::Foreword::
Welcome. This here blog offers what I learn, in commentary for all its worth. Know that I try to know best, when I know anything at all.
Journey onward!!!
Foreword
After catching the Giant's first touchdown of Super Bowl XLII, David Tyree counted his blessings. In an ulcerous fourth quarter, he caught a perfect bullet from Eli Manning down the middle of the end zone, putting the Giants up 10-7. Of course, he was the immediate subject of a Fox cameraman, who probably wasn't sure who had just caught the touchdown.
With the game ball held aloft, Tyree looked and said to the nation: "It's all God. It's all God, baby."
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How DID Tyree appear out of nowhere that day? Though he credited God Almighty, let's be realistic: no doubt the game plan called for him, as he was offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride's secret weapon that day. His abilities as receiver were not being watched.
Nice move, Gilbride, near brilliant.
But what abilities? Noted special teamer Tyree had not caught a touchdown all year long, and never achieved 300 season yards receiving. Yet, somehow, his road brought him to Super Bowl XLII, where he proceeded to join mighty company in the annals of football history.
No surprise that "it's all God; it's all God, baby" would be Tyree's instinctive reaction.
After all, many people still hold that the 2007 Giants team, on the whole, just got lucky that day, that the entire post season run and Super Bowl victory were mere flukes.
Not a day goes by on the internet without some comment to that effect.
I reject this, but yet there is no denying a measure of luck did favor the Giants late 2007. Some go further, incredulously, to say this very same luck assigned the Giants a 12-4 campaign in 2008.
So, are the Giants lucky, or are they not? Today, I look to one whose insight is beyond all partisan leaning.
Here's what God had to say.
Excerpt from Interview
ME: "So, God, did you have Tyree in mind that day?"
GOD: "Not exactly. Tyree walked a certain path that I laid out, not unlike many paths others have taken before him. Another man could easily have walked Tyree's path, or a woman, or to a different destination."
ME: "Eh, right."
GOD: "In life, people often stray from my paths, some never to return. Tyree got there that day."
ME: "But you do realize that, because you are God, you are in part responsible for that miracle play, when Eli Manning somehow escaped the turf and heaved..."
GOD: [interrupts] "Yes, I know. I have always known. Circumstances are superfluous to name here."
ME: "Yes, of course. I'm sorry."
GOD: "You are forgiven. Yet I will try to be more specific. Balance is critical to the world's design; tides rise and ebb, such that it never overwhelms."
ME: "Ah, you're talking about the notion of tension and release."
GOD: "Yes, very good. This, I know, is what humans find most captivating about sporting."
ME: "Please, God, I understand circumstances are superfluous to name here, but you said you would try to be more specific."
GOD: "Tyree's catch was but one moment in a balanced scheme of luck; it was no outlier. I demonstrate this by recounting two plays prior to and after that fateful catch:
- Two plays prior, Manning nearly fumbles the football on a scramble;
- One play prior, a pass to Tyree was in then through the hands of Asante Samuel, the opposition;
- During 'The Catch,' Manning is almost sacked, Tyree almost loses the football, yet neither occurred;
- Next play, Manning is sacked;
- Next play, Manning throws into double coverage for Tyree, risking interception."
Me: "Wow, great specifics, God. If anything, by your recount, luck appeared to favor the Patriots, save for the actual Manning-to-Tyree miracle."
GOD: "I know. When people walk the paths I set for them in good faith—knowing or unknowing, witting or unwitting—miraculous things do happen; within balance, of course. I am an equal opportunity benefactor, favoring all yet none."
ME: "..."
GOD: "Walking a path in good faith—be it to me or yourself—is the source of good fortune. There is no such thing as coincidental luck, namely that Tyree got there that day, with that group of people in those circumstances."
ME: "Thank you, God, I will think on this. Now, let's get back to the meaning of life..."
GOD: "By all means."
Analysis
I now realize that Tyree, Eli, and the Giants were no luckier than anyone else on that field; they simply utilized their luck better.
Luck is a fleeting resource you must seize immediately, or else waste. Think of luck as something you manage, namely that when it comes your way, you had better be ready for it.
Consider TWO really hot French women at a bar, let's say in Montreal. As your man-luck would have it, they both take a liking to you, approach, and suggest un menage a trois. Shocked into wussiness, you respond like a little boy, attraction dies off, and you have no one to blame but yourself for failing your own good luck.
