NYG Glass Half Full?

It is way too early to get into predictions about how the 2016 season will unfold.  Last year at this time, we penned an article that got bullish on 2015, qualified it with how we would obviously need to see what training camp/preseason looked like, but 3 days later disaster struck.  Will Beatty tore his pectoral muscle in the weight room.  Not to be outdone, 2 months later JPP blew his hand up in a fireworks accident.  Then a month or so after that, Victor Cruz injured his calf muscle, only to have him never regain the field for the entire season. And then in November we found out that Beatty’s return to the active roster would not happen either. Amazingly, if the team would have gotten any productivity out of any of these 3 players, the story could have been different.  Would have. Could have. If.

Frustrating.

At risk of looking too far into 2016, barring ANY of the insanities that took place last year, we think the Giants will be much more competitive.

Let’s look at the question marks headed into camp/2016:
1) Will Newhouse/RT adequately protect Eli?
2) How fast will Shepard be able to contribute to the offense?
3) How quick/fast will Cruz be as he attempts to get back to 2014 form?
4) Will Flowers make the quantum leap in production in Year 2 that we predicted before he was drafted?
5) Who is the starting Free Safety and how long will he be a liability for the defense?
6) Will JPP play without a cast and will he make an impact for the defense?
7) How quickly do Vernon/Harrison/Jenkins learn the defense? make an impact?
8) Can DRC stay healthy for 16 games?
9) Can Kennard stay healthy and anchor a LBer squad that has potential and trouble?
10) Does Wellman solve the injury cesspool?

My answers at this point are guesses- No, pretty fast, acceptable, yes, dk-all season, not especially optimistic but praying, pretty quickly w impact, no, dk, dk.  As we move through camp we will get a much better idea of how things are unfolding.  At that point we will have a better sense of what the floor and ceiling are for the Giants.  We can see a number of scenarios where the Giants are very competitive and others where the Giants are flat.  That does not help right now, but that is just an objective assessment of how varied the outcomes can be for the team.  The optimists will see the glass half full and loaded with potential.  The pessimists will see the rookies and new players entering the mix, the JPP cast + 7 years of injuries and use sober circumspection to keep hopes under a more modest roof.

I was impressed with the breadth of the draft.  It is possible that the Giants got 5 starters out of 6 picks.  That is a major haul.  How many will start in 2016?  By the end of the year it can be 3 or 4.  If you get a big kick-start out of your rookies, you can win a Super Bowl.  That was how big 2007’s draft was to the Giants.  They simply do not win XLII w/o those rookies.  As a reminder, again, Ross played a lot of corner, Smith on 3rd & 11 pre-Plaxico TD pass is a HUGE play.  Alford’s sack of Brady.  Boss’s 40 yd catch and run at the start of Q4. Johnson’s fumble recovery vs Green Bay.  Bradshaw platooning with Jacobs.

The breadth of the Giants 2016 draft gives the team more opportunity than I had anticipated.  That Day 3 haul gets me excited.  I used to have a question mark about TE, but now that Donnell’s neck (miracle?) and Jerell Adams are in the mix with Tye, the position has good depth.  LBer was another typical question mark after not being selected on Day 1 or Day 2.  Then they nab Goodson and all of a sudden another hole has an answer.  A great answer? No, but a hole was potentially filled. Between Goodson and Brinkley I believe it is one less glaring need.

Summary: Plenty of questions, but the Giants helped themselves well enough during the Draft to actually put themselves on the map for competing in the division.  Camp/Preseason will tell us much more about this team’s viability for competing league-wide.  With 10 questions listed above, if Blue can get a lot of positive answers, they can collect their first winning record in 4 seasons.  That would be plenty for me to build on.  My expectations are still not extremely high.  Let’s get JPP and Cruz back at a high level and see how the rest unfolds.