What Does “Giants Football” Mean?

•June 24, 2010 • Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking lately about the phrase “Giants football.” It’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot by fans, coaches, bloggers and commentators as a way to describe how our team has achieved success in the past and how it will achieve further success in the future. It’s an ideology, a lens through which we, as fans, and the Giants, as players, are able to perceive the world of football and decipher meaning, and, in turn, direction, from what takes place within it. And yet, as with all ideologies–political, religious, ethical– it still exists as somewhat vague, with room for different interpretations and varying degrees of rigidity by men (and women) of good faith. But before you can apply a principle, or extract meaning from a trend or tendency, you must first define the parameters and boundaries of the principle itself, deconstructing it so as to see all of its parts in an effort to more-fully understand its value. And so we ask: what exactly is “Giants football?”

It is my assertion that one word encapsulates the entire meaning of “Giants football”–physicality.  You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone to use the word “finesse” to describe any facet of the New York Giants. For the better part of our history, we’ve made our living on the backs of our linemen. The uglies; the fat guys; the pigs. The guys in the trenches, battling it out on either side of the ball for physical dominance at the point of attack. Whether we’re talking about offense or defense, the foundation of the Great Wall of Giants Glory is centered on beating you up and knocking you down. The offensive line will dominate you, allowing the running game to shoulder most of the burden of our offensive attack. A winning game for the Giants is typically one in which our running back(s) eclipse the 100 yard mark and allow us to control the time of possession. We like to grind it out. To draw upon an analogy that would appeal to Tom Coughlin, we attack you the way armies fought in World War I and II. There weren’t tactical missiles fired from thousands of miles away, nor we there infrared imagery generated by satellites in space guiding every advance and retreat; rather, victory and loss occurred in the trenches, man-to-man, and with brute force. There isn’t much gadgetry to what we do; moreover, it’s often criticized as being too predictable. Like it or not, much of our game plan centers around our ability to physically impose our will onto you. It’s what we do, and it’s who we are.

Now, this is not to discount or discredit the importance of our quarterback and his passing attack. Instead, it clarifies and magnifies his role in our offense. While our quarterbacks have achieved great successes as part of our team efforts, they’ve very seldom been afforded the acclaim and adulation that comes with playing in Dallas or Minnesota. No, our guys adopt the same workman mentality embodied by our offensive linemen. They’re smart, they’re gamers and they take what they can get. Eli Manning is, without a doubt, the most high-profile quarterback to don a Giants jersey, yet he is still criticized because of the perception that he is simply a game-manager, a guy who is just out there to hand the ball off and dump the ball to the tight-end on the occasional 3rd and 5. It’s a perception fed by the identity of this team, but one that is mischaracterized and misinterpreted. Despite his detractors, Eli is emerging as one to the premiere quarterbacks in this league, surrounded by a stable of young and immensely-talented receivers, the likes of which have never been assembled in our history. It’s a fact that is generating much debate amongst Giants nation about how our team should proceed offensively going forward. Still, no matter how many Hakeem Nicks’ and Mario Manningham’s come through the Meadowlands, they will always be, in my mind, second fiddle to and dependent upon the running game to achieve their successes.

Defensively speaking, little needs to be said of our defense’s place in the pantheon of history. The Hall of Fame is filled with players who have played for the New York Giants. In fact, mention the name “Giants” and most people will immediately focus on one player–Lawrence Taylor, the most influential player in the history of defensive football. He imbued the entire NFL with an attitude and swagger that continues to this day. And he represents all of what it means to be a Giant, despite his off-the-field issues (which also continue to this day). And his compatriots–Carson, Banks, Armstead, Strahan– define Giants defense as a group of badasses who are hell-bent on hitting you. And doing it hard and often. In the 80s and early 90s, the linebackers were the standard bearers; in the 2000s and today, the defensive line–namely the defensive ends– has been assembled to bring pressure in waves. But no matter whom it is, opponents continue to expect a tough, painful game whenever they have the misfortune of facing us.