Alone, luck only carries you so far. God recounted that the Patriots had plenty of lucky chances to derail the Giants' final scoring drive; they failed their luck, plain and simple, while the Giants did not.
As God plainly suggested, there is "no such thing as coincidental luck" because He is an "equal opportunity benefactor, favoring all yet none [within] in a scheme of balance."
Thus the key to understanding God's oracle lies less in theology, and more in recognizing how luck actually works.
Luck only favors those who can capitalize on it. In professional sports, this does not come easy. If you were a lesser quarterback than Eli Manning, or else a lesser receiver than David Tyree, all that good luck in Super Bowl XLII might have gone right over your helmet (pun), or sacked into the turf.
However lucky, victory in football is not like winning the lottery. With every day's training and hard work, professional athletes get closer and closer to mastering luck. They do so by having faith and believing in themselves, namely their abilities and potential for greatness.
This is what God meant by the notion that "walking a path in good faith—be it to me or yourself—is the source of good fortune." Whether it is Eli Manning facing the red meat New York media his whole career, or David Tyree staying on the long path of hard work and little glory, they both persevered and thrived.
Luck favors these men because they have earned it. This is precisely why you and I will probably never win the lottery, for we can only be victims of luck, not its masters.
Nevertheless, two years on, many people still write off the Giants' Super Bowl victory as mere, unmerited luck. This is nonsense, yet it does not surprise me. As I observed elsewhere, in a society that worships microwaved celebrities a la American Idol, luck becomes an end all to itself and is thereby rendered meaningless.
I pity the people who honestly think the 2007 Giants "just got lucky," as I suspect they may have trouble appreciating life's finer depths. I would double down on this suspicion for people who write off the Giants' 2008 campaign in the same way.
Luck did not target Tyree, Eli, or the Giants, but rather that they targeted the luck. Yes, they got lucky, but capitalizing on luck of such high order demands skill, integrity, dedication, poise, and generally hard work. After all, they were pitted against Tom Brady and the indomitable 2007 Patriots.
And won.
Sometimes it is better to be lucky, too, than MERELY good.
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Many people think the Giants are doomed if they don't replace Plaxico Burress with a big time veteran wide receiver. Not just fans, but a majority of mainstream media, beat writers and their like have published strong opinions to that effect. I thought so too, for a time.
It is easy to see why people would think so, seeing as how Plax's blunder cost his team the 2008 post season. But it is harder to see how everyone is missing the point, namely that the 2008 Giants collapsed due to their game plan, not Plax.
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As I opined several months ago, losing Plax was so catastrophic precisely because the offensive game plan relied entirely too much on his presence.
He bears his share of fault, namely for putting a hole in his own thigh, but it was not his fault the Giants collapsed as a result. Plax is a football player, a drone, not the team's strategist who made him so crucial in the offensive scheme. The 2008 Giants' problem was rooted in the game plan, not Plaxico per se. Even the horrid playcalling we witnessed was an extension of the failed game plan.
Calls to replace Plax, then, actually amount to a call for more of the same: a thin playbook based on a power running game plan denominated by Plaxico Burress, the same strategy that tore apart at the seams late 2008.
Is this really the offensive game plan Giants fans want to see rehashed in 2009? Bear in mind: despite Super Bowl glory in 2007 and a 11-1 run in 2008, it turned out the incumbent strategy was much too precarious. A normal football injury might as well have been a bullet hole; either way the Giants offense would have collapsed, whether it happened to Plax or some other peer receiver.
Yet it appears lots of people do want more of the same, considering the tone of the many analyses and op-eds out there, not to mention fan comments therein. I pity the panicked fans who worry if Hakeem Nicks, our round one draftee, can fill Plax's shoes. Even more incredulously, some believe the free agency improvements we made to the defense, and spending high draft picks on receivers, were merely bargaining chips to service a trade for some Plax-caliber receiver.
I concede it is possible that, if the Giants really want to double down on the 2007-2008 game plan again in 2009, they will acquire Braylon Edwards, Anquan Boldin, or some equivalent receiver at all costs. But the Giants organization has not forgotten how that game plan turned out. I don't know about GM Jerry Resse or Tom Coughlin, but my wound from that spectacular breakdown is still open fresh.
