Big Blue Huddle

The video starts by saying Hostetler was drafted in 1984 when the Giants already had solid and sturdy Phil Simms. At the time of the '84 draft, Phil Simms had missed close to half of his games due to injury. He missed the entire '82 season and most of '83. 

Is it possible Gettleman was under orders to not miss out on Barkley? Mara was trying to win with Manning and not looking to rebuild at that point.

Quote from: MightyGiants on January 26, 2024, 09:00:54 PMIn fairness, these comments were at the end of his podcast and were not advertised.  Raanan was addressing the possibility of Belichick coming to the Giants as a coach.  He said people have come to him with the reports that Belichick is not happy with the way the Giants run now.  Raanan suggested it had to do with the family being involved in running the team, a break from how things were run when he was with NYG and Wellington was in charge

When Belichick was with the Giants, George Young ran the team and Wellington was not involved, abiding by the agreement made with nephew Tim and Pete Rozelle. It's doubtful John would step back and allow anyone the freedom Young had.

If they bring Belichick in, they should get rid of Schoen and DaBoll. They'd be in a situation where they'd be looking over their shoulders after every debatable decision or loss. Belichick would be viewed as a coach-in-waiting, everyone knows he wants to coach again and would probably want full control when he slides over to be head coach. They did this the last time the team was in total chaos when they hired the most successful head coach from the WFL, John McVay, to a made up job title, only to succeed Bill Arnsbarger in the middle of his first season here. Either Schoen and DaBoll go or continue to run the team as they see fit and try to stabilize this team that has been so poorly run for so many years. Owners need to support their management or find new they believe in, not undermine it.

Campbell and Waller were Gettleman type moves. As soon as Schoen had money to spend, he went right for skill players while fielding an unknown offensive line with no depth. The Barkley contract only kept him here for 1 year and now it's off the books. He did good with Jones, no one knew he would be hurt and possibly not ready to start next season. If Jones isn't the answer, most of his contract is gone after '24.

Finding the right guy is most important. Once you have the right guy, stick with him. Sticking with the wrong guy that can't handle the job is worse than getting rid of him. Simple. Is he saying the Jets would've grown and gotten better if they kept Herman Edwards as head coach? The Giants, had they kept McAdoo? Seems like we were seeing the middle of the interview, so it's out of context.

Joe Judge had a similar problem with Jason Garrett and his "click".

Martindale was wrong to go to the press about the McKinney insentient. It's the head coach's job to meet with the parties behind closed doors and then give the usual non-answer to the press.

Daboll should've conferred with Martindale before firing the Wilkins's brothers. The way it was done was to force Martindale to resign.

Here's the other side of the story from today's Post.

https://nypost.com/2024/01/16/sports/brian-daboll-needs-to-evolve-after-giants-coaching-mess/

https://nypost.com/2024/01/15/sports/norm-snead-former-giants-pro-bowl-quarterback-dead-at-84/

Here's the complete article, best to read the whole thing before commenting.

nydailynews.com
The truth behind Brian Daboll, Wink Martindale, Mike Kafka and the Giants' drama
Pat Leonard
11–13 minutes

On Nov. 19 at Washington's FedEx Field in Landover, Md. the 2-8 Giants led the Commanders, 24-12, late in the fourth quarter.

Wink Martindale's defense had forced four turnovers. Thomas McGaughey's special teams unit had forced another. And Mike Kafka's offense, with Tommy DeVito at quarterback, had scored two of its three touchdowns on short fields off those takeaways.

But now Washington's offense was driving, aided by a Kayvon Thibodeaux roughing the passer penalty outside the red zone. And that's when Brian Daboll started playing the blame game on Martindale and the defensive staff:

"You're gonna lose this game just like you lost us the Jets game," Daboll griped on the headset, according to numerous sources in the building.

Daboll was blaming the defense for the Giants' infamous 13-10 overtime loss to the Jets on Oct. 29, in which the offense had thrown for -9 yards and Daboll's late-game mismanagement had opened the door to a full-scale, team-wide meltdown.

