The Draw Play

The Ruebes is Philly’s problem now! Hahahahahaha! I hope he’s truly as stupid as we all joked!

Okay Dave, step back, lets talk about this first.

Rueben Randle might have been the most hated player on the Giants the past several years. Really. I can’t recall a dude who got more hate than Rueben Randle. I’ll fully admit to embracing that hate many times. Ruebs seemed like he was always on the end of a pass that got intercepted. It felt like at least a 4th of Eli’s interceptions were direct results of him somehow running the wrong route or not trying hard enough, or tipping the ball, or not blocking right, or something. I don’t know how much of it was actually him screwing up, but at times it felt like Eli would be judged as an elite QB if he’d just stop messing up, run the right route, get open more often, and catch more passes thrown his way.

He didn’t really deserve all that hate. Rueben feels to me like a projection of the frustrations of Giants fans these past few frustrating years. He was drafted at the end of round 2. He was promised to be pretty great. He constantly felt like he was about to have a breakout year and tear the league apart. But he never did. He kept making stupid errors. He got hurt. In this sense he felt like the Giants team as a whole represented by one player. The Giants would look promising, and then they’d fall apart. They’d look poised to break out, and then everyone would get hurt. Rueben Randle was the definition of obvious potential falling short for baffling reasons, and it’s how the Giants have felt for several seasons. Last year the Giants were in 1st place for half the year, and literally nobody called them to win the division anyway, because somehow we all knew that they’d fuck it up somehow. The Giants are Rueben Randle. So we projected all our hate onto him, because he was everything we hated about this stupid team, because they are stupid jesus christ for fuck’s sake Giants just get a goddamn defensive stop for once goddamnit 

In reality Ruebs was just Mario Manningham 2.o. He even wore the same number (82). I distinctly remember cursing at “Manningham” sometimes in his early seasons. He had all the same problems Mario did. He was seemingly too dumb to learn the playbook and would constantly be in the wrong spot. But he was drafted higher than Manningham and had higher expectations. On top of that, his ceiling was much higher. Rueben had all the skills to be great. Every once in a while, he would be. I remember a few spectacular catches. I remember some multiple TD games that showed us how great he could be, and how great the Giants could be when they were clicking. But then he’d vanish. He’d run a post route when the play was a curl. Eli would get blitzed and Ruebs would be all “WHATS A HOT ROUTE LOL” and then the DB is running back the pick because the DB knew the play better than Randle did.

Several years Giants fans have all salivated at the idea of this being his breakout season. “All he needs is one year opposite Cruz, he’ll be a monster! He just needs one year opposite OBJ, He’ll be a monster!” Nope. Ruebs got 800 yards this year, which is pretty decent for a #2 WR, but it felt like he’d get maybe one good catch a game. If I didn’t know his final numbers, I’d have said he had like 400 yards. That’s how it felt watching him. Watching Dwayne Harris ball out was more exciting as a Giants fan this past season.

So now he’s an Eagle and hopefully all our hate was justified and I can smile when he runs an out route and Sam Bradford expected a slant and throws it right to DRC (we’ll still lose the game, because Giants, but it will be a brief moment of mirth). The Eagles WR corps is so astoundingly bad that he might actually help them out, but it won’t be much. Ruebs right now is a solid #3 at best. I don’t wish him well, because Eagles, but maybe on a personal level I hope the Philly fans are easier on him than we were. They’ll only throw AAA batteries.