Requiem For a Loser

If you’re reading this NY Giants blog, it means you’re probably a lifer football fan. Or at this point, a Giant masochist. Either way, I’m willing to bet you watched the opening night of the NFL when the Bucs played the Cowboys. The Cowboys take the lead at 29-28 late in Q4. There’s 1:29 left. What’s going through your and EVERYONE’S mind? They’ve left too much time on the clock for Brady. He drives them down the field for a FG to win the game. Did anyone doubt that outcome?

One week later on the following Thursday night, the 0-1 NY Giants found themselves in an eerily similar situation to Dallas. Trailing by a point with 2:16 left after a brilliant INT by Bradberry, the ball was at the WAS 20 yd line, and the only remaining life possible for the opponent was the clock. Gano was money on a 37 yarder or seemingly anywhere he was kicking from. Wipe out the clock. Score 6 or 8 points. Do anything but put up a quick FG and leave Washington with Brady time. Granted, Heinicke is not Brady, but he’s been moving the ball in sustained drives all game.

Run Barkley 1 yd. Timeout.

Run Barkley 2 yds. Timeout.

3rd and 7. Time to wake up. We want the first down?! Pass incomplete. FG.

If you were any of the other 31 teams in the NFL, you couldn’t have scripted a better outcome to that series. The Giants couldn’t run the ball. Barkley couldn’t run the ball. Defend a single 3rd & 7 for a lifeline AND the extra timeout if incomplete.

This is called playing not to lose, instead of playing to win. I know. I know. The Dexter Lawrence penalty. If there is no penalty, the Giants win. But if the Giants don’t do that predictable RRPK bullsh*t while they have control, we don’t have to worry about some zebra making a questionable call. Some of you may not know that there is film that Lawrence moved AFTER the snap. OR, he was already lined up offsides. None of this had to matter if the Giants took care of business at 2:16 and didn’t sit on the ball.

In the past 4+ seasons (66 games), the Giants have exactly 4 wins of 10+ point margins (“Bill Walsh quality win.”). Bad things happen when you leave yourself open to … bad things. Losers lose. The Giants are good at losing. With Joe Judge in his second year, he needs to take responsibility for this. Garrett playcalling or not, that’s his OC. That’s his mindset. That’s his tone. Where’s the Belichick DNA there? You think BB is doing the RRPK through hobbled Barkley? Losers lose.

Jones was better. The Offensive Line was better. Instead of Jones failing to protect the ball or the OL blowing up the game, the Giants found a different way to lose.

When I’m wrong I admit it. I thought the Giants defense would be much better than 27 and 30 point offerings. And certainly not against Terry Bridgewater or Taylor Heinicke. Too much soft zone. And my thinking that between Carter, Ximines, plus Ojulari, that we’d see edge pass rush.. well that’s been mostly absent. Where are the blitz packages to intermittently disrupt the opponent’s Offense? Graham was terrific last year. After 2 games in 2021, he’s far too passive.

I’m certainly not wrong about OL depth for “2 injuries.“ It took all of 2 games to deliver injury #2 to Gates (Lemieux preseason).

0-2 start for 8 of the last 9 years. DEN and WFT are not world beaters. After the Giants beat ATL (if they lose, they’ll be rivaling for a top 4 pick with DET HOU and JAX), the tough part of the schedule begins with NO DAL LAR CAR KC LVR TB. That stretch will get ugly unless we see ALL of the following: Jones protecting the ball, OL protecting Jones, pass rush, and coaching to win.

If there’s one thing that is looking fairly certain, it’s that Gettleman is finally a goner after this season. He needs to be held accountable for this product. This is what you get when you go all-in at 1.02 on RB, when you overdraft Jones at 1.06, when you fail to rebuild the OL, when you trade up into the first round for a player with red flag work ethic, when you draft a WR… Gettleman has done some good things, but has clearly limited and failed this organization. Just like Reese, he will leave with unpaid bills and a mortgaged cap situation that has tapped out reserves.

Daniel Jones will not be afforded the luxury of a free pass by the new GM. Speaking of free passes, why is Jones not held accountable for his lack of protection of the football? In week 2 we saw how good he can be when he doesn’t put the ball in harm’s way. If it happens again abruptly, I’d bench him for a Quarter. And again shortly thereafter, I’d bench him a game. There has to be consequences for not protecting the ball.

Daniel Jones was also involved in a sideline spat with Kenny Golladay. Some say Golladay was yelling at Garrett. Defenders of Golladay point out that the advantage to his game is less separation and more jump ball. It still doesn’t leave me happy with WRs (or frankly any position) yelling at anyone on the sidelines. I get it- he cares. Are you telling me his frustration is boiling after 2 games in a Giants uniform? Are you kidding me?

Care. Frustration. Wellington Mara famously said that he didn’t mind fans booing. It was when they stopped showing up for games that it became a much bigger problem. Frankly I stopped caring in the middle of last decade, concurrent with the decline of the Offensive Line. It keeps me from getting