Now, as with any ideology, defining the parameters isn’t the key to providing direction. And, as Benjamin Franklin once said, “a plan without implementation is a hallucination.” Going forward, with a newly-assembled cast of characters on the defensive side of the ball, the question of how to climb back up that mountain appears to be a reversion to what has brought us 3 Super Bowl victories–defense. The adage “defense wins championships” is beginning to be replaced with a new directive–championships are lost by defenses that cannot defend the pass. With the NFL evolving more and more into a pass-first league, defenses are being forced to pick their poison–do they adopt a scheme that allows them to cover all areas of the field with faster, more athletic , and often smaller players in their secondary’s? Or do they orient themselves towards bringing pressure on the quarterback so as to limit the ability for them to gain comfort in the pocket? Both sides are gambles and are unable to completely eliminate the efficiency of the elite passing attacks; however, I believe that Perry Fewell is going to bring something that has been sorely-missed by this team–versatility. Reese learned the lessons of last season’s debacle, assembling a surplus at defensive line and safety. And I believe that he will adopt a scheme that accentuates the abundance of athleticism at safety while leaning heavily on the very same bounty of bulk along the defensive line. Offensively, I truly believe that we should strive for balance, but not be over-focused on it. In other words, why squander the gifts of one component while stubbornly asserting another one? If our running game returns to form behind a healthy offensive line, it should be the foundation of our entire gameplan it; however, should it falter, we can and should rely on Eli and his receivers to bridge the gap. They don’t all have to be post patterns, either. Gilbride would do well to look at Norv Turner’s hundred of screen patterns or Tom Brady’s use of Welker as a way to play clock-control football with your passing attack. We’ve got the tools, we just need to figure out ways to use them.

The potential of this defense, and the team as a whole, is immense. But this team has never thrived as front-runners; rather, we’ve always relished being underdogs, embracing the identity of the rough, rugged and downtrodden. And we would do well to look towards the lineage of what Giants football has meant in the past while search for what this team needs to be in the future. If they can be physical, if they can be impositional, and if they can be dominant, they’re sure to find themselves living up to the expectations of Giants nation and will replicate the successes of yesteryear.

World Cup Soccer: Why Americans Should Give a Damn!

•June 24, 2010 • Leave a Comment

I played my first soccer game when I was 5 years old. To say I was underwhelmed doesn’t quite capture my reaction; after the first half, I walked over to my father and told him “I hate this. Can I play football please?”

That was my attitude for most of my life. I’ve never had much interest in soccer, instead preferring (American) football and baseball. But the 2006 World Cup captured my imagination partially because of Italy’s run and eventual victory. My roommate at the time is also Italian, so he and I watched nearly every match together, including the finals. It just made me excited and I really enjoyed feeling as though I was participating in something global. That enjoyment made me really wish the U.S. was part of the festivities.

Now, I am well aware that soccer has struggled to gain much appeal in the U.S. despite the fact that nearly the entire world lives and breathes soccer. I think that those struggles owe significantly to the decline in the expression of nationalism; 30 years ago, when the U.S. faced down the mighty Soviet Union in hockey in the Olympics, there was a dense subtext to the competition. It was as though these athletes were battling each other in the only substantial confrontation between the two super-powers during the Cold War. We identified with this miracle team, placing our hopes and dreams for peace and global dominance onto their shoulders. And when they when, a jubilant feeling swept our nation while an overwhelming sense of defeat and impotence invaded Soviet society and politics. And while the Berlin Wall was not felded by a hockey puck, the perception of invincibility that the Soviet Union once enjoyed began to crumble and this televised defeat cannot be discounted in the history of the Cold War.

