Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: kartanoman on November 17, 2023, 08:06:05 PMWithout 1978, there wouldn't have been a George Young, Ray Perkins or Phil Simms.

Without 1980, there wouldn't have been a Lawrence Taylor.

Without Joe Danelo hitting the upright in overtime in the 1981 season finale against Dallas, he'd never get the opportunity to leap into Scott Brunner's arms after converting a second game winning attempt following Byron Hunt's interception of Danny White, and the Giants ending the 18-Year Rebuilding Plan with their admission into the NFC Wild Card Playoff Round.

Without 1982, there wouldn't have been a Bill Parcells as Head Coach.

Without 1983, there wouldn't have been a Carl Banks (or possibly William Roberts).

Without 1984, there wouldn't have been second chances for both Bill Parcells and Phil Simms, along with a magnificent defense in the making, to help the Giants rise like a Phoenix from the ashes, into a title contender.

Without Sean Landeta's infamous "Ole Miss" in Soldier Field, Chicago, to punctuate a frustrating Divisional Playoff loss to the Bears in 1985, he never would have gotten the chance to redeem himself a year later in his wind-swept Giants Stadium with, arguably, the greatest punt ever in the old Giants Stadium by launching a boomer through the wind and landing it on the Redskins' five-yard line to set the defense up for the kill and the 17-0 NFC Championship victory.

Without Wellington Mara, we probably wouldn't have had 20 years of lousy football. 1964-1983

Quote from: kartanoman on November 17, 2023, 08:06:05 PMWithout the pain and suffering from that one play in 1978, the moment which came to underscore the futility of this organization like no other, with us stunned as Herman Edwards jumped for joy in the end zone as the entire Eagle bench cleared to join him there, without that moment, the nadir of this experience we have as Giants fans, in no way possible could we have felt the infinite joy and ecstacy when the clock hit 0:00 in Pasadena, CA on January 25, 1987, Bill Parcells being lifted onto the shoulders of his "Suburbanities," while John Madden proclaimed, "This is as good as it gets; it doesn't get any better than this; and the best part, it lasts forever." We can romanticize the whole thing now, because that moment in Super Bowl XXI made going through all the despair and seeming hopelessness all worth it in the end. Some way, somehow, I hope Schoen and Daboll will get that opportunity to experience the same thing. So, let them pay their dues today. I'll be there on Sunday moaning and groaning with the rest of you; however, we'll all be there, some day, somehow, when it all translates into something worth going through all of this when it's all said and done. We can look back and laugh at the days of conspiracies while embracing our champions.

Without Tim Mara, Wellington probably would've continued running the team into the ground into the 1990's and we wouldn't have had the great teams of the Parcells era.

Quote from: kingm56 on November 17, 2023, 02:34:21 PMMara is guilty of holding on to Eli for too long and believing DJ was something more than he demonstrated over 8 years. If the latter constitutes a conspiracy, a lot of posters here should be investigated too. Otherwise, Larry perfectly articulated my own sentiments. 

I'll conclude by stating I'm glad the Maras own my favorite football team; they're a classy family.

The Mara's have hurt this team greatly since I've been following the them. While Wellington may have been a top talent evaluator in the '40's and 50's, the game passed him by in the 60's and he never came back. His drafts, which he was solely responsible for, were worse than horrible after 1956. His nephew Tim tried to get Andy Robustelli to run the team in the 70's, but Wellington's interference kept them down. After the league stepped in after the '78 season, Wellington agreed to let the new GM run the team without interference. He allowed George Young to run the team and they were finally successful.
He became too friendly with Young and in the early days of free agency did nothing as it became apparent the game passed Young by. After Young finally stepped down, Wellington and John began meddling with Ernie Accorsi. They pushed Tom Coughlin on him. John was heavily involved with the changing of Caughlin's coordinators, namely Ben McAdoo. Later, he narrow-mindedly pushed Jerry Reese to promote McAdoo to head coach.  John hired Dave Gettleman, again narrow-mindedly. I'm sure he was behind drafting Barkley because he felt Barkley could help Eli Manning. I could go on.
Old man Tim Mara built the team from scratch. Wellington almost destroyed it. Nephew Tim fought and saved it, now John is destroying it again.  I have no love for the Mara's. I wish they'd sell the team.

I have no doubt John Mara is still interfering with GM and personal decisions.

Anyone understand why Will Cuylle's goal was disallowed? I thought the ref's explanation didn't make any sense.

Quote from: kingm56 on November 13, 2023, 07:31:37 PMI deeply appreciate yours and Dan's perspective; yet, I hope you don't mind me asking a hypothetical question.  In 1980, the Cardinals won one more game than our Giants; consequently, they 'earned' the 5th pick, while our Giants had the number 2 pick, which they used on Lt.  The Cardinals selected LB  EJ Junior; now, if the Giants win one more game in 1980, they end up with the 4/5 pick, ceding the opportunity to select LT to the Seahawks or Cardinals.  Would fans rather have LT, or a few meaningless wins in a lost season?  Now, I'm suggesting there's an LT in this draft, but there's a chance Williams could be our next Eli...I'd rather enjoy that possibility than a few meaningless wins.  I think that's the perspective being shared in this thread.  Regardless, I get where you're coming from!!

Lawrence Taylor was a once in a lifetime talent. Another #2 overall pick was Ryan Leaf. Lawrence Taylor was over 40 years ago, there hasn't been another since. Look at the top picks they've had recently and where they are now. Schoen has had 2 drafts, one with Gettleman's scouts and one with his own. What makes your sure he can pick a good QB? He picked Neal. Thibodeaux does well against teams with weak offensive lines. The book's still out on whether he can pick a head coach. Winter's coming, I'll try to watch the games and hopefully they'll play well enough and win so it's enjoyable for me to invest 3 hours.

