Keidel: Don't Underestimate The Giants And Overvalue The Jets
By Jason Keidel
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Even if the Buffalo Bills are New York's only truly geographically proper football team, we consider the Jets and Giants our two locals -- and we follow them with fervor, preteen idolatry, and adolescent anger.
And you, the true, bona fide football fan, instantly recognize the poseur who says he roots for any and all New York teams. His nauseating stance, that New York wins no matter the logo on the hat or helmet, disqualifies him from any serious consideration as a football devotee.
So you're either a Jets or Giants fan. You love one one and loathe the other. You have gotten a regretful blessing from your wife, unleashing you for fall Sundays. Mike Francesa said it's 22 weekends from whistle to gun. Let's take his word on that.
So the question on either side of the Hudson River is, which team will take the largest bite from the Big Apple?
It's not as facile as folks may think. The consensus seems to be the Giants are rancid and the Jets are rising. In Wall Street vernacular, the world is bullish on the Jets, but bears on the Giants. But haven't we heard this before? Haven't we dismissed the Giants as the also-ran too many times and been burned? And haven't we bequeathed Gotham to Gang Green only to eat our words when the first frost coated our cars?
After starting 0-2 in 2007, the Giants looked bad, baffled, and beaten. There was that galling interview with a female reporter in the Big Blue locker room, during which an airhorn was used to drown out her voice and swat her questions away. Tom Coughlin looked old, rigid, and stuck to vinyl while the MP3 teams blew by him.
Then they won the Super Bowl.
Fast forward a few years. The Giants were staggering again. The Big Blue devotees were regarding their miraculous Super Bowl run that essentially ended the (18-0) Patriots dynasty as an anomaly, the gridiron equivalent of hitting the Powerball in some New Jersey bodega.
The calls for Coughlin's head were revived. Eli Manning was a one-hit wonder who owed all his Super Bowl stardom to David Tyree's science-fiction catch, pinning a wobbling, off-target prayer to his helmet, somehow clamping the ball to his head while Rodney Harrison tried to crowbar it from his dome.
But the cynics couldn't dispute or refute Eli's encore four years later, against New England, no less, defeating the NFL version of the Borg -- Brady and Belichick and the collective genius of the league's flawless franchise.
And here we are with ample, August eulogies. Coughlin is old, distant, borderline senile. Eli is getting gray, needs the gridiron equivalent of "Just for Men" gel. Eli was just the product of a rabid pass rush and some two-minute magic in a few big games. He's the quintessential system QB. There's no improv to his game, no head-spinning, fast-twitch titillation. Eli is the guy you want with the rock with one minute left in the game, but you want his brother for the other 59.
What else? Offensive line problems. A totally revamped secondary. And the bow was just pulled off their new offensive coordinator, Ben McAdoo, whom Eli wouldn't know from Bob McAdoo. Eli isn't too smart, you see. And only Kevin Gilbride could complete him.
Yeah, yeah. This regurgitated, premature postmortem is old. It's not as if the Giants are trying to plow through the thorny, poisonous portal of the NFC West, which is the NFL equivalent of the SEC. Whom are the Giants jousting for top spot in their division?
The Redskins? We're not even allowed to say the team's nickname, much less consider them contenders. Dan Snyder planted a turnstile in front of the head coach's office, and it would shock no one if the new Gruden got a pink slip in six months.
The Cowboys? Their defense couldn't stop Florida State, much less Victor Cruz. They jettison their best defensive player in 30 years, DeMarcus Ware, and replace him with ... Michael Sam. Cowboys fans blame their best player -- Tony Romo -- for all their woes. Clearly they haven't watched the games or paid attention to them, because Romo's numbers have been astonishing, especially in LOSSES. Romo threw 17 touchdowns and just three interceptions in their eight losses last year.
The Eagles? Yeah. They look legit. But there's just not enough source matter for them to matter automatically. Nick Foles played like Otto Graham out of the gate, which can't be expected, even by the most jjaded Philly fan. And the book isn't complete on Chip Kelly, the nouveaux genius of offense, supposedly supplanting Sid Gillman, Don Coryell, and Bill Walsh.
Foles and Kelly caught the league off-guard in 2013, and still blew a home playoff game against the Saints, who are horrible away from home. The Saints have the dubious distinction of losing a playoff game to a team UNDER .500. That would be Seattle, of course, the infamous "Beast Mode" game, when Marshawn Lynch stiff-armed the entire defense, shrugged off a few security guards, and hurled five popcorn vendors during perhaps the greatest run in playoff history.