Today, however, most people could care less about the Olympics. They don’t care how we fare in international competition and have little interest in staking up against other countries to see which one is better at a particular sport. Further, globalization has opened other countries to the U.S. economy, making it possible for athletes from Russia and Japan and Korea to come to America to play for professional sporting teams. And as a result of the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has become the only super power around and, thus, our politics and economics have become increasingly unilateral and self-centered. All of this has contributed to a decline of goodwill towards our country; we’re viewed as self-interested, lazy, arrogant fools. This trend has only intensified in the last decade amidst wildly unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, when this World Cup started, I was floored by the inclusion of the U.S., relishing our opportunity to participate in this truly-global event watched by billions of people.Our matches have been maddeningly-entertaining. Perhaps the most infamous will be the controversy surrounding our second match against Slovenia, when a referee from Mali nearly cost us the game. Such malfeasance would’ve been a serious blow to FIFA, who would’ve had a hard time continue to sell soccer to this country if we had been jobbed out of the next round by a handful of atrocious calls by 2 utterly underqualified referees.

So what does this all mean? It’s my supposition that it is good for soccer that the U.S. is having some success this year. And, you know what? It’s good for us to finally have some fledgling interest in the most popular sport in the world. We should be involved. You might not like soccer–any mention of it and my father will immediately say “soccer sucks”– but it’s good for the US, after nearly a decade of paternalism and unilateral interference in the politics and economies of the entire world, to participate in something that brings us all together. We should be excited and thrilled and engaged in this event because it truly is an equalizer. Small nations like the Republic of South Africa can beat France, one of the finalists in the 2006 World Cup. It’s an opportunity for fellowship and camaraderie between countries whose relationships would otherwise be only about money and war.

All or Nothing: My Belief about Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad

•May 19, 2010 • Leave a Comment

If you know me, you know that I have a unique brand of humor. I like to “push the envelope.” That is to say, I like to find wherever “the line” is, and then do a full-on-sprint over it. No one and no topic is safe, not even myself. I’m an equal opportunity offender, for I believe that our world could do with a little more levity, even in regards to the most sensitive of issues.

That being said, I had a conversation today with a coworker of mine who is a Muslim. He and I spar on a daily basis over a broad-range of issues, with each of us taking extreme, outlandish positions on whatever the topic for the sake of humor. For instance, he didn’t invite me to his family barbeque, so I said that I didn’t want to get caught up in a terror cell, and while I’ve been trying to improve my relationship with my manager, he uses a certain hand gesture to critique my method of ingratiating myself to him (HINT: It involves a fist and a tongue poking out of the side of his cheek). Anyway, he informed me today that there’s some event on Facebook about drawing pictures of the Prophet Muhammad which provoked a bit of a tirade on my part. Basically, I believe that either we’ve got to all agree to respect everyone’s unique religious beliefs, and refrain from making off-color or offensive remarks about them, or they’re all fair game. I absolutely understand the desire to protect and defend your religious beliefs from ridicule. And, trust me, as a Catholic, I’ve certainly had the opportunity to endure (and make) more than a few jokes at the expense of the Church and its clergy. But I would never tell anyone that they couldn’t make those jokes, and I certainly wouldn’t kill them over it. On the other hand, some Muslims (not all) seem to want to bully their way into immunity, strong-arming and making death threats towards anyone who depicts or the Prophet Muhammad or Islam. The most salient example of this thuggery is between the makers of South Park and Comedy Central, who censored two recent episodes where the name and visage of the Prophet Muhammad were depicted after receiving death threats from a group based in Manhattan named Revolutionary Islam.

