Stamford, CT: Did anything unusual happen over the weekend, I was at a silent ayahuasca retreat. Okay it was a drinking binge. Fine, I was inhaling turpentine in my basement, watching Barbi. Anyway, it tells you where we are as a country that the biggest question in the assassination attempt on Trump is whether it was an inside job or gross incompetence. Neither is ideal. But it has been fun watching so many Dems lament the shooter’s poor aim while still insisting they’re the good guys. Sports, take me away! What do y’all think of Hard Knocks so far?
I was pretty pumped when I heard they were doing an off-season Hard Knocks with the Giants, my team. While there has been some decent moments, it’s been mostly disappointing. The team has final say on what gets aired, so you knew you weren’t going to see the nitty gritty of the toughest decisions, but so far there haven’t been many surprises at all.
Saquon Saga
We were expecting a huge spotlight on Saquon, and we got it. So Mara and the Giants wanted to keep him. But with a $40 million QB, a terrible offensive line, and plenty of other needs, paying him $12 million didn’t make a lot of sense. And no one had the stomach for another round of the tag game.
Put that in the “Sh!t We Already Knew” File. I wanted some high-level visuals and charts of cap projections, needs, and potential free agents. All we saw was a group of regular looking guys having regular sounding conversations. I have to assume they’re holding back on the good stuff, because otherwise this staff does not come off as an impressive group.
Grilled QBs
The highlight for me was the interviews with the quarterback prospects. It was fun to watch Daboll test their processing, and you really got an idea on how much goes in to one single play in the NFL. It’s got to be tough if you’re a rookie or on a team that changes coordinators every year. Learning a crap ton of new terminology, motion, formations, personnel groups, audibles, routes, adjustments, etc, has got to be tough.
You can’t help but think that guys like Zach Wilson might have had a chance to succeed if they weren’t thrown into the fire from day one. There are thirty Zach Wilsons for every CJ Stroud in this league. But a stud QB on a rookie deal is the dream in the salary cap era. Teams can’t help throwing them in there right away. With Stroud, the Texans should be real contenders for the next few years.
The Green Bay model is the way to go. You draft a guy before you really need one and let him learn. That won’t work for every franchise, but it sure has been working for Green Bay for a couple of decades.
In case you missed it, Daboll gave Daniels a play – Omaha Shortmatt French fry Yosemite Sam Tofu Surprise. Then while Daniels was in the middle of talking, Daboll asked him to recite the name of the play he had just learned. Daniels said “Lincoln” instead of “Omaha,” but he was close and it’s easy to mix up Nebraska cities. Anyway, it was quality tv and I’m hoping for more of that.
Next Up
I’m also hoping for lots of draft room coverage, some more details onytf how the Burns trade went down, and some more hints about the acrimonious breakup with Wink last season. The crew didn’t start filming until after that happened, but there surely was plenty of chirping about it.
Or failing that, we should at least get to see if Daboll really can run a 40-yard dash in seven seconds. It was pretty funny how none of the assistant coaches thought he could do it. I would have thought some low-level sycophant would have been all “sure you can do it, boss. Easy.”
Enough rambling for me. Come back tomorrow for Angry Ward, our very own midnight rambler.