Quote from: Dumpster Dan on November 13, 2023, 06:58:54 PMCongrats for having the courage to speak up and say it--The other great contributor to this site, the late JimV must be rolling in his grave with all this talk about tanking, losing every game, play Devito the sacrificial lamb etc etc

Dumpster Dan

Thanks for the support, but like JimV, I've seen my share of first round mistakes by the Giants and the rest of the league. Simms needed until the middle of the '84 season to get the entire fan base behind him, he didn't do much before then. How many teams for Geno Smith? You watch the games from Sept-Dec, not in April. I hate to say it, but no matter what, Jones's injury at this time does mean they need to bring in a QB with potential to take over. But to root for them to lose? How many top tier QB's have been drafted since they skipped over several to draft Barkley?

Jeff George, Vince Young, David Carr, Jack Thompson, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Rick Mirer, JaMarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf,  Zach Wilson, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Mark Sanchez, Robert Griffin III
A top pick doesn't always work out. Who's going to be drafting this next "great" QB, Joe Schoen? How's his record of drafting QB's? Please don't say Josh Allen, he was an assistant like Dave Gettleman was when Ernie Accorsi drafted Phillip Rivers and traded for Eli. Ray Perkins was very involved in drafting Phil Simms. The great George Young got a so-so QB in Hostetler and failed horribly with Dave Young. Look at the Giants history since the draft was started, they've only drafted 1 championship QB, Phil Simms. I'll be rooting for them to win as many as possible. If they lose out, there'll probably be another coaching change. ... it wasn't that long ago we were laughing at the Cleveland Browns.

Even when Prescott was in, they were throwing down field with the big lead. At no point did they just run the ball to burn the clock. I've hated this team since day 1. Sore losers, sore winners throughout their history. They've always been more arrogant than even the Al Davis Raiders.

Quote from: Gmo11 on November 13, 2023, 10:09:09 AMDaniel Jones.

Yeah, he had a lot to do with yesterday's game and the Raider fiasco.

At this point, I will be pissed if the Giants lose another game. I'm sick of losing.

Quote from: Giant Obsession on November 09, 2023, 12:18:03 PMThe Giants held off trading Morrall to the Colts for a year until they could reacquire Wood following the 1967 season.

Morrall led the Colts to the super bowl loss to the Jets the first year after the trade. Craig Morton, also 1 of 3 in 1974, led Denver to the super bowl loss after the Giants traded him about 10 years later. Giants paid high prices to obtain both and got nothing in return for either in play or acquisitions. Tarkenton gave them good seasons before he left for little return and led Minnesota to 3 super bowl losses.

The Mara way. Grandpa Tim had former players as head coaches, Steve Owen and Jim Lee Howell. That could've been normal back then, but their coaching staffs and scouts were former players under Wellington in the 60's and early 70's. Nephew Tim recommended Andy Robustelli to run football operations to Wellington because he thought Well would be more receptive to a familiar face. Part of the agreement reached when George Young was hired was to keep "do nothings" like Howell, Ray Walsh and staff of lazy, ex-player scouts. Wellington kept Young on board after it was obvious he wouldn't accept the new free agency rules of the early 90's. He pushed Ernie Accorsi to hire Tom Coughlin, a former Giants assistant. John chose from within for Jerry Reese and McAdoo and brought back Gettleman. Kevin Abrams is still here.

Does anyone know if he's the first quarterback of Italian descent to start for the Giants?

Didn't Parcells bring in Johnny Parker to set up conditioning to cut back on injuries? There must be people like that around. Tricep and pectoral muscle injuries were never heard of before players started heavy weight lifting. Hamstring and groin injuries are indications of poor stretching, especially with bulky muscles.

The team needs to hire outside to study why so many leg injuries and set up a program or system or find ways to cut back on them. Can't keep blaming the turf. Jones was on grass. I was wondering if the type of shoe he was wearing had anything to do with this last one? Is it the turf, the shoes, lack of or improper stretching???

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on November 07, 2023, 09:22:16 AMI'd say the difference in the two tenures was that Judge/Gettleman did nothing but fail, whereas Daboll/Schoen had a reasonably (or at least relatively) successful year last year in their debuts.

Even if you take the opinion that the 6-1 start was a mirage that involved winning with mirrors against terrible teams (not an unfair stance), they did win a road playoff game, which was pretty impressive. Judge has nothing remotely like that on his resume.

1981 was a tease but we didn't know it at the time, so '83 was extremely disappointing because they were as bad as the previous 17 or 18 seasons. I always felt 2016 & last year were teases because I knew the team wasn't that good. The drafts and free agents after '16 were to patch holes, adding very little to the foundation. I didn't expect a winning or playoff season this year, but I did expect to see better offensive line play, more competitive games against teams like Dallas and solid wins against teams like the Raiders. I'm not ready to jump ship with Daboll, but this season is winding down to look like '82/83 & '17. Does anyone think this team is any better than McAdoo, Shurmur or Judges talent wise? If Jones can't start at the beginning of next year, they're worse. If the Giants are done with Jones, for any reason, the rebuild restarts from ground zero and we're looking to reach the bad run like the 20 years of lousy football we had from '64-'83.

The Giants were the laughing stock of pro football (NFL & AFL) under Wellington Mara's guidance until he agreed to step aside and let a qualified GM run the team without his interference. John kept them down for most of this run, I don't know if he still is too involved, but my bet is, he is. John needs to talk to knowledgeable football people, not just Belicick, to properly evaluate Joe Schoen and if he decides he's not the problem, Schoen or the new GM need to determine Daboll's fate without any input from any Mara.