The part that really bothers me is that there are non-Muslims who actually agree and advocate for this same censorship. I can at least understand someone whose religious zeal carries them into a state of irrationality and extremism; however, I simply can’t fathom how anyone who doesn’t hold these set of beliefs can believe that the topic of religion, and more specifically Islam, is somehow too taboo to poke fun at. Many of these same people, who often turn such a cynical, harsh eye towards the Church, or Christianity as a whole, seem to think that there’s something inherently different about Muhammad and Islam, making both exempt from ridicule and criticism. The hypocrisy of this line of reasoning is exposed in the same episode of South Park which depicts a strung-out Buddha snorting lines of cocaine off of a table while Jesus and a whole host of religious figures (and Aquaman) engage in other acts of chicanery. However, rather than censoring the whole episode—or the whole series for that matter—they chose to make Muhammad sacrosanct. Yet, despite their protests about “tolerance” and cries for “acceptance,” they refuse to come to grips with the honest truth that people are simply more scared of a group of angry Muslims than they are about a group of pissed off Christians. They believe that you can literally shit on the faces of Jesus and Mary—I’m referring to the controversial 1999 art exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art which featured, among other things, paintings of the Virgin Mary and Jesus that had been covered in shit, or which had been made out of tiny images of vaginas and breasts—but simply drawing a picture of Muhammad is out of line. And you know why? Because an angry Christian will fire off an angry email while an angry Muslim may put a bomb in a trash-can outside of your place of business. Or at least that’s what they believe, deep down in their hearts, in places they don’t speak about at parties or conferences or on CNN. They need to face facts, and the fact is that the hatred and bigotry that they purport to be crusading against is the very same hatred and bigotry they espouse in their hypocritical, illogical belief systems.

So, with respect to my friends who are Muslim, in an act of the very same defiance that sort of defines my whole life, I’m going to have to do what I always do—cross the line.

Because if this is okay:

Then this kinda has to be okay too:

Newsflash!

•February 12, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Newsflash: Blowjobs are like penicilin! They cure all and restore all to former glory.

What a Difference 2 Years Make!

•February 5, 2010 • Leave a Comment

I’d be lying to you if I told you I stumbled upon this relic by mere happenstance. I could tell you a story about how I was reading through old entries saved on my computer and was inspired to venture back to WordPress by some sort of warm, nostalgic feeling; I could say that I found an old link which brought me here, where I read some of my posts and was filled with a desire to revisit my blogging days.

But none of that would be true.

I was actually brought back here because an online community that I am a member of (Giants101) is hosting its discussions here temporarily while we transition to a new home.

Boring, yes. But truth. And, while some might find comfort in the big revelations in life, I happen to emanate from the school of thought which says that truth is like peanut butter–its job isn’t to blow our minds, it’s to be within reach. Thus, I’ve made my return to this blog of mine, hoping to use it as an online notebook, a place to jot my thoughts down. I tend to be a person who “thinks big.” I can take a concept such as dieting and deconstruct it into myopic, unrecognizable units. Conversely, I can also be a person who talks about, thinks about, and makes jokes about the same things–politics (Seriously? We’re gonna worry about gay marriage now?!), religion (I consider myself Catholic, but I, admittedly, don’t believe everything that the Church teaches. I fully understand where that leaves me in the eyes of some of my hardcore believers. I just hope we’re all walking towards the same thing.), the Giants (If we don’t cut Antonio Pierce and Danny Clark, I just might have a fucking coronary embolism.), and movies and television (The fact that Avatar is being fellated for being bringing guns into Fern Gully’s plot while truly exceptional works like 500 Days of Summer get snubbed is beyond me.). As such, I hope to utilize this forum as an area where the internal poly-logue (yes, I’ve coined a phrase to refer to the many voices I hear in my head…wait, that doesn’t sound the way I want it to) can materialize.

I should confess, up front, that I am not a great person. I’m just a guy. I work at Target where I’m underpaid and overworked. I aspire towards receiving my Masters in Political Science so that I could one day be a professor at a university, where I will undoubtedly be underpaid and overworked. Thus, we’ve arrived at one of the many ironies of my life–I aspire towards under-appreciation. But, hey, isn’t that what being American means nowadays?

My Italian Class…

•August 27, 2008 • Leave a Comment

My Italian class is hilarious. I took 4 years of Italian in high school where I participated in 3 Italian district competitions. Now, in my senior year of college, I need to fulfill my langauge requirement. And, instead of broadening my horizons and learning another language, I’ve decided to take a trip down memory lane and visit BEGINNERS ITALIAN!!! Needless to say, it is easy ridiculously easy!!!!