Daboll's divisive finger-pointing wasn't out of the ordinary. That's one of the reasons why, sources say, Giants GM Joe Schoen had begun listening in on the coaches' headsets on game days that week in Washington — although the GM also was taking a step that both the Texans' Nick Caserio and the Cowboys' Will McClay have done to gain a better understanding of the game day operation.

Daboll's sideline behavior was destructive, in many coaches' opinions. His input was never proactive, always reactionary. And his outrage was rarely accompanied by a suggested solution.

"He has no composure," one team source said.

America saw it first-hand on Sunday Night Football Oct. 15 in Buffalo. NBC sideline reporter Melissa Stark said a "very frustrated" Daboll couldn't answer questions at halftime because, he admitted: "My head is not in this. I cannot focus on anything right now."

Now Schoen was monitoring the dynamic at Washington after being alerted by several meaningful parties that Daboll's behavior and the sideline dynamic were not constructive.

Schoen would stay on the headsets for four games, sources say – against the Commanders, Patriots, Packers and Saints – before stepping back offline for the final three.

The story of the Giants' 2023 undoing isn't about a personal feud between Daboll and Martindale and the past, though. It's about bad football and a flawed process that still exists inside the Giants' walls.

It's about an organization with enough problems that one Giants staffer recently advised an NFL assistant calling about a vacancy:

"Do not come here."
'OFF THE WAVE'

Daboll set an adversarial tone in August when he stared down McGaughey, his special teams coordinator, on the sideline after a Lions punt return touchdown. That public showing-up wasn't appreciated, but Daboll's rage was nothing new.

He'd eviscerated plenty of people in 2022, like former running backs coach DeAndre Smith, who left for the Colts last offseason. Daboll also lit into Daniel Jones twice in two years, throwing a tablet in disgust next to his quarterback after Jones' Week 4 pick-six against the Seahawks.

Kafka, the Giants' young offensive coordinator, however, has received the brunt of Daboll's fury, according to numerous team sources. He is "constantly second-guessed," a source said.

Daboll, who got the Giants job due to his work with Josh Allen's Bills offense, ran a consistently hot temperature as his offense cratered beginning with a 40-0 Week 1 loss to the Cowboys. And he often took it out on his OC.

"He would make [Kafka] run the ball, and then if he called a run [Daboll] didn't like it, he would motherf–k him," a source said.

The Giants started 1-5 with only one offensive TD total in their first five losses. Poor O-line personnel and an annual injury problem under this athletic training staff didn't help. They went three straight games without an offensive TD against Seattle, Miami and Buffalo in Weeks 4-6.

The good fortune of last season's playoff run had worn off quickly.

"Last season it was like we were riding a wave," one player said as the season spiraled. "And now, we're off the wave."

Daboll took playcalling away from Kafka multiple times, according to sources, and gave it back each time. He gave it to QB coach Shea Tierney for the second half at Dallas in Week 10, per sources.

Daboll's "unpredictability," one source said, was his defining trait. There was no pattern, rhyme or reason to his changes from others' perspectives.

Daboll also took over Kafka's offensive meetings in Week 7 ahead of a home game against Washington, as the Daily News first reported. And he didn't give complete control back to Kafka until Week 11, after the offense had averaged 11.75 points during that 1-3 stretch.

With Kafka back at the reins, the Giants scored 24 or more points in five of their final seven games. But Daboll's impulsive nature also reared its head in how he mismanaged game situations in losses.

His game management in last year's divisional round in Philadelphia – going for a 4th and 8 on the Eagles' 40-yard line while trailing 7-0 – sent a message of panic to the team and ended the 38-7 loss in the first quarter.

Then poor situational football cost the Giants their two worst losses: In Week 6 at Buffalo, when Tyrod Taylor received a play call with a run check at the goal line before halftime; and in Week 8 against the Jets, when Daboll sent an injured Graham Gano out to miss a field goal when one yard would have ended the game.

The defense had breakdowns at the end of those defeats, too, but shining blame on those miscues when the offense wasn't functioning and the end-game decisions were backfiring came off as a lack of accountability to some on staff.

Daboll receives advice on his headset in those moments from an analytics and game management team. But one source called that collaboration a "broken process," saying it's not thorough or advanced. And regardless of what is discussed during the week, Daboll's game day decisions become up-for-grabs, impulse calls without guardrails.

