Our incremental edge right now is that we see the Giants injury picture very clearly. Somehow, the rest of the NY Giants universe, with the exception of Glenn Warciski of Giants Underground, are APOLOGISTS, COVERUP ARTISTS, DENIERS or LEMMINGS.
Why am I being so blunt, to the point of offending some who disagree? The answer is that I don’t have an agenda besides seeing the NY Giants win as many games as possible. I don’t get paid. So I get to speak my mind and voice my opinion. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. But at least you are not going to get some kiss a** whitewash job, which has been going on for quite some time.
Everyone has their motivations. My biggest beef is that those tied to the NY Giants, in WHATEVER CAPACITY, are invested. They are kissing someone’s a**. Either they are kissing Pat Hanlon’s a**, Tom Coughlin’s a**, some other coach, a bevy of players, you name it. Their interests are corrupted. They are beholden. How do you think beat writers get breaking news first? How do you think they get news period? They have a media badge. And once they have that badge, they are part of the machine. The lowest common denominator is always money. You work for a newspaper, or you have a salary, you have obligations, and you need quotes for stories. Without access, you are out of a job.
UltimateNYG does not have any obligations. I am addicted to the Giants, and the high that I crave is Giants championships. So when anything gets in the way of that high, I get pissed off. This blog is my pulpit to preach the Giants truth. Call me righteous. Call me self-righteous. But I am not going to sit around watching this team get ripped apart each year by injuries without saying something about it.
For those of you who missed the last post or weren’t paying attention, we got a piece of news on Monday via an Eagles writer at Bleacher Report. That the information did not come from the Giants writers is typical. This is where the story led you, to former players who could speak their mind without consequences. Walter Thurmond no longer has to answer to Tom Coughlin or Pat Hanlon’s public relations agenda. He works for someone else. He’s not going to lose playing time now if he dishes out the truth about the Giants medical practices.
“(Tom Coughlin) doesn’t believe in the sport-science aspect like Coach Carroll or Coach Kelly and the newfound technology for the players. His style takes a hit, because he doesn’t believe in this aspect. He believes in winning, but he doesn’t believe in the modern medicine to progress the players to that next level.”
Now could you for one minute imagine this player saying that if the Giants were paying his salary?
Flashback to the 2012 quote from John Elway on his new Strength and Conditioning Coach Luke Richesson:
“(Denver Strength & Conditioning Coach Luke Richesson) really got out in front of everything, which I’m excited about,” Broncos executive VP John Elway said. “It’s not that old mentality of throwing 300 pounds on the bench. We’re still doing some of that stuff, but not nearly to the extent we used to. He tests players to tell where you are weak and he attacks those areas.”
So who has the “old mentality” of throwing 300 lbs. on the bench??? I’ll tell you who- Tom Coughlin.
Of course as soon as this story breaks, the deniers and cover up artists try to distract everyone with their horse manure. Not once in the Bleacher Report article linked above did Thurmond mention “smoothie,” but that is what the Neanderthal deniers rolled out to belittle the accusation. You see, Chip Kelly came into the NFL and put his team on a different S&C regimen that included many things. My bet is that players have to sign non-disclosure agreements about the elements of the program, because Kelly is somewhat secretive about what he does. It’s a copycat league and success is going to get copied. One Eagle player chuckled about the smoothies, and that became the moniker for the innovations. Not the testing of players for where they are weak. Not the purposeful reduction in weightlifting. Not the new 21st Century training regimens.
“This type of thing was different from old school NFL,” Fox told me. “It was more new wave, new science, not loading up the joints, lot of flexibility training. I think our sport was a little bit behind in this area.”
Of course, enter the rebuttal of NY Giants Senior VP of Communications Pat Hanlon:
“You would have to ask Walter what he is referring to specifically when it comes to comparing and contrasting,” Hanlon said. “But the fact is, over the past 2-3 years, we have adopted and implemented a few programs: the GPS system we employ to monitor workload, diet in terms of offerings and preparation in the dining hall, and sleep studies. Those are a few of the things we have done as we continue to evolve.”
Hanlon knows that Thurmond won’t be able to specifically talk about the new science and training techniques. Do you think the Giants have the answers with GPS tracking devices, food preparation or sleep studies? Is that what Elway, Fox, or Thurmond are talking about? Or do you think this is about flexibility and the appropriate techniques used in increasing strength without damaging the body? But hey, the Giants are in the 21st century- they had a GPS tracker on Beatty and knew exactly where he was when he tore his pectoral muscle- right there in the weight room lifting those weights!
Oh, by the way, how many of you think Hanlon should be deflecting criticism with what they’ve been doing the “past 2-3 years” … ? That is precisely the time period where Giants injuries accelerated! If Hanlon is trying to prove how INEFFECTIVE the changes are, he’s doing a mighty fine job. It just matters a little to who is delivering the message. The apologists and lemmings soak this Hanlon stuff up like a massive rebuke of Thurmond. Instead, all we have are failed attempts internally to address the problems. The data, and now Thurmond, completely reject any true meaningful changes.
So let’s hear what Coughlin had to say about Will Beatty:
“He was trying to get better,” Tom Coughlin added of Beatty, who tore a pectoral muscle while in the weight room and is expected to be out until November. “What he was trying to do was get strong, which I think our team has to do and I have said that. He was working with ‘X’ amount of weight . . . and he was in the middle of his second rep when this unfortunate thing happened. Why did it happen? Who knows? But it is most unfortunate.”
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Isn’t it interesting that Coughlin is trying to “get strong” while other teams are trying to get strong AND flexible?
“Who knows?” asks Coughlin!!! One would think that Jerry Palmieri, the S&C Coach who has followed Coughlin for 21 years (at Jacksonville, BC and the Giants) would know.
Let’s take a quick detour to the dictionary. Unfortunate- having or marked by bad fortune; unlucky.
There it is again, another 20th Century explanation from the Giants about injuries… Who knows? Gosh darnit, we are unlucky.
Someone do me a favor and ask Elway, Richesson, Thurmond, Kelly or Fox if the fact that the Giants have 45% more starts lost to injury than the NFL average over the past 6 years is luck?
If you go by the Giants brain trust, if it smells like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be just bad luck.
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