September 4, 2004
Another dissection
In his analysis of the Giants loss to the Ravens, Steven St. Lawrence offers some criticism of Coughlin, who is trying to fit a round peg into a square hole by forcing Dayne into power back situations. Dayne is not a power back.
Another concern mentioned here, is that the Giants haven't come up with any interceptions this preseason. Coughlin talks about winning the turnover battle, but that's hard to do when you have zero interceptions.
He also predicts that Tim Carter will be cut for dropping a bomb from Jessie Palmer. The question then would become who are the Giants four receivers?
Still he manages to predict an optimistic 10-6 record with a playoff berth...
Posted by James Trotta at September 4, 2004 10:27 PMDidn't Dayne average either 6.6 yds per carry during the preseason? So, if Mr. St. Lawrence were correct about Dayne's role, wouldn't that seem to indicate that Dayne adapted quite nicely into a power back?
However, it's less then brilliant for Mr. St. Lawrence to take only a tiny portion of Dayne's total play and use it as proof that he is unsuited to a certain role.
By St. Lawrence's own admission, Dayne was also used to run outside. So, Coughlin has not in any way shoved Dayne into the role of a mere "power back", but instead is respecting Dayne's total game. Coughlin is allowing him a chance to perform without setting artificial limitations upon him. If that means that, at times, he will have to run up the middle and in traffic, what's the problem?
The problem is not Coughlin miss using Dayne, it's a lack of analytical ability on behalf of St. Lawrence
Posted by: Tom at September 5, 2004 2:12 PMDayne has never been real good at running in traffic making him a poor choice for short yardage situations. I agree with you that since he sometimes runs outside and is used in other types of situations he's not always misused, but I think he sometimes is. We see a big back and figure he must be a power back, but Dayne is not.
Posted by: James Trotta at September 6, 2004 9:58 PM