Blue Corner - My view on the New York Giants

Aug 4, 2008 12:44PM | by PLam in Coaches Preview

Welcome to the inaugural entry to my New York Giants blog!  I’ve been bleeding Blue since the early 1980s, having seen every game save a half-dozen sprinkled throughout the last 25 years or so.  In this blog, I’ll offer my thoughts on various Giant topics as well as providing pre- and post-game reviews.  As some of you know, I’ve been a participant on various Giants online message boards since 1993, and for the most part have been acknowledged as a Giant optimist/rosetint/homer.  While I do admit to trying to take a positive spin on things, I do feel like I temper my optimism with some realistic expectations.  For my first blog entry, I’ll give all of you a brief rundown of my Big Blue Fandom with some thoughts about each coaching era of the Giants since 1983.

The Bill Parcells Era:  A lot of Giant fans cringe when they hear how I became a Giant fan.  It was 1983, and I was a skinny high school senior who hadn’t really had much interest in professional sports.  One day, I was listening to the radio when I heard some talk about a local kid making a push for the starting QB job with the Giants.  That was pretty cool; he wasn’t from my town, but he was from a neighboring rivaling high school rival.  It was my first real experience of actually knowing someone who knew someone who might have known someone else that was possibly making it in professional sports!  So I started reading the sports section of the local papers, and soon enough, I decided to become a Giants fan.  And yes, it was all because of SCOTT BRUNNER!  Lame, I know (now), but that’s how it happened.  Obviously, I started to learn the game and eventually realized that Scott just wasn’t very good.  But I also learned more about the history of the Giants and the importance of great defense.  Over the next few years, I became addicted to defense.  Oddly enough, though, my favorite player in the Bill Parcells era turned out to be cornerback Mark Collins.  I don’t really know why; I think I like defensive backs because as a kid, I tended to be on the small/skinny side, so my playground days were spent playing sports with guys bigger than me; but I was also a really fast runner (ran the 400m in high school track), jumper (long jumped, too), and was surprisingly tough in a crowd (was always a good rebounder in basketball despite the lack of size), so maybe I always saw myself as a defensive back. 

Anyways, the Bill Parcells era really formed my viewpoint on football:  Defense wins championships, run the ball and stop the run, control the clock, avoid turnovers, etc.  One of my favorite games of all time was the Monday night battle between the Giants and 49ers in the 1990 season with both teams being 10-1.  Although the Giants lost that game, it was IMHO played like the perfect game; a chess-match by both coaches, with execution being perfect on both sides of the ball.  The game was won by mere inches when a Joe Montana perfect throw beat Mark Collins by a fingertip to land in the outstretched hands of John Taylor in the end zone.  I wish the Giants had won that game, but honestly I can’t think of another game that was more perfectly played by *both* teams. 

The Ray Handley Era:  Worst 2 years of my Giants fandom.  ‘Nuff said.

The Dan Reeves Era:  I was actually very excited when the Giants hired Dan Reeves to be the head coach of the Giants in 1993.  Of the coaching candidates being talked about at the time (including Dave Wannstedt, and of course Tom Coughlin), I thought Reeves was the one who would fit best.  He had real NFL head coaching experience, had been to the big game (although he hadn’t won it), believed in running the ball...it all seemed right.  And the team responded with a big season, going 11-5 and running away with the NFC East title.  I remember thinking at the time that had the Giants gone with a better coach than Ray Handley two years earlier, this would have been a team capable of repeating and three-peating in the ‘91 and ‘92 seasons.  But unfortunately, it didn’t last.  IMHO, the big problem was that Reeves and George Young butted heads too much, and at some point Reeves only had faith in a handful of players.  It’s what led him to using Rodney Hampton purely as a battering ram (which led to Rodney’s career being far shorter than it should have been), because Reeves didn’t believe that any of his QBs could handle the job of throwing the ball.  And I’ll go out on a limb and say that I think that George Young is the main reason why the Giants faltered after Parcells left...GY did a poor job in finding Parcells’ successor, and then once Reeves came in, GY did a poor job adjusting to the new era of free agency.  The team went from a Super-Bowl quality roster to that of an expansion team in less than 3 years.  At that point, Dan Reeves didn’t have a chance to succeed.

The Jim Fassel Era:  Jim Fassel coached the Giants for 7 years, including a trip to the Super Bowl.  It surprises a lot of people to know, then, that I consider Jim Fassel to be only a few steps better than Ray Handley as a head coach.  IMHO, Bill Parcells was responsible for raising the Giants out of mediocrity and into the elite group of NFL teams.  IMHO, Jim Fassel was responsible for dropping the Giants solidly back into the pack of mediocrity.  When I say this, some people react in various ways; some say “the Giants were already dropped into mediocrity when Fassel got there”, other say “he took the team to the Super Bowl, how is that mediocre?”, and yet others say “look at the players he had to work with; blame George Young for that!”.  And I agree with all of those things.  However, I think that at the point when Fassel took over, the team was still thinking like it was one of the elite; it was the entire 7 years of Fassel for the organization to get to a level where it just didn’t expect to win anymore.  Making the playoffs seemed to be the goal, not winning a championship. 

I think that teams are a true reflection of the head coach.  And what I found most disturbing during the Fassel era was that the players were easily buying into the cliches...when they’d lose, they’d have the politically-correct cliche answers for the media..."they wanted it more”, “anytime you blah blah, you need to blah blah blah, and we didn’t finish”.  On the one hand, it was a good thing that players were recognizing that they weren’t getting it done and taking responsibility for it.  But on the other hand, Fassel wasn’t making them suffer any consequences for the poor play.  I remember having conversations with other Giant fans who would say “well, he can’t bench Gragg for too many false starts...who would he put in instead?” I hated this assertion, because it basically meant that the players could suck and not worry about it because the other players sucked even more.  Fassel’s reputation prior to the Giants was as a QB coach, and he did help improve Kerry Collins.  But he really didn’t develop anybody else.  The team became mired in mediocrity and no accountability-with-consequence.

The Tom Coughlin Era:  I am proud to say that I first declared my desire for Tom Coughlin to be named head coach of the Giants back in 2002, right after he was fired from Jacksonville.  I didn’t think much of him back in 1993 when the Giants first approached him (he didn’t have much of a reputation beyond being the Giants’ WRs coach back then).  But after seeing his success at Boston College and then in the early years in Jacksonville, I knew that he was the guy I wanted for the Giants.  The Jags had a balanced offense that seemed to do well no matter who was injured.  The defense always seemed tough.  I knew Coughlin had a reputation for being a tough-as-nails-hard-ass, but all the great coaches had that reputation, too, so I thought it was a good thing.  When they landed him in 2004, I was elated.  And through the last 4 years, I am also proud to say that my confidence in his abilities as a head coach never wavered.  I’ve never questioned Coughlin’s football IQ (and I have questioned many who have questioned it).  I did know that he’d have some personality conflicts with some players, but I was at the point where I was like “if they don’t like it, I don’t want them on the team”, and I believed that eventually the roster would reflect the team that he wanted it to be.

As we enter the 2008 NFL season, I am very optimistic in my outlook for the Giants.  Having read about and attended training camp, I feel like this team has the right mentality, and the roster seems deep all-around.  I think that the roster depth is a direct result of Tom Coughlin and the coaching staff really doing a great job at developing young players, and making sure that the team keeps a team-first mentality.  My prediction for the regular season is 12-4 and a division win.  I know the historical odds are against it, but I believe the Giants will repeat as Super Bowl champions.  The teams thrives on beating the odds. Go Big Blue!

DennyDiehl said on 08/05/08 11:09AM