Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on Today at 02:37:42 PMPrior to getting here, Burns missed I think a total of three games through his first five seasons in the NFL. The guy has been the model of durability, and now as a Giant he's suddenly hurt very early in the season.

Oh well. I'm sure it's just bad luck.

Not bad luck, but it must be the "Year of the Groin" since it seems to be the "en vogue" injury of choice this season. First Gano, now Burns, who's next up?

Peace!

Quote from: MightyGiants on Today at 11:24:36 AMChris,

The problem with the approach of letting Ronnie explain himself is that neither Mara, Tisch nor Schoen have the medical background to judge the answers he would give effectively. 

Good morning, Rich @MightyGiants .

Exactly! That is precisely the punchline which underscores everyone's frustrations here, which is what my statement was intended to point out, with a slight hint of  .

We've discussed it at length over this past week and debunked the head coach AND the kicker's responses. What occurred should never have been allowed to happen had a COMPLETE risk management plan been in place for a position which is a single point of failure (i.e. kicker when that player is already carrying an injury going into the game).

Go back and watch the 1985 Week #2 game when the Giants traveled to Green Bay to face the Packers. It played out similarly to last weekend's game from the standpoint of having an injured kicker who, had the Giants opted to go with a different guy, might have won that game.

It's history literally repeating itself and the Head Trainer then is the VP of Medical now. Lesson learned?

Most unfortunate if, at the end of the season, we look back to that game as the tipping point that set the whole season into dumpster fire mode. I certainly hope that's not the case but we'll just have to see how and/or if they bounce back this weekend and into the meat of a tough schedule.

Peace!

Quote from: bamagiantfan on September 18, 2024, 01:59:36 PMMaybe a straight swap - Jones for Brice. Both could benefit from a change in scenery. There's been enough screaming on this board that the Giants need to get a top pick in the draft to get a quality QB. Well, there appears to be one available.

This would definitely be a win for Jones who would be going back home to NC.

For Young, however, if he has been "destroyed" already, NY will completely bury him next to Jimmy Hoffa, so I'd expect him to run as fast as he could out of town for fear of his life!

Peace!

This reminds me of 30 years ago when Mark Bavaro was playing for the Eagles in 1993-94. Did everyone feel the same about his situation then, although his wasn't about the money but his medical status post Super Bowl XXV.

Peace!

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on September 18, 2024, 09:55:33 PMI hear you.

I'm not really isolating the Gano incident though in making the above comment. More the last decade and the giants' big data results versus the league. My comment was more general.

And to be clear I didn't even pin it all on Barnes. I just think when the results of any department in a big organization are consistently worst or near worst in class among the competition over a very large sample, which is 100% the case with the Giants and player health, at some point it's more than fair to question leadership of said department. I mean that happens in any well run organization that tends to get good overall results versus its competitors.

You are one of the most thoughtful and articulate people on this board and a pleasure to have a conversation with, to include this very thread.

To your post above, about individuals not questioning Barnes' culpability in this case, or as a whole over the last 40+ years, I believe there are camps which range from "good guy, heart of gold, valued in the organization but not providing optimal leadership in medical corrective and preventive programs and protocols" to "he's a witch, burn him, as if he was a bit player in Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

I've been impressed with the fact the man continues to impress his skillset both inside AND outside the NFL. Does that mean he is the best of the best in managing of NFL team? Well, that's why I constantly beat the drum of using "Metrics that Matter" and, in his case, "Lost Man-Games due to Injury" is as objective as it gets. Every year, the Giants sit by themselves at the far right of that chart and lead the pack. From there, you can break it down any way you see fit to isolate soft tissue injuries to skill players or any criteria you believe tells a story.

When you have objective evidence, and can put that in Ronnie's face and ask him to explain, and what he is doing about it, maybe then we can judge him more fairly.

But don't think for one moment your perceptions are misleading you. He's a qualified leader to run an organization in the NFL, per John Mara, owner of the New York Football Giants.

See what I did there?

Peace!

Now Mr. Gano is slapping all of us with a wet noodle!