Reese clearly still feels it. Passing up the free agency market and drafting rookie receivers instead was a clear signal he wants to move forward. I think the Giants brass knows the 2008 unraveling was due not to the loss of Plax, but rather to the team tapestry into which his role was woven; it was really the game plan that failed.
Fans calling for a Plax replacement should be careful what they wish for, and experts should know better. The mainstream fixation on replacing Plax demonstrates that many Giants watchers are missing the point, namely that to successfully move forward, one must reconcile instead of replicating the past.
Too many salaried journalists have shown they do not understand the past, suggesting that they don't really think about what they're writing. While the casual fan is excused, journalists deserve no such reprieve.
It makes me glad football organizations are not democratically run, and to see that GM Jerry Reese knows better (so does Brandon Jacobs). Moving forward, he understands that nothing helps a transitional offense more than a fearsome defense.
I predict this is exactly what the Giants will get in 2009, if the rookie defensive coordinator holds up. Our first-class defensive line just got a whole lot deeper and is now arguably world-class. The linebacking corps, perhaps the weaker defensive unit, received a nice boost in free agency and the draft. The secondary is populated by talented backs with experience of the highest standard. On average, the Giants' defense is just entering their prime.
More than anyone in the offense, the big question mark looms over coordinator Kevin Gilbride. Though he likely masterminded the Plax game plan, he needs to prove he was also a victim of bad fortune, that his playcalling circa late 2008 was really not as bad as it looked. This will largely define our overall success in 2009.
Even if 2009 brings a fresh new game plan, we must take care to retain lessons learned. When the 2007 playoff Giants upset opponent after opponent, they looked in the mirror and learned just how "perfect" an imperfect team can be. Defeating the "perfect" Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, then falling flat after a near brilliant 2008 campaign, the Giants learned just how imperfect a "perfect" team can be.
These are valuable lessons that make champions. With that in mind, I look forward to the 2009 campaign without Plax. And for the record, as Plaxico Buress is no longer a Giant, herein will be the last time I refer to him affectionately as Plax.
September can't come soon enough!!!!!!!!
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You may consider this post therapeutic, a catharsis of sorts. With the Super Bowl fast approaching, it's high time for me to reconcile the 2008 Giants and let go of what could surely have been. Throughout the football season, the Giants showcased themselves as a team more tightly-knit than most others in 2008. As I asserted in my previous post, they were standard bearers who proved their mettle in tough regular reason play.
But like every other team in the NFL, the tapestry of the Giants had loose threads dangling from its seams, and at season's end we find ourselves asking: by tugging at just a few of these loose threads, is it possible the entire tapestry of a team can become unraveled?
Like most things in life, just one tug at the right loose thread can be all that's needed, and there is little argument that the tapestry of the Giants indeed became unraveled as the playoffs approached. In a vain attempt to explain to myself how they managed to disintegrate (yet again), I realized you can't look just at the loose threads (Plaxico, Jacobs, Osi, etc) without also considering the tapestry into which they were woven. Otherwise, you would know 'how' the Giants collapsed, but you wouldn't know WHY 'how' happened. In any case, here are the results of my inquiry, if you would hear them.
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If you're still searching for answers as to why the Giants are sitting this Super Bowl out, look no further than to the 2007 Giants of Super Bowl lore. That's where you'll find our lost post season of 2008. Everything the Giants were in 2008 was an extension of that magical post season run, and ironically that is the basis on which their tapestry became unraveled.
With that said, let's connect the dots.
In 2007, the Giants limped into the playoffs not expected by anyone to beat anybody. You really can't blame anyone for taking that position. Although our defensive prowess was never in doubt, no one is going to pick you if they think you can't score enough points to keep up. In a year when Tom Brady played the way he did, how was anyone to substantiate faith in the Giants?
There were doubts abound. Our receiving corps was not particularly distinguished, although Plaxico Burress is a noted playmaker and well-accounted for by opposing defenses. On the other hand, our prowess on the ground was well-documented and respected. But while a good running game is necessary to win championships, it alone does not (witness the Titans, Panthers, Falcons, Ravens, and Giants of 2008). At that point in time, Eli Manning's effectiveness was constantly doubted and criticized, and his ability to utilize the Giants' potent ground attack was in question.
