No doubt this lost season will give new fodder to Eli bashers and doubters some who have never wanted to give him his due. Gary Myers has a title that says it all in today's Daily News: Despite his two rings, Manning no longer deserves a free pass.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/myers-rings-manning-longer-deserves-free-pass-article-1.1548797
The New York Post had a very similar post by George Willis with a subtitle of Eli not Tom.
http://nypost.com/2013/12/16/giants-will-be-lost-until-manning-finds-his-game-again/
His point is that while Lawrence Taylor has declared that Coughlin needs to go, the real problem is Manning. He's certainly right that until Manning goes back to playing like we've seen him play throughout most of his career, the Giants aren't going to go far. No doubt, Eli deserves his share of the blame this season as every man on this squad and the coach do. He's had a very poor season with 25 picks. While many of those picks weren't his fault or not solely-yesterday 4 of his 5 picks were on throws to Hakeen Nicks, obviously he has to take a significant part of the blame.
Myers does make a crucial point: how do we know that this is just an aberration for Eli and that his best football isn't now behind him? Certainly we don't know that for sure-there is no way to wholly know this-if there were then you could become very rich very quickly.
Eli is not old in QB years, not yet 33 years old and so just entering an age that is often prime time for elite NFL QBs. Here is my challenge though for Eli bashers. If Myers worst case scenario is right how do you prove it? I argue there's just one way.
Get him a running attack that doesn't put up performances like yesterday: just 25 yards. If they average 130 yard per game rather than 80 and he still performs the same then I say the Eli bashers have a point. Give him an actual offensive line rather than the Minnie Mouse unit that was on the field yesterday and most of the season, the line that allowed him to be sacked on the first play yesterday and 33 over the season. If he still plays this bad, the Eli bashers have a point.
For more on the incredible low performing Giants offensive see here:
"Tom Coughlin lambasted his offense’s performance as pathetic, and no unit was more pitiful than the Giants’ offensive line."
"The group allowed Eli Manning to get sacked on the game’s first play, running back Andre Brown get stuffed repeatedly all day, and when it was finally over, the linemen were as culpable as anybody in the 23-0 beating suffered at the hands of Seattle."
“I don’t know if he even had to say anything. It’s out there. You saw it, everybody else saw it. Pathetic, embarrassing, whatever word you want to use, it was accurate,’’ offensive lineman Kevin Boothe said of an offense that mustered just 181 yards and was shut out at home for the first time since 1995. “They didn’t do anything to confuse us. It’s just they wanted it more and played better than we did.’’
"Behind subpar run blocking, the Giants ran for a putrid 25 yards on 14 carries. Behind sorry pass protection, Big Blue passers got sacked four times and hit a half-dozen more. The unit, shorthanded because of injuries, ineffectively watched as Seattle consistently wreaked havoc on the Giants offense."
http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/giants-o-line-comes-up-tiny-in-loss/
Overall, there was a breakdown in the normal very civil NY Giants world after the game. I'm not sure if this isn't a good thing. Maybe it's a good sign as we are finally seeing some of the 'passion' Antre Rolle rightfully didn't see on the field yesterday.
Let's be clear-it's good for teammates not to want to point fingers. However, like Rolle said, if you watched the game you can assess just who is to blame and how much. As Couglin said it's the offense that was really pathetic yesterday. The defense and special teams were at least respectable and played hard.
Here's what the Giants must do in order of priority.
1. Do something about the offensive line. It's the start of all the trouble
2. Assess the running back situation-is Andre Broun still viable if he has actual blocking? and Peyton Hillis who has also shown flashes of promise.
Once you do 1 and 2 then and only then do you look at the receivers. You look at all those interceptions: how much is it Eli and how much is it receivers like Nicks? who certainly didn't seem to fight Seattle defenders for the ball very hard yesterday? Then you look at defense. It's order of operations from the worst problem areas to the relative strengths.
The defense has been relatively strong throughout this season-at least since the 0-6 start; during that part of the season they truly were performing horribly. After those first 6 games where the defense gave up 209 points for an average of over 33 per game they have given up just 148 points in the last 7. That's an average of just over 21 per game-it's surely not phenomenal numbers for a defense but it's not terrible. It could even be a little lower than this if the offense wasn't so inept and left it on the field so much.