Giants' Graham Gano rips ridiculous criticism of Brian Daboll

Says Gano:

"I don't know why he would [get criticized]," Gano said about Daboll, as shared by Zach Braziller of the New York Post. "The hamstring, nobody knew that was coming at all. I think that's kind of ridiculous if that's the case. The groin thing, I was able to kick fully with it. There was no real difference between me hitting balls with it and fully healthy. I was able to back it up to 60 yards and be very accurate."

Again, a myopic perspective of things. Place-kicking the ball may be his "primary" objective on the field of play, but it isn't his only objective, as evidenced by happenings on the opening kickoff.

Perhaps next time, when the coach asks if he's good to go, Daboll should preface it with making him run a wind-sprint to prove it.

Sorry, Mr. Ali Haji-Sheikh Part Deux!

Peace!

Quote from: Trench on September 19, 2024, 09:16:34 AMThey should have Tom Brady give him the news too!

Brilliant idea!

Unless the voters play the "anti NY bias" game they did with Harry Carson, Eli gets in and that's that. There are some excellent QBs on that list who one could argue were victims of circumstance in the big game (e.g. McNair, Ryan). But, those guys had opportunities to get it done and didn't. Eli, in the same situation, did it twice to a team that goes down as dominant in that era which had the greatest QB of all time, hands down. That QB walked off the field twice with his head down while Eli carried off the Lombardi and the game's MVP twice!

There's nothing else to debate after that. Eli can punch his ticket this season and those other great QBs can come in at a future date.

Peace!

Quote from: MightyGiants on September 17, 2024, 01:20:48 PMLarry,

We still see Ronnie Barnes on the side-lines and field on gameday, and we saw him in Schoen's office on Hard Knocks.  It's sort of hard to buy into a suggestion that he is just a figurehead.

In my 35-year career in Emergency Medical Services (that ended in my late 50s) I found three things harder to do the older I got:

1)  Miss a significant portion of my sleep on duty night

2) While I was still strong enough to lift the very heavy patients, I paid for it the next day as I got older

3) AND RELATED TO THIS POST-  It was difficult to constantly relearn and learn new things as the medical field was constantly evolving.   I still learn new things, but I find relearning them more difficult.  You are trying to replace long-term memories with recent ones, which is difficult.


I can't help but wonder how a man in his 70s is relearning and updating things he thought he knew to be correct for decades.   It's just a very challenging task.

I guess you could get my charm and your people skills, but if you don't stay current in an ever-evolving field, your results will be less than optimal.

What I highlighted above, my wife, who is a Physician Assistant, will back you 100% on the boldfaced text. Not only do currency requirements evolve, but the agencies who manage the qualification/certification requirements change them every few years which add additional challenge and frustration to long-time professionals in that medical discipline. It's not a knock on the individual at all. That's the reality that these State Medical Boards and Medical Departments of Universities are pushing on new students and all certified MD, DO, PA-C and other medical professionals must keep up with currency requirements over a look-back period (e.g. "X" CEUs every calendar year then take the re-certification examination every "Y" number of years).

So, Rich @MightyGiants is spot-on with that comment and I don't have to speak to point #2 for those of us on the wrong side of 50!

As for #1, when you live a life of stress in perpetuum, you sometimes do not realize what living on two to three hours of sleep per night will do to you until you afford your body to fall back into its natural biorhythm. I don't remember how, but this past summer, I managed to do just that where I stopped getting up at 4 AM (NOTE: sometimes as early as 2 AM), work 'til 6 or 7 PM, shower, eat, conk out, rinse and repeat. I woke up when my body told me to get up, which was at the crack of dawn (NOTE: about 4:45 AM in the summer in PHX), get myself together, tell the boss you're only getting nine hours out of me today, home by 4 PM, do some chores, hang out with my wife and youngest kid, go to bed early, sleep deeper than I ever had before in years. What a revelation! Of course, that all came to an end when the kid started school the beginning of August. But it showed me the impact of falling into a stressful pattern when work controls my life, just as it does every Giant staffer, including Ronnie Barnes.

Maybe Joe Schoen should ask Brandon Brown to establish a RIO (Risk, Issue, Opportunity) Management Program to capture and manage Operational risks and issues, as well as opportunities. Something such as the kicking fiasco, this past week, could have been elevated as a good candidate for a risk and managed properly using RIO Best Practices. In my mind, despite it sounding a bit formal and business-like, it would have allowed the key members to put it on the table and work it so that the best managed plan going forward would have been decided on. RIO Management is an excellent method for working across multiple functions in an organization.