Yet, by learning to use such strengths and wits as they had about them, the 2007 Giants perfected themselves at the right time and found a way to win out in an indomitable blaze of glory. They used a perfect combination of good coaching, sound fundamentals, and consistent execution. The end result was a compact playbook that relies primarily on balanced team play, a successful formula achieved through the fragile management of a flat talent pool. And by flat, I don't mean the Giants' talent level was low, just relatively underpowered and undistinguished. This is a point underscored poignantly by the record number of Pro Bowlers the Giants nurtured in 2007, namely one defensive end by the name of Osi Umenyiora, a statistic unprecedented for any Super Bowl champ.
2007 ran into 2008, nothing about the Giants changed nor should they have. As any reasonable ball club would have done, the tapestry of the 2008 Giants was woven around the winning formula as pioneered by the 2007 post season Giants. They doubled down on their reliance on balanced team play and got a very memorable 2008 campaign out of it. We achieved success; the 2007-08 tapestry was working great and why shouldn't it? It was fully vetted by fortitude, confidence and most of all, stealing Super Bowl rings from the 18-1 Patriots (HA!). The Giants learned their lessons well, namely in just how perfect an imperfect team can be (themselves) but more importantly, that perfection is incidental.
Those were important lessons. The talent pool of the 2008 Giants remained flat but thanks to the 2007 Giants, they now knew how to transcend inherent limitations in their roster by fully utilizing it in a particular way. They had found a perfect winning formula for an imperfect team that all teams covet, and hence the 2008 tapestry was woven.
But for all the success they enjoyed this season as a result, perhaps even the founding weavers in the Giants organization could not foresee just how precariously imperfect their tapestry was until it was too late. So precarious, as I will argue here, that even one fateful tug at the right loose thread can lead to a full-bodied unraveling.
Plaxico Burress happened, and with him one of the Giants' scarce offensive talent spikes was lost for December, and perhaps forever. One man, one loose thread, and the tapestry of reliance on balanced team play began to unravel. I do not speak to the defense because they were always stout enough to save our butts, but the offense failed utterly. They could not score and they didn't. In the final five game stretch, we managed just three passing touchdowns (only one of any consequence--against the Panthers); it's hardly fitting for the high-powered Giants. This might be considered good for the pitiful Cleveland Browns, who went six games without a single touchdown altogether.
Without Plax, the Giants' receiving corps was reduced to mediocrity relative to our high-powered playoff peers and did not scare anyone. Their vaunted running game also became much less effective, barely cracking 100 yards a game as was routine throughout the season. This latter stigma was doubtless precipitated by the intermittent loss of Brandon Jacobs, unsurprisingly another loose thread in the Giants tapestry; the only surprising thing was that he was not injured much earlier. In any case, this all culminated in our thorough beating at the hands of a hungry Eagles team in January, but it certainly didn't happen overnight. It all took one month.
We went from 10 wins to 1 loss with Plax on the field to 2-4 with him in handcuffs. That's a drop from a 91% win percentage to 33%. Capable teams took the time and adjusted their schemes to find new ways to pressure cook the Giants' offense and it worked. Suddenly their once-indomitable offensive line was forced to block in ways they hadn't had to all season long and wondered why the holes/gaps didn't open/close. At a time when season-long wear and tear begin to take its toll, the Giants' defense, one predicated on speedy power rushing, got consistently gassed because the offense couldn't stay on the field. Or else the defense became demoralized because no matter how well they played, the offense could not score enough points to stay in the game. Remember how inept the defense made the Eagles look in the first half of their playoff meeting? In that game, they really only gave up 11 of the 23 points scored against us, and the offense still couldn't get it done.
Opposing defensive coaches probably had a lot of fun scheming against a Plaxico-free Giants team. I know I would have. Eli Manning's audibles were off or ineffective, probably because he was seeing coverages he hadn't seen all season long or worse, coverages that he thought he had seen before but really hadn't. The play action pass was completely neutralized because the pass could not set up the run and thereby, the run could not set up the play action pass. This is a critical staple of offensive success for any team subscribing foremost to the philosophy of balanced team play, and it was something Eli and the Giants excelled at executing. The play action pass simply disappeared from the playbook.
