NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news

Giants expectations

I don't understand all the doom & gloom. Last season the Giants were expected to be contenders. Injuries and poor defensive coaching messed that up. Are the Giants any worse on paper going into this season than they were going into last season? NO!

If there were superbowl hopes last season, why not now? The defensive line looks better than it did at this point last season with Osi and William Joseph benefitting from experience and Norman Hand and co. more than making up for the loss of Cornelius Griffin. The linebackers look to be better. Barrow's leadership will be missed, but Emmons and Barret Green are clearly upgrades. The secondary remains largely intact. The addition of Terry Cousins is nice, and Stoutmire might be better when rotating with Brent Alexander. More important than any personnel, is that the defensive coordinator will know what he's doing.

On offense, there's no doubt that Kerry Collins will be missed, and that since we expected to have Seubert last season the offensive line looks weaker than it did at the beginning of last preseason. Still the offensive line looks OK and Kurt Warner seems fine. The skill players are still there. Clearly a healthy Shockey is key. Barber seems to have stopped fumbling, Dayne averaged 7 yards a carry during the preseason, and we picked up a viable short yardage back. The receivers remain strong with Toomer and Hilliard leading the way.

Special teams will have to improve. Kickoffs are still a concern. We'll have to wait and see if our coverage and return teams step it up. One could reasonably expect them too with Coughlin's attention to special teams.

Anyway, either last year everyone who thought the Giants would do well has no idea how to analyze football OR there's a good chance the Giants will be competitive this year.