But now that it is water under the bridge, and history has repeated itself, the only thing left to do is capture what happened as a Lesson Learned and make a recommendation, should the circumstance occur in the future, what would they do differently.

Peace!

As long as he doesn't pull his hamstring at the "Mistake by the Lake," I guess it's full steam ahead!

Peace!

Quote from: Jclayton92 on September 17, 2024, 04:20:46 PMThink we need both my friend.

You'll get no argument from me, at all!

Peace!

Quote from: Jclayton92 on September 17, 2024, 03:15:02 PMWhere is the kid that got charged with rape falsely, is he available?

You're thinking of the "Punt God," Matt Araiza. He now punts for the Kansas City Chiefs. While I have no issue with replacing the Scottish Hammer with him, the team needs a reliable place-kicker.

Peace!

Quote from: MrGap92 on September 17, 2024, 11:38:32 AMJust play Jude, why is he on the PS roster if he isnt your fallback option?

Kickers I feel like you either have it or you dont. Can sitting around not kicking really help them much?

Agreed! The Giants, of all teams, need the "Luck o' the Irish" and Jude can provide that to them! The owner, in his own heritage bias, would agree.

Peace!

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on September 16, 2024, 09:04:43 PMIt wouldn't for any technical reason. More just that the Giants gave this guy a big commitment. If their docs said he will only need 2-3 weeks off I suspect they don't want him to miss even one unnecessary extra game given what they're paying him. More of an embarrassment thing than anything else. And it was just a theory.

I'll tell you from the perspective of a guy who has place-kicked footballs thousands upon thousands of times since he was three years old. Your kicking leg is very comparable to a golf swing and the motion of kicking very similar to swinging a golf club. A centrifugal force in the golf swing, starting from the central point that is your torso, from the arms to the wrist, through the club to its head, the force is directed outward so that when head hits golf ball, that force "drives" the ball in the direction the force is directing it. The concept is practically the same in place-kicking except the kicker's leg represents the golf club and the arm. The central point is the ball-joint of the kicking leg hip, down the thigh to the knee, down the tibia/fibula to the ankle and finally the foot and toes. You are creating the same centrifugal force which is significant in the buttock and hamstring to jump-start the force. If that hamstring is pulled or torn, it will require extended therapy to heal completely AND a slow rehabilitation to bring its strength back to where it was before the injury.

During my years of competitive sport and long-distance running, I was very fortunate never to have issues with my hamstrings because I was diligent in stretching and warming up before activities and cooling down and stretching some more after I was done. I've known colleagues who have had hamstring issues for years that, once you start having them, they will always be an issue and they must be extra careful not to overdo it at any time for fear of re-injuring a previous issue. It requires near daily stretching and the right exercises to keep previously injured hamstrings limber, strong and resistant to re-injury.

In Gano's case, he's an older player (NOTE: 37, I believe) and, while far from old, at that age you're definitely not 21 anymore! Your mind might still feel you're young, but your body is most definitely not!

If he is out only three to four weeks, and attempts to come back, I'll tell you right now it would be only a matter of time before he reinjures it and he'll be done for good, as in he won't be good for 2024 and possibly 2025. He should go on IR for a minimum of two (2) months and try to come back stronger with ample time to rehabilitate.

Meanwhile, give our young, Irish kicker, waiting in the wings, an opportunity to make his dream come true. Heck, he may surprise all of us!

Peace!

Hey! You forgot me!!! Yup, I was the guy who was given a clean bill of health by ol' Ronnie before marching out onto the field and promptly hit the ground with a Charlie Horse attempting my first PAT. The assistants tossed me on the stretcher and promptly exited the facility and dumped me in the parking lot, try-out over! Oh well, the spirit was willing, but the flesh and titanium was weak.

Randy Bullock kicked for them last year before he ended up on IR. Whether or not he's the favorite remains to be seen. I would imagine they will assess his prior injury before making a decision to sign him.

I'm still hoping Jude McAtamney will get the nod in the end:

McAtamney closer to NFL debut after Giants kicker injury

Peace!