To reiterate: all this didn't happen overnight, it took exactly one month for the 2008 Giants to unravel. Yes, we lost a star player, but I wasn't the only Giants fan out there who was frustrated by the complete lack of game plan adjustment for Plax's loss. All they did was throw Domenik Hixon to the dogs, unproductively so I might add.
In hindsight, however, I came to realize that there wasn't much anyone could have done. The tapestry was already ripped; the Plax loose thread was able to unravel the Giants precisely because the team tapestry allowed it to.
By December, the offense without Plax was showing serious cracks and Kevin Gilbride, our offensive coordinator, seemed to have done very little about them. I came across many Giants fans in the blogosphere who would love to smite him or cast him out or something. But I don't think there was very much he could have done. As I've argued here, the dynamism of the Giants offense was willingly and pre-meditatively restricted into a playbook built upon personnel balance, experience, and execution. As such, the 2008 Giants playbook was limited by a fragile balance of responsibility between their key playmakers, as evidenced by their heavy use of the play action pass; frankly, it was not a deep playbook that explored the full playmaking possibilities at every position. I suppose you can say that the Giants ran out of operable plays to run when Plax bowed out. However, this was THE implicit caveat for weaving the 2007 post season Giants into the 2008 tapestry, and I believe it was a strategic risk the coaches chose to take. After all, they did win a Super Bowl with this strategy.
Moreover, I suspect that when an offense relies heavily on a quarterback's pre-snap decisions, the influence of an offensive coordinator on the sideline is somewhat diminished, headset or no headset. As we know, a big part of the Giants offense is predicated on Eli's pre-snap adjustments, something that did not change much in December. Now, I'm not criticizing the Giants' faith in Eli, as I believe he has deftly proven his quarterbacking smarts and should be trusted as the Giants have done. But when the parameters in his offense changed as quickly as a gunshot to Plax's stupid thigh, there is little he can do for all his football IQ prowess. Maybe even brother Peyton couldn't have pulled the Giants out of this one. Or maybe he could have.. ? Peyton with the league's top ranked running game would be.....
::slap::
In any case, Gilbride knew he couldn't just draw up a new playbook in December and expect it to work miracles. Slants, screens, flares, draws, checkdowns? Sorry, not in 2008. I'm not trying to be a Gilbride apologist, but it's my belief that he could not overcome structural limitations that were imposed by the 2007-08 Giants tapestry. And it is precisely from this tapestry that hung all the loose threads I've spoken of thus far.
It was a systemic issue. Plaxico Burress may have been 'how' the Giants collapsed, but it was the overall strategy of the 2008 Giants that allowed him to have a ripple effect throughout the team. In other words, there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent the December collapse, that is unless Derrick Ward could run 200+ yards in every game like he did against the Panthers. By the way, it was Ward's outlier performance that squeaked us by that game to secure the #1 NFC playoff seed. Lucky!
(Ward is now a free agent, and I think we're going to keep Jacobs and part ways with Ward. This will be a painful loss for the Giants offense because Bradshaw is not quite as versatile yet. Jacobs definitely won't be the one catching passes out of the backfield.)
Anyway, this is why loose threads such as the loss of Plax and Jacobs had the power to singularly unravel the entire tapestry of the 2008 Giants. You can blame the unraveling on the loose threads if you want, but by association you would also have to blame the winning formula as pioneered by the 2007 Giants, the one that directed us so well for much of the 2008 campaign. If you're a true fan, I bet you're not quite willing to do that. We doubled down on an imperfect winning formula that we perfected but went bust at the end, but not before forging a memorable 2008 regular season.
If you want to find our lost post season of 2008, put in a tape of the 2007 playoffs. Pick any game; you will recognize a lot of what you saw all season long, certainly more than you would have recognized in the recent Eagles debacle. For the Giants, December 31st 2008 should have turned into January 1st 2007. This is the only way I could make sense of this season and be at peace.
As to the future..
If Coughlin chooses to reelect the incumbent 2007-08 Giants tapestry, there's a lot already there for us to build on for 2009, but issues remain. We need to get a repentant Plax back or else draft/trade for an equivalent talent (how about Kenny Britt???), preferably one without man-child issues. We should start addressing the speed limit on our linebacking corps, and we can definitely use better depth at lineman on both sides of the ball. Install cybernetic implants in Jacobs' long ass legs and pair him with a better developed Bradshaw, keep sure-hands Boss involved, and consolidate the replenished secondary.