 

Va bene!

The New Do

•August 18, 2008 • 1 Comment

So, my roommate Dennis convinced me to shave my head, which isn’t exactly the most remarkable thing in the world considering I’ve taken more bic to the head than…well, we’ll leave it at that.

The rub is that I flippantly said that I would shave it into a mohawk…and Dennis latched onto it! So here it is…Kujo’s new do:

Im mean muggin like a mofo!

I'm mean muggin' like a mofo!

My weekend…

•August 12, 2008 • 3 Comments

So the weekend started out with the events that transpired in the previous posting. I was on that train for nearly 9 hours, so naturally I was bored to tears. Thankfully, I had brought my laptop with me, so I watched some Scrubs. But, as the hours wore on, I began to become more and more bored. And once it became apparent that I was going to be stuck on this train until the chocolate milk I had curddled, I thought it would be fun to make a music video, only that was interrupted by one of the train attendants announcing that we were stuck there “for an indetermined amount of time.” I thought that I had stopped recording myself, but I did not, instead capturing about 10 minutes worth of footage of me joking with my mom and my fellow passengers. I showed it to my mom and she thought it was “the funniest thing she’d ever seen,” so I figured I’d throw it on here:

Won’t Someone START This Train

•August 8, 2008 • 1 Comment
Me. Train. 5+ hours.

Me. Train. 5+ hours.

So, I’m taking a train down to Coral Springs for the weekend. I left at 1:10 p.m. and was supposed to arrive at 5:30; however, somewhere between West Palm Beach and Deerfield Beach, there was an accident with the Tri-Rail which has resulted in me being stuck on the train for an extra hour with no end in sight. It is currently 6:25 p.m. EST…and I want to blow my brains out.

 

***UPDATE***

I finally arrived to my train station at 9:45 p.m. EST, a mere 8 hours after I departed Orlando, which is 3 hours away from my home in Coral Springs. I will post a blog about my weekend, including the shenanigans I got into on the train as well as my reunion with my LIFE TEEN friends (and my high school girlfriend) when I return to Orlando. SEE YA!

Fantasy Football Scoring

•August 8, 2008 • Leave a Comment
Passing
Every 25 passing yards 5   TD Pass 5  
40+ yard TD pass bonus 2   50+ yard TD pass bonus 5  
Interceptions Thrown -5   2pt Passing Conversion 2  
300-399 yard passing game 2   400+ yard passing game 5  
Rushing
Every 10 rushing yards 1   TD Rush 6  
40+ yard TD rush bonus 2   50+ yard TD rush bonus 5  
2pt Rushing Conversion 2   100-199 yard rushing game 2  
200+ yard rushing game 5  
Receiving
Every 10 receiving yards 5   TD Reception 6  
40+ yard TD rec bonus 2   50+ yard TD rec bonus 5  
2pt Receiving Conversion 2   100-199 yard receiving game 2  
200+ yard receiving game 5  
Miscellaneous
Kickoff Return TD 6   Punt Return TD 6  
Fumble Recovered for TD 6   Each Fumble Lost -2  
Kicking
Each PAT Made 1   FG Made (0-39 yards) 3  
FG Made (40-49 yards) 4   FG Made (50+ yards) 5  
FG Missed (0-39 yards) -2   FG Missed (40-49 yards) -1  
Team Defense / Special Teams
Each Sack 3   Interception Return TD 5  
Fumble Return TD 5   Kickoff Return TD 5  
Punt Return TD 5   Blocked Punt or FG return for TD 10  
Blocked Punt, PAT or FG 2   Each Interception 3  
Each Fumble Recovered 3   Each Fumble Forced 2  
Each Safety 4   0 points allowed 10  
2-6 points allowed 7   7-13 points allowed 4  
14-17 points allowed 1   22-27 points allowed -1  
28-34 points allowed -4   35-45 points allowed -7  
46+ points allowed -10   Less than 100 total yards allowed 10  
 
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