinn was taking a nose dive of Paris Hilton proportions. The Browns were calling every team to make a trade and offering a bounty of picks.* Now I have no proof (though the Browns did say they called every team in that range) that the Giants passed on this package of picks, but if they did it was a gigantic mistake.

> *Picking two spots later the Cowboys traded out of the first round when they made a trade with the Browns for the Browns 2nd round pick (36) and next their 2008 first round pick. Now according to the Trade Value Chart (which I think is so absurdly overrated but that’s for another time) the cost of dropping from pick 22 (780 points) to 36 (540 points) is 240 points, basically the equivalent of the Browns 3rd round pick (68, worth 250 points). To make this less complicated the Cowboys got such a steal, the Browns pick is going to be top 15, and that’s being extremely generous, their 2008 first round pick is going to be worth roughly around 1,000 points, if not a lot more!*

It’s not that I hate Aaron Ross or think he’s going to be terrible, but in this draft there was clearly a drop-off of talent after Darrell Revis and Leon Hall at the corner back position. If the Giants had traded down to pick 36; someone like Eric Wright, Chris Huston or Marcus McCauley would have been available, if they choose to still address the corner back position. My biggest problem with the Giants draft is they failed to provide Eli Manning with enough weapons. Look what happened to David Carr (and soon to be Matt Shcaub) in Huston. He got killed behind a poor offensive line and without many offensive weapons he was a colossal bust. It’d be a shame for the same thing to happen to Eli Manning because the Giants are high on David Diehl and Guy Whimper.

> “I just feel like the only reason David Diehl would be playing left tackle for the Giants is if I was playing against the giants in Madden and my friend paused the game to go to the bathroom and I changed his depth chart” – Brian Hirshman, loyal reader

If you’re going to pass on Joe Staley at 20, I think you need a better contingency plan than David Diehl and Guy Whimper. What makes matters worse is the Giants brought this upon themselves by not keeping Luke. Yes he was injury prone, yes he was just average, yes he didn’t deserve his big contract…so what. Left tackles are so hard to find in this league and so important (read The Blindside by Michael Lewis) that it’s worth overpaying for them. I can already here Anthony’s voice in my head, so let me re-re-buttal his yet to be written rebuttal. Continuity will be his word, we wanted to keep continuity on the offensive line all season he’ll say, Luke always got hurt and players had to move around, there never was continuity. Well, you can thrown continuity out the window if DeMarcus Ware comes off the blindside and snaps Eli’s leg into Joe Theisman sized pieces. The lone bright spot on D-Day was WR Steve Smith. Smith will provide another reliable threat that Eli Manning so desperately needs. If Smith can be and effective possession receiver and Moss an effective slot receiver the Giants might actually have a well-rounded group of wide outs (if Eli can stay on his feet that is.) The pick of Jay Alford in the 3rd is one that really bothers me. The Giants reached in both need and value here. Alford isn’t an awful player but he is what he is, a one gap penetrating rotational defensive tackle. The 3rd round seems awful high to take such a player when you have so many needs. The rest of the Giants draft was blah. DeOssie was a good pick but I was left under whelmed by the other selections. I guess I just question the Giants overall off-season plan. It just seems like this team has so many question marks. Running back is a question mark, I love Brandon Jacobs but he needs a compliment (Brian Leonard would have look good in Giant Blue.) Ruben Droughns is nothing more than a “worst case scenario” type of player, that’s why they were able to acquire him for Tim Carter. On the defensive side of the ball what about the Mathias Kiwinuka project. The Giants currently have him penciled in as a starting linebacker. Last time I checked the Giants didn’t run a 3-4, I don’t see this as a great fit. His coverage liabilities are going to be masked by scheme in order for this to work; hopefully their new defensive coordinator is more creative than Tim Lewis. I think this off-season may be one that is looked at as one that set the franchise back. Eli needs to develop and if he’s a bust than well, I don’t need to get into the consequences. Remember the Giants gave up what ended up being Rivers, Merriman and Keading for him…yikes. When you have so much invested in a player I don’t see how you don’t spend your entire off-season giving him as much help as possible. I guess all Giants fans can hope for is that I’m wrong.

But most importantly…who the hell is kicking for the Giants?

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