A Giant Rant

After the nailbiting OT win against the Eagles today, I gotta get some things off my chest about this edition of the New York football Giants.

To everyone criticizing them for their poor road record, and their poor play of late, and all that stuff, get off their back. This is a 9-4 team in contention for a first round bye. You don't get there unless you're good.

And to everyone hailing this team as one of the best in the NFC, and the Colts potential opponent in February's Super Bowl, calm down. This team isn't very good, and is only in year 2 of a rebuilding phase.

Does that make any sense? Yea, I didn't think so.

Now you see where I stand on these Giants. One day I'll look at them and say, "hmmm, they're 9-4, lost in OT twice & on the last play of regulation once. Wow, this team could realistically be 12-1 right now." And it's true, they could be. The offense was clicking in that Dallas loss, and if they had won the coin toss in OT, I have no doubt in my mind that they'd have driven the field and won the game. In the Minnesota game, the D holds Minnesota to 125 yards in the first 59 minutes. The Giants drive the field and tie the game up at 21 with 55 seconds left. (for those asking how a team has 125 yards and 21 points, its simple: kick return TD, punt return TD, int return TD... freaky, right?) So after the Giants tie it, what does the D do? Allows Minnesota to drive the field in 50 seconds to kick the winning FG. And then there's the Seattle disaster. No need to go into that.

So seriously, is it such a stretch to say this team could be 12-1, and might just be the best team in the NFC? No, not at all. Maybe all three of those games wouldn't have gone the Giants way, but if either the Cowboys or Seahawks game did, the NFC race would be very different right now.

But then I look at the other aspect. This is a team that was 4-12 two years ago. Ernie Accorsi, the GM, then stripped the team of everything, from QB to coach, and started from scratch. Last year, they went 6-10, and added more key pieces. But they went into the season with a QB who had only started 7 games- and won one. There aren't many people who thought 9 wins was possible for the entire season, forget in the first 13 games. Hell, myself I wanted an 8-8 season this year.

Then the Eagles fall apart, the Giants put together a few key wins, and bam, they're 9-4 and can potentially clinch the NFC East next weekend.

That doesn't mean this isn't year 2 of a rebuilding phase, though. Anyone who has watched the Giants all year long knows that the offense, while one of the highest scoring in the leagues, is one of the most inconsitant, mainly because of the QB play. On some drives, Eli Manning looks like the second coming of John Elway. He scrambles, he makes insane passes, he leads the team down the field in 70 seconds with no timeouts, down by 8, and gets the two point conversion (done that twice this year). But, on other drives, he looks like a kid who has only played 20 NFL games. He is only completing around 50% of his passes on the year. Has thrown 11 INTs in the last 5 games. Makes poor decisions time & time again.

And the D gets its fair share of blame as well. Statistically the unit ranks TOp 10 in the NFL, but that's mainly because of a 3 week stretch against the Skins-9ers-Vikings, not exactly 3 great Os, in which it gave up 9 points & 400 yards-- total. With the game on the line, and the team needing a stop, this unit fails more times than not. OT against Dallas. End of the game against Minnesota. Last 80 seconds of the game against the Eagles today.

This is a team that is very much still finding its identity. It's still growing. The pieces are all falling in place for this to be a very good team for years to come.

It's just this wasn't the year it was supposed to start. It's currently ahead of schedule. 9 wins right now, and some of the things we've seen from certain players, this season is already a huge success for me. So don't get ahead of yourself when you start predicting this team to go into Seattle in the NFC Championship and win the game. That won't happen this year. This team is still a year away from being a serious championship contender.

But don't call them bad either. Because when that happens, they go into a place like Seattle and completely manhandle the "best team in the NFC" for 71 minutes of football, and look like the class of the league in the process.

9-7? 12-4? Who knows. Just enjoy the ride. The future is bright. So is right now.