At risk of parroting one response to Coop’s questions about Reese, Reese gave Coughlin plenty of talent to work with. To be fair to both of these men, it was not their fault that Kenny Phillips went down. We can all look back and agree that that was a body blow the Giants could not and would not recover from. And to be fair to us here at Ultimatenyg, it was Cody and Ultimatenyg who were very early adopters of the notion that Reese was dropping the ball at Safety, LONG BEFORE PHILLIPS EVEN SHOWED UP AT CAMP. Does Reese deserve a lot of blame there? Absolutely. But let’s run down his personnel preparation for 2009, position by position.
OL: He drafted a new one early. Still a little shy here, as we noted in late July. Grade C.
QB: Paid too much to re-sign Manning, and that will ALWAYS take away cap resources from other positions. But hard to fault him because Manning is the franchise. Manning may not be a leader of men, but it is near impossible to see where this franchise would be without him. Grade A-.
RB: Jacobs too oft injured? Ward let go too easily? Bradshaw brittle? I am as guilty as Jerry here, as I welcomed the promotion for Bradshaw at Ward’s expense. But this guy GOT Bradshaw and Ware. He got Andre Brown in the 4th round… how do you hang him here when RBs get injured routinely at this position. Even Ware was a casualty in W1. Grade B+.
WR: Hakeem Nicks, Steve Smith, Mario Manningham. Grade A.
TE: He delivers Boss in Round 5 of the 2007 draft and Gilgarbage weaves straw from gold and wastes this amazing asset. Grade A+.
DL: Reese fortifies this position with free agents. A for effort, F for results. He’s living on Accorsi’s fumes. Grade D.
LB: See Manny’s comments from Wed. Interesting ideas about poor player evaluation methods here. Serial neglect of this position. Nicks + Smith + Manningham means we get F***EDHERE REPEATEDLY. Grade F. If I could grade him and his predecessor with a Grade of J for Joke, I would. LBer LBer LBer. 26 years and counting.
CB: Terrell Thomas. Effort is made with resources here. Ross injury prone, but remember Ross helped this team (along with Accorsi’s Webster) to win a Super Bowl. Grade B.
S: Lack of depth put at his feet. When you pick Phillips you are never going to know a year later he is going to develop an arthiritic knee. But he left Coughlin holding the bag here. Numerous times. Grade D.
Final Grade B-. (Offensive Grade: B+ or A-, Defensive Grade: D+)
Summary: Wow- I am surprised it is this low. From my attempt at being objective, I believe Coop is borne out for being more correct about the teflon falling off on Reese as well. The big killer here is- what has Reese done to help the defense? He abandoned it (only Sintim) in the draft this past year, using 6 of the first 7 for offense, and the scores are already showing that. Plus, like it or not, but Rocky Bernard was a disaster and Boley/Canty did not put this team over the top the way Reese was planning. Those free agent picks were part of a “win now” design. We did not win NOW, so the designer (Reese) must shoulder ‘some’ of the responsibility.
Reese gets the B-, not worse, because it is not his fault that Coughlin lost the team and it had no pride. One obvious sidenote conclusion is that Defense needs to be addressed severely this April in the draft. If I see another WR drafted in the first three rounds for the next 3 years I am going to lose it. And so will the Giants. LBer LBer LBer.
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