But most of all, we need to hire new coaches and coordinators who truly understand the tapestry of the Giants as I've laid out in this post. Even if they decide to ax it and build a new team identity, they nevertheless have to understand who we've been in order to facilitate who we will be. To do otherwise would be to utterly waste the lessons wrought from the 2007-08 tapestry and probably spiral us back into the throes of mediocrity.
This responsibility falls squarely on Tom Coughlin and I'm pretty confident he can make the right choices. I should send him a letter to make sure..
Boy the Giants are spoiling us this season. On wild card weekend, I was able to just kick back and delight in eight teams demolishing each other. Pure football fun, without the anxiety that comes with being a fan. Don't get me wrong though, fandom is great but I could really use a break after the past couple months of Giants football. That's probably just what the Giants players were thinking too, as they settled comfortably into their expensive ass couches to await the unlucky team who would survive to face them this weekend.
Of course, I wouldn't have been able to watch those game as contented as I was if the Giants hadn't earned the top conference seed and enjoyed a crucial week off. Thanks guys, it's tough being a fan you know. Please heal well.
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Actually, I haven't been able to settle into my couch easily on Sundays since week 7 way back in October. The Giants had just wrapped up their cupcake campaign against a bunch of this season's struggling teams. Although we were tested a few times, for the most part those games were just target practice. But ever since that week, each one of our eight remaining regular season opponents owned winning records. It's no coincidence that six of those teams ended up reaching the playoffs. After wild card weekend, five of those teams still remain in contention for the Super Bowl and to my great delight, the Giants boast a regular season victory over each one. Of those teams, the only one that we cannot boast complete victory over is the Philadelphia Eagles, our division rival that we faced twice in the regular season: that series is at an even 1-1 split, a tense score that will be settled come 1pm this Sunday.
The Eagles.
Early on in the season, I watched a few of their games and came away with a general fear. Confiding this fear in a few of my informed football buds, I discovered through being ridiculed that I was the only one who felt that way. At the time, the Eagles were dead last in our division and heading downhill, a months-long situation that culminated in the benching of Donovan McNabb in a week 12 blowout loss against the Ravens. I let out a sigh of relief then, because I realized then it was McNabb alone that had struck fear in my heart. And now they're in the playoffs, hyped by the media as the "hottest team right now", and they're gunning straight for the Giants.
Ugh!
Though some won't realize it, McNabb is probably the prototypical quarterback that every team wants (oh and how about this pic?). I might catch heat for saying that but in his games I watched this season, McNabb covers the qualities that are expected from top-tier quarterbacks. When he's on, McNabb is one of those guys who can make you feel better on third-and-long pressure situations, even if his receivers are mere average. He has that elusive third-eye mobility in the pocket, routinely robbing pass rushers of their precious sacks by throwing accurately on the run. That's a quarterback who (on a good day) can make up for a big part of a team's inconsistencies all by his lonesome, and that's precisely the storyline the Eagles embody as they gear up for the Meadowlands showdown this weekend.
This past Sunday, I had hoped in vain that the pathetic Vikings would knock the Eagles out for us but as expected, we were fated to beat them ourselves. If it weren't for the Vikings loss, we would have hosted the Arizona Cardinals instead, a much less threatening opponent given the circumstances.
At first, I resented what fate had destined for us by this Giants-Eagles match up, and in fact I'll probably get an ulcer from it. But on second thought.. I WELCOME IT. Faced with a daunting schedule, we conquered eight teams with winning records and five playoff-bound teams to reach the playoffs as the number one seed, and I would not have our lofty distinction of a toughness supreme be tainted by a possible cupcake victory over the Cardinals. Let the Carolina Panthers play that enviable yet inconsequential role as they expose the Cardinals this Saturday for the pretenders that they are.
We'll take on the Eagles ourselves and earn again, perhaps, the respect that we should be given. Then, come the week after, we would in turn expose Carolina for what they are: an inferior mirror image of the Giants (except for Steve Smith, he's nasty good).
I hope so anyway.. I have a damn good blog idea in the pipeline in case the Giants go all the way!!!!!
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