It helps to have Shady McCoy, who's the Swiss Army Knife of offense. But the Eagles need to show more than their 7-1 finish last season to prove to many of us that they are eternal contenders.
Tom Coughlin doesn't need the work, but he wants the work, which is what has made him such a football monolith. He is the quintessential lifer, likely to be dragged out of football feet-first. There's a brooding but refreshing refrain to Coughlin. He doesn't pretend to be anything but a football coach, which is at least a slight contrast to his colleague down the cold, corporate halls of MetLife.
Where we have the Jets, the Big Apple whipping boys since the summer of '69, since Broadway Joe actually owned our town, from Broadway to Bachelors 3 and beyond. The Giants have been to five -- yes, five! -- Super Bowls sine Namath made good on his guarantee in Super Bowl III.
No one questions coach Rex Ryan's defensive instincts or his ability to scribble endless, effective blitz packages on a box of cocktail napkins, but the Jets are wanting in the one place the Giants -- and all playoff contenders -- are locked in and locked up-- quarterback.
Geno Smith is supposedly the answer. Drafted in the second round last year after plunging like an anvil down the first-round waters, he has the requisite draft-day scowl and chip on his shoulder. But does he have enough talent to win beyond West Virginia? His play was markedly better in December, but he was still a turnover machine for an offense that can ill-afford a gaggle of gaffes.
Eric Decker was brought in as Smith's Wes Welker, a solid slot threat and third-down binky when plays break down. Chris Johnson, the former Flash Gordon of the NFL who short-circuited stopwatches at the combine, is a nice addition if he has anything left in his legs. Jace Amaro is a young, talented tight end who has looked old and untalented.
And in typical Jets fashion, the brass reportedly leaked their displeasure with perhaps the most important player on the team this year. Michael Vick. Management is disappointed that Vick didn't break his limbs trying to climb one rung up the QB ladder. It's vintage Jet sentiment. They brought him in to mentor the young Smith, asserting it was his gig, then expressed vitriol toward Vick for being exactly the selfless backup they expected him to be. But don't be stunned to see Vick work his way into this season, and perhaps profoundly so.
Among their myriad senior moments with coaching, personnel, and PSLs, the Jets always lack the one thing essential to success: an identity. The Jets are never one thing. They are generally a defense-first club under Ryan, but on offense they are quite offensive. And while Johnson and Chris Ivory aren't exactly Roger Craig and Tom Rathman, the Jets need to establish themselves as a run-first, nudge-the-chains offense, no matter how plodding or predictable that feels.
Smith won't Morph into John Unitas this year. And if the obdurate Jets keep Vick riding the cold, Meadowlands pine, then they won't score many points, which means they will have to keep the other team from scoring. Their defensive line, the newly-branded "'Sons of Anarchy" will have to earn their paychecks, and somehow keep their secondary lethal despite losing the best CB combo in the sport over the last couple years, in Darrelle Revis and Antonio Cromartie. Drafting a safety in the first round helps, but if the Jets don't get a dominant pass rush from the front-four then the back-seven could be gashed most games.
The Jets share the AFC East with equally beleaguered colleagues in Miami and Buffalo, where little is expected, and little should be delivered. If the Jets don't win three of their four games against the Bills and Dolphins, they can forget a robust playoff push in December.
The Jets will, of course, gaze up at the Pats all year. At least twice this season the Jets' coaching staff will have insomnia while watching Tom Brady slice up defenses. But they are one of the very few teams that can disrupt the laconic, iconic QB who's starving for that fourth Lombardi Trophy to match his boyhood hero, Joe Montana.
Speaking of defensive wizardry, Ryan is coaching for his vocational head. And he knows it. The 2013 season ended in splashes of faerie dust, including GM John Idzik handing a game ball to an emotional Ryan, whose eyes bubbled with tears while his troops stomped and clapped in approval. But true to the NFL's macabre acronym, "Not For Long," Ryan needs to finish above .500 to justify another year wearing his headset.
It's obvious the players love Rex; they play hard and hurt for him, which matters in such a violent sport. It's obvious we in the media like him; he can fill five notepads in 20 minutes. And even owner Woody Johnson kept Ryan during the managerial shake-up a few years ago, which saw Mike Tannenbaum hurled under the bus for the team's underwhelming ways.
The question is, will the new GM and the owner share the Tri-State's sentiment? If not, Rex's career arc could follow the Ryan family tree, painted into a stereotypical corner -- good enough to coach for your team, but not good enough to coach your entire team.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
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