"It's like, 'Wait, what did we have that meeting for?" the source said. "There's a lot of inconsistency or doing the direct opposite of what we had talked about. The rest of the league is too far ahead, and you see it affecting the results of games."

In a Week 10 blowout at Dallas, the Giants' offense had 27 yards and one first down in the first half. The defense caved and allowed 640 yards total. And Daboll was ripping the defense so frantically and constantly after positive Cowboys plays that it was interfering with Martindale's play-calling process, sources said.

Several sources said Martindale asked Daboll to stop so he could get the next play in. The next week, Schoen was on the headsets to monitor the situation for himself.

"You're living on the edge every week," a source said of working for Daboll. "It makes it tough to do your job."
WHERE IT WENT WRONG WITH WINK

There were signs from the first day of last year's training camp that the Daboll-Martindale dynamic would not work.

When the offense struggled to start camp, Daboll allowed a perception to grow that he had tipped off the defense to play calls in order to create a challenge for Jones.

But the reality, according to sources, was that Martindale's pressure packages were giving the offense fits. So Daboll told Martindale he was putting a limit on his blitzes for the rest of camp.

That set the tone for an offense vs. defense coaching culture that did not go in the offense's favor, especially this season.

The defense finished with more takeaways (31) than the offense had touchdowns (25) and scored three TDs on its own. The offense scored more than 14 points only once in the Giants' first nine games.

The weight of the offense's struggles became too much for the defense during those blowout losses to the Raiders and Cowboys, the unit's worst two games of the year.

"We know we have to be perfect because of the offense right now," a defensive starter said after the Dallas game. "It's hard."

The handling of safety Xavier McKinney's public criticism of the coaching staff after the Week 9 loss to the Raiders was a good window into the Daboll-Martindale rift.

Daboll tried to keep the fallout in-house and did not appreciate that Martindale put McKinney on blast publicly a few days later. But some viewed Daboll's lack of public consequences for McKinney – and the subsequent leak of his displeasure with Martindale – as the head coach choosing a player over his defensive coordinator.

The outcome was that McKinney, after being held accountable, played his best football in the second half of the season.

But FOX sideline reporter Tom Rinaldi noted an extended, out-of-the-ordinary conversation between Daboll and Martindale on the sideline in Week 10 at Dallas. Then Daboll had McKinney break the team down in the winning Week 11 locker room at Washington.

That all built up to FOX's Jay Glazer reporting in Week 12 before a win over the Patriots that Daboll and Martindale were "in a bad place."

No one viewed Daboll giving Martindale the game ball after that 10-7 win over the Patriots as genuine. It was seen as a transparent, staged, public relations move. The players, however, did not mutiny. Daboll had cultivated support in the locker room.

Players stood by him publicly. One player said Daboll's 2022 playoff berth and win still carried weight during this down time. Players also responded to a lighter practice schedule from training camp to the team's walkthrough-filled final three weeks of the season.

Plenty of people in the building, including players, coaches and executives, said Daboll bought meaningful capital with last year's success. But that now the pressure should turn up in Year Three because of how badly Year Two went.

Martindale had a lot of support, as well. Captain and middle linebacker Bobby Okereke stumped the loudest, telling the News in November that losing Martindale would be "devastating," a sentiment echoed by several players.

Some simply grew tired of hearing about the dueling coach camps.

"Too many egos," one player said. "Too many egos."

Ultimately, the Giants fired Martindale's right-hand man, outside linebackers coach Drew Wilkins, and his brother Kevin on Black Monday without informing the defensive coordinator.

All that did was expedite Martindale's plan to escape what had become an untenable, unhealthy, losing situation. Martindale blew up at Daboll, according to sources.

"Go f–k yourself," he told Daboll, who is no stranger to that kind of language. And then Martindale left the building and the team. The Daily News first reported he was resigning.

The official terms of Martindale's resignation freed him to pursue a head coach or defensive coordinator position with any other team. He gave back his $3.25 million salary for the one year remaining on his Giants contract in return, sources said.

That was a high price to pay, but Martindale clearly determined his freedom and the Wilkins' reputations were worth it.

