NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news

The 2011-2012 schedule for the New York Giants was just released on Tuesday and that means it’s time to scope out which games to go to this coming NFL season. After coming short on making the playoffs last year, the Giants are looking to rebound this season and reestablish themselves atop the NFC. As always, NY Giants tickets are forecasted to be in high demand.

According to SeatGeek.com, the Giants secondary market ticket prices finished the season averaging $333 per game – certainly not cheap by any means and constantly one of the most expensive tickets in the league. In fact this was high enough to earn them the highest average ticket prices rank out of all 32 NFL teams. Therefore, you might want to get in early this year and buy tickets as soon as possible. But which matchups will be the hardest to get tickets to? It’s safe to assume the Monday Night Football matchup on September 19 against the St. Louis Rams will be a tough ticket to get. We can also look at some more data from the 2010-2011 season to get an idea of which teams draw the highest prices when visiting The New Meadowlands Stadium.

Looking into the fan demand data some more, the top spots in order for highest average ticket prices last year went to the Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles and the Carolina Panthers and proved to be the most sought after NY Giants matchups of the regular season . So while it may be a little early in the year, it looks like it might be the right time to lock in a low price to catch some of the best games for the 2011-2012 New York Giants season. Best of luck in your ticket search.

This article makes it sound like there’s a good chance Barry Cofield won’t be coming back. He has been very good for the Giants. Otherwise i don’t see much of note except, of course, that the Giants have not tried to sign any free agents at all due to the CBA expiring / possible lockout / etc.

When talking about his decision not to IR backup OT William Beatty, Reese talked about Steve Smith in 2007 and how they almost put him on IR (he missed 11 games) but then he came in on fire and lit it up for the playoff / Super Bowl run.

Here’s the Mike Garafolo article on this. Reese decided to keep Beatty on the roster even though he knew it meant losing Kehl (who was cut to make room for TE Bear Poscoe) who was a pretty hot commodity once released.

Why Kehl, the worst Giants linebacker on a pretty average linebacking unit, turned out to be so well-loved by other teams is beyond me but that’s another issue entirely.

This Forbes article puts Eli in some unsavory company. The author’s argument seems to be that:

1. Manning’s passer rating has averaged a pedestrian 17th in the NFL over the past three seasons, with one Pro Bowl selection

2. If not for Giant receiver David Tyree’s helmet catch on a desperation heave, Super Bowl XLII would have become just another feather in Tom Brady’s cap

I can’t be bothered to average the past 3 years but 2009 is easy enough:
Tom Brady = 28 TDS 13 INTS 4,398 YDS 96.2 Rating
Eli Manning = 27 TDS 14 INTS 4,021 YDS 93.1 Rating

And Tyree’s awesome catch was a damn good throw so why pick on that play? Pick on one of Eli’s mistakes maybe!

On the surface, the author looks like a total moron, even putting Eli among QBs that got similar money and performed less. Jamarcus Russell got 31 million over the last 3 years, Mark Bulger (31 mil) and Jay Cutler got 36.8 mil. Would the author rather build a franchise around one of those guys?

I’m not saying Manning is the best player in the NFL or even in the top 5 or 10. But I do think he’s a top 10 QB – can you name 10 better QBs? He might be slightly overpaid based on that but not based on being the face of a franchise. However, he’s certainly not one of the worst salaries in the league.

“We believe the owners have the faith in us that 3½ years from now we’ll put on a remarkable event,” Giants co-owner Jonathan Tisch said on the NFL Network. “The greatest game in the world will be played on the greatest stage in the world.”

Nice article here on why we should have a cold weather Super Bowl.

The Giants this off season will be monitoring the heart rates of 15 players as a kind of test study to see if they can identify when players overtrain and stuff. Apparently runners and other track and other endurance athletes have been doing this a while – a lower heart rate at rest indicates better conditioning and there are implications for how much recovery time is needed.

Surprisingly, no NFL team has yet to do it according to a quote in this article. Let’s hope it helps cut down on injuries.

Not long ago I said the 12.5K fine on Flozell Adams was a joke. Today I’m saying the 5K fine on Dockery from the Chargers game is a joke. He didn’t run into the return man, he was backing up.

Man it’s tough when your team plays like crap, the refs are morons, and the league officials are worst of all. I hope Giants football gets a lot better real soon.

Ohm Youngmisuk writes about Ernie Accorsi’s opinion. I criticized the guy but he got the Giants a lot of the pieces they needed for their Super Bowl victory over the Patriots.

Accorsi says Eli will win us more Super Bowls. If he does, I don’t care how much money he makes. I was just happy that this post is still relevant even though I wrote it a while ago. Even 15 million a year can be justified. He needs to play like in the Super Bowl run – not like he did against Philly last season.

Not unlike with the Favre thing, and the Jets getting all the media attention, this article says the Jets are going to snag more headlines than the Giants this year even though they will lose more games.

Interesting article here about the 17-18 game season talks. Seems that John Mara is the only owner not in favor:

“I don’t know if there is anyone else,” Mara said. “… I just think it’s pretty tough on the health of your players late in the season… but it [a longer regular season] is coming.”