Overall, I'm far from persuaded that Eli doesn't still stand for elite. However, give him a running game and offensive line next year and if he performs this poorly again, then we'll talk.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/myers-rings-manning-longer-deserves-free-pass-article-1.1548797
The New York Post had a very similar post by George Willis with a subtitle of Eli not Tom.
http://nypost.com/2013/12/16/giants-will-be-lost-until-manning-finds-his-game-again/
His point is that while Lawrence Taylor has declared that Coughlin needs to go, the real problem is Manning. He's certainly right that until Manning goes back to playing like we've seen him play throughout most of his career, the Giants aren't going to go far. No doubt, Eli deserves his share of the blame this season as every man on this squad and the coach do. He's had a very poor season with 25 picks. While many of those picks weren't his fault or not solely-yesterday 4 of his 5 picks were on throws to Hakeen Nicks, obviously he has to take a significant part of the blame.
Myers does make a crucial point: how do we know that this is just an aberration for Eli and that his best football isn't now behind him? Certainly we don't know that for sure-there is no way to wholly know this-if there were then you could become very rich very quickly.
Eli is not old in QB years, not yet 33 years old and so just entering an age that is often prime time for elite NFL QBs. Here is my challenge though for Eli bashers. If Myers worst case scenario is right how do you prove it? I argue there's just one way.
Get him a running attack that doesn't put up performances like yesterday: just 25 yards. If they average 130 yard per game rather than 80 and he still performs the same then I say the Eli bashers have a point. Give him an actual offensive line rather than the Minnie Mouse unit that was on the field yesterday and most of the season, the line that allowed him to be sacked on the first play yesterday and 33 over the season. If he still plays this bad, the Eli bashers have a point.
For more on the incredible low performing Giants offensive see here:
"Tom Coughlin lambasted his offense’s performance as pathetic, and no unit was more pitiful than the Giants’ offensive line."
"The group allowed Eli Manning to get sacked on the game’s first play, running back Andre Brown get stuffed repeatedly all day, and when it was finally over, the linemen were as culpable as anybody in the 23-0 beating suffered at the hands of Seattle."
“I don’t know if he even had to say anything. It’s out there. You saw it, everybody else saw it. Pathetic, embarrassing, whatever word you want to use, it was accurate,’’ offensive lineman Kevin Boothe said of an offense that mustered just 181 yards and was shut out at home for the first time since 1995. “They didn’t do anything to confuse us. It’s just they wanted it more and played better than we did.’’
"Behind subpar run blocking, the Giants ran for a putrid 25 yards on 14 carries. Behind sorry pass protection, Big Blue passers got sacked four times and hit a half-dozen more. The unit, shorthanded because of injuries, ineffectively watched as Seattle consistently wreaked havoc on the Giants offense."
http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/giants-o-line-comes-up-tiny-in-loss/
Overall, there was a breakdown in the normal very civil NY Giants world after the game. I'm not sure if this isn't a good thing. Maybe it's a good sign as we are finally seeing some of the 'passion' Antre Rolle rightfully didn't see on the field yesterday.
Let's be clear-it's good for teammates not to want to point fingers. However, like Rolle said, if you watched the game you can assess just who is to blame and how much. As Couglin said it's the offense that was really pathetic yesterday. The defense and special teams were at least respectable and played hard.
Here's what the Giants must do in order of priority.
1. Do something about the offensive line. It's the start of all the trouble
2. Assess the running back situation-is Andre Broun still viable if he has actual blocking? and Peyton Hillis who has also shown flashes of promise.
Once you do 1 and 2 then and only then do you look at the receivers. You look at all those interceptions: how much is it Eli and how much is it receivers like Nicks? who certainly didn't seem to fight Seattle defenders for the ball very hard yesterday? Then you look at defense. It's order of operations from the worst problem areas to the relative strengths.
The defense has been relatively strong throughout this season-at least since the 0-6 start; during that part of the season they truly were performing horribly. After those first 6 games where the defense gave up 209 points for an average of over 33 per game they have given up just 148 points in the last 7. That's an average of just over 21 per game-it's surely not phenomenal numbers for a defense but it's not terrible. It could even be a little lower than this if the offense wasn't so inept and left it on the field so much.
Overall, I'm far from persuaded that Eli doesn't still stand for elite. However, give him a running game and offensive line next year and if he performs this poorly again, then we'll talk.
No comments:
Post a Comment