The facts, after all, show that the Giants didn't get rid of any problems here. They lost a respected coordinator because they couldn't get their own house in order.

The last paragraphs tell it all:

Or give it a try for one month at $5.99. There's a ton of great content. Just today, for example, a new series debuted based on the Ted movies.

The Office is on Peacock. Plenty of Universal movies end up on Peacock not long after the start of their theatrical run. Plenty of live sports are on Peacock.

So give Peacock a try. Enjoy the Dolphins-Chiefs game. And please realize that, before the NFL would ever shift the Super Bowl to a streaming service, it would have to be ready to surrender its antitrust exemption. Which it would be crazy to do.

The article is just a fancy advertisement.

Quote from: MightyGiants on January 13, 2024, 08:19:28 AMI have seen an interesting point raised about this.  The NFL needed an anti-trust waiver from Congress to collectively market their TV package.   This article discusses the rest




Saturday night's game between the Dolphins and Chiefs will become the first NFL playoff game to be available only via streaming, except in the home markets of the two teams. Many object to the development because they fear that more and more playoff games will land on streaming — including (eventually) the Super Bowl.

While it's impossible to know what the NFL eventually will do, at some point the NFL will jeopardize its broadcast antitrust exemption if it puts too many playoff games on pay-only platforms.

Already, New York congressman Pat Ryan has suggested that House of Representatives explore the law that allows the league's teams to sell their TV rights collectively, based on the decision to stream a playoff game.

The NFL's push to streaming began in 2022, when the NFL moved Thursday Night Football from free on Fox to prime on Amazon. There wasn't much of an outcry over that. But this is a playoff game; for many, it represents the first step in something that could expand to more postseason contests.

That's up to the league. But the league should tread lightly. Without the broadcast antitrust exemption, the NFL would face significant liability if it forces networks that would prefer to purchase the right to televise only Cowboys home games to also take home games from all teams. Eventually, every team would do its own deal. And it would become very hard to hold the league together if one team is making $1 billion per year and another team is making $50 million per year.

That's why the NFL has always made cable-only games on TNT or ESPN available via over-the-air TV in the local markets, for more than 30 years. Taking games away from three-letter networks in local markets would imperil the antitrust exemption.

The NFL surely knows the stakes for taking streaming too far. Personally, I doubt it will expand beyond wild-card weekend. If/when it does, there will be more voices calling for the league to lose the legal exception that has helped fuel the goose that has been laying golden eggs for more than 60 years.

So, basically, there's currently no reason to think one wild-card game on a streaming platform eventually will result in the Super Bowl on a streaming platform.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/nfl-wont-overdo-it-with-streaming-its-antitrust-exemption-relies-on-that

Highly biased article.

Quote from: spiderblue43 on January 12, 2024, 04:31:50 PMRoger always talks about "growing the game" worldwide. How about here? There are less viewers watching on Peacock than without it. Hmmm. Seems like their growing the NFL coiffures instead with that deal. .

The article listed 110 million reasons.

Joe Judge had several offensive line coaches and advisors when Colombo was here. Line coaching was probably a confusing mess then. It could've been like having 3 different hitting coaches or golf pro's working with you the same day.

Quote from: kartanoman on December 29, 2023, 10:05:14 AMTrouba is out for a while with the big guy, Edstrom, called up and may play tonight.

Peace!

Quote from: Giant Jim on December 29, 2023, 10:48:07 AMWhere did you see that Truba is out tonight? NY Post says he's OK and practiced fully. Edstrom is a wing. Jones is the 7th defenseman, I don't think they have an extra forward.

Quote from: kartanoman on December 29, 2023, 11:06:29 AMSee below:

Rangers Recall Edstroem

Yes, I knew Edstroem was called up, but as a back-up forward, not defense. They need an extra forward on the trip to FL in case one goes down. They already have an extra defenseman with Jones, but I thought Truba is going to play, so Jones sits out again.

Quote from: kartanoman on December 29, 2023, 10:05:14 AMTrouba is out for a while with the big guy, Edstrom, called up and may play tonight.

Peace!

Where did you see that Truba is out tonight? NY Post says he's OK and practiced fully. Edstrom is a wing. Jones is the 7th defenseman, I don't think they have an extra forward.