Daniel Jones And His Incredible Grip
GIANTS BYE WEEK MIDSEASON REPORT CARD TIME!
Dear readers. Thank you for taking the time to come to your Fan-Team conference. We understand you’ve been a little concerned with your team’s grades this year. Well, we are happy to discuss them, piece by piece.
SUBJECT: EXPECTATIONS
Now we know there wasn’t much reason to expect anything good out of the team this season. After a misguided attempt to try and make a playoff push with old broken Eli in 2018, they committed to the rebuild. They drafted a new QB, they got rid of a lot of veterans, and decided to spend at least this season in cap hell. They brought in Golden Tate, but he was suspended. Injuries have occurred. This team had no talent on defense, problems on offense, and can’t really try anything till next year. Bottom line is that anyone with a sane brain should have gone into this season feeling fairly relaxed, because this was a bad team with no true expectations. In that sense, the Giants have only mildly disappointed. GRADE: B
SUBJECT: QB
Eli played two games and looked like the same scared puppy he has looked like for 4+ years now. Eli is broken and done. Daniel Jones got the job and so far has looked…like a rookie. He’s not the terrible joke of a player that many immediately derided him as after his draft night. He’s also not the savoir that briefly flashed before our eyes during the Bucs comeback. Jones has looked fine for the position he’s in. He has good TD numbers. He’s great at scrambling and has single-handedly saved multiple drives on a 3rd down play with his legs, something Eli could never do. He’s shown a good deal of fearlessness that Eli lacks now, and his accuracy seems alright. Negatives? Typical rookie stuff. Jones has misread the defenses and thrown some ugly balls and plenty of picks. He holds the ball too long, which is part of his biggest flaw: his fumbles. Jones cannot hold onto the ball whatsoever. He’s good for at least two drops a game. You can only blame him holding the ball too long for so much of that. Security and quicker decisions need to be a coaching priority. All of this said, I wanted Dwayne Haskins, and right now I’m content we grabbed Jones instead. GRADE: B-
SUBJECT: OFFENSE
Jones has his own flaws but it’s hard to ignore that he’s been put in a fairly rough position so far. The offensive line is still pretty bad and is only getting worse with injuries piling up. Zeitler and Hernandez, the two guards, have been the only decent players. The Giants still can’t find a tackle. Jones gets pressured easily on most pass plays and Saquon has nowhere to go. Saquon himself has been banged up, missing several games and generally looking off since he returned. In the game against the Jets, behind the patchwork O-line, he played terrible but was hit in the backfield on the majority of running plays. The WR position has been even more of a shitshow. Shepard, our new top man after trading Beckham, has missed most of the season with concussion issues and I’m honestly worried for his health at this point. I’d almost rather see him on IR now, since this season is lost. Golden Tate has been a fine solid #2, good for one sweet catch per game but he’s past his prime and shouldn’t be the #1 target. Darius Slayton, the 5th round rookie, has gotten better every week and generally seems to have a good vibe with Jones. He’s been a pleasant surprise. Engram…Engram I have a problem with. He can’t stay healthy, he can’t block, and he seems like a guy who has coasted on potential for his entire 3 year career. Every week you hear the announcers talk about how he’s so fast and how he can really open it up but…he mostly hasn’t. He has one cool play once in a while. So many Giants fans seem to have a blind spot for this guy, but frankly I think he’s overrated. GRADE: C-
SUBJECT: DEFENSE
The defense is pretty meh. No linebackers worth much outside Connelly, who tore his ACL in week 4. No pass rush to speak of and most sacks this year feel like coverage sacks or QBs just holding onto the ball too long. Interior DL has been okay. Secondary has been truly awful. Baker looks lost and is getting picked on. Jackrabbit doesn’t try half the time. Bethea tries, but he’s old and slow. Peppers is okay. The defense has gotten gashed in the first quarter almost every game this year, but for some reason seems to make proper adjustments and keep themselves around. Honestly the defense is just a lack of talent outperforming themselves, imo. GRADE: C
SUBJECT: SPECIAL TEAMS
Rosas was incredible last year but this year he’s all over the place. Still don’t understand why kickers are so variable from year to year. Nothing else is worth a note. GRADE: D
SUBJECT: ROOKIES
(QB) Jones has been slightly better than expected but worse than hoped for. He’s also stuck in a shitty situation. Outside his propensity to fumble, I’ve been perfectly fine with him this season.
(DT) Dexter Lawrence has been pretty good. Solid interior DL. He’s gotten some pressure and he’s a big boy who tackles. Fairly content with this pick.
(CB) DeAndre Baker has been pretty bad considering he was considered the best pick the Giants made at the time. But he also plays a position that usually takes some time to translate to the NFL level, is not getting much help, and doesn’t have a pass rush making his job easier. Still, below what we’d hoped for.
(DL) Oshane Ximines has not played a ton of snaps, and has not done anything of particular note. As a 3rd round pass rusher, that’s not terribly worrying, yet.
(CB) Julian Love has not done anything of note and has mostly been a special teams…guy
(LB) Ryan Connelly was actually looking like a big diamond in the rough before he went down. Excited to see him next year and hope he gets better
(WR) Darius Slayton started slow but thanks to injuries to Shepard has seen his playing time increase, and has made the most of it. He leads the team in TDs and has generally been a solid find.
(CB) Corey Ballentine is a special teams guy and has also played some defensive snaps. Nothing of note, but after all he was a 6th rounder.
The last two picks are a guy who never played a snap and went on IR and another guy who got cut before the season
Overall, some solid lower round picks have evened out the average or lackluster higher picks. GRADE: B
SUBJECT: COACHING
Fucking terrible. I like to give coaches 3 years unless they are a special kind of terrible, and Shurmur is veering hard into that territory. His gameplans are garbage and the Giants look like shit in every single 1st quarter so far (we’ve scored no more than 7 points in any 1st quarter and have scored only 3 points COMBINED for the last 6 games). Shurmur’s playcalling is also garbage. The Jets were stuffing Saquon up the middle every time, yet instead of trying some outside runs or literally anything else, he ran Saquon, a guy known for elusiveness, up the gut right into the DL 13 times. Yet the one time we tried a screen play we scored a TD. The playcalling has been abysmal. Shumur just seems like a dude standing there most of the time. I respect that the players seem to like him but he’s not elevating this team in any way. James Bettcher, the DC, has been…average to poor. I said it feels like the defense is over-performing talent level a bit, but they still have some big issues. GRADE: F
FINAL GRADE: D-
This team sucks, but it was always destined to. Injuries have damaged the chances to run the offense at full ability but terrible playcalling has also been a culprit. There are bright spots, but all of them are in relation to future potential, not right now. The Giants should have still been able to beat the Jets though, so this season, as pitiful as it is, has still managed to fall below expectations. Next year is likely the end of this regime. The Giants will have a ton of cap space and high draft picks. If Gettleman brings in bad free agents and doesn’t have a good draft, and Shumur continues to look lost, I expect a cleansing by the end of the season. This is a lost year, and the only recourse I have left is hoping we can still sweep the Skins.
What is up with Saquan. Maybe he is still not a hundred percent but he is running as scared as Eli in the pocket
Their oline is aaaaaaaass my dude, at least in the run blocking department. It was ass last year already and somehow has gotten even worse… the upside is ofc they got a lot better at pass blocking than last year but im not entirely sure how much of that is on Jones vs Eli
The real question I wana ask tho… should you realy WANT to sweep the skins? I know no player plays to loose and even the Lolphins got 2 wins by now but is wining over Washington worth loosing draft spots in a tank year?
Right now the Giants got a pretty solid 3rd place in the draft, you lost to the only other 2 win team in the Jets and the Bengals are seriously looking at 0-16 this year and even if they win in week 16/17 vs a team resting starters i doubt they will loose the first pick. If you loose to the skins however your looking at the 2nd pick and with all those teams in need of a quarterback thats some serious tradebait.
I don’t get the impression that Gettlemen is keen to trade down (considering he traded two lower picks for Leonard Williams a couple weeks back), and I can’t see the Giants doing something like Arizona did last year either. Also the Deadskins can be relied upon to pick less wisely regardless of position usually.
He’s got an ankle sprain and can’t step laterally as well as he normally can
You can peg it as both from not being 100% and crap o-line.
He held the pop waaaay too long after the snap
Commenting to myself cause im retarded…
I just realised the Giants already won their first games vs the Redskins so the skins would need another win until their game vs the Giants to drop to 3rd by wining… aaand considering their schedule thats not looking too good tbh Panthers and Eagels will play their hearts out to keep their playoff hopes alive, they certainly wont win @Lambeau unless Rodgers gets abducted by aliens, the Jets and Lions arent good but both still better than the skins imho and they only play Dallas after the Giants game…
Oh god freakin damit…. i realy shouldnt post while hungover
good advice for more than just yourself, I’m sure
Looked up the score of last nights game and got a million links to Myles Garrett’s fight with Mason Rudolph. It may be up there with the cat as the most interesting thing that happened. Lots to digest with that.
4 comics left till 1000
Shumur does nothing well as a head coach and has a 17-41 record, how these useless fucks continue to hold and get jobs amazes me. Players prob like him cause he’s a soft bitch who never calls for their heads like TC used to.
While I get that the players aren’t necessarily against him yet for not being a hardass, Shurmur seems to have a very shallow players’ coach vibe. Unless he’s very different behind the scenes it’s impossible to picture him inspiring much emotion either way. The handful of times I’ve caught snippets of his post-game press conferences he never seems to dispute any critical questions about players. I can’t see him keeping the locker room by the end of the season.
I definitely agree on the coaching section. Coaches should normally get three years as it takes time for them to implement a new system and show enough improvment. However Shurmur has shown no improvement and is certainly the special kind of terrible. He needs to go along with Bettcher at the end of this season.
Partly due to Bettcher, but the defense is graded way too high. We can stop the run, cause a 3rd and 13, and then have it converted. It’s sad that when I see a 3rd and long I expect the opposing team to convert it, and they usually do. We need to really focus on DBs and T in the offseason, plus of course our search for a new coach.
In other (obvious) news, Myles Garrett, the #1 overall pick in 2017, just got suspended for life like Vontaze did.
I almost want a quiet Sunday, just to see what Dave makes of this on Monday.
Garrett is a dickhole, needless to say. Winning by two scores with eight seconds left in the game, and he doesn’t so much rough the passer as physically assault him. He’ll be lucky if he’s allowed to even suit up next year. The Browns being the Browns, I half-expect them to cut their #1 pick. Can’t be seen condoning that shit.
They suspended him indefinitely, because they want to suspend him for the rest of the season. If they suspend him for 6 games and the Browns make the playoffs he’d be back for the playoffs, and if they suspend him for 8 and they don’t they don’t want it to bleed into next season. He’ll get reinstated for 2020.
I agree that Shumur is not the savoir
Here’s hoping Jones grows though the o-line needs to be fixed. With that said, your thots on Astros’ own Spygate incident?
As a Saints fan, I’m waiting for the day for everything to collapse on me. You can call it paranoia, but I call it experience. So you know, typical A+ season. They are setting up to break my heart more avidly than usual.
So I live in Atlanra. I absolutely hate the Falcons, but can’t help feel bad for Matty Ice. It’s not his fault that his General Manager has constructed an O-line out of paper mache. His game last Sunday only proved my point further. Out of every #elite QB in the game today Matt Ryan is the one who’s had the highest degree of difficulty. Yes Julio and Ridley are very good but MR isn’t very mobile so his pocket skills are meh. Matt Ryan can throw to anyone as long as he has time, yet the falcons just started addressing that position this year.
Brees #2 (Brees has had 3 top 10 scoring defenses, for a point of reference Brady has had 7 top 5, also even though SP is an innovator, the Saints still run an old school style spread) in. Rivers #3 (he’s had decent defenses, but has had 7(!) different leading receivers.
Shurmur had one good season with the Vikings and got paid. No one on the Giants noted that it was an incredibly fluky season and he wouldn’t be able to do the same with any team, even a good one. I am happy with Stefanski and feel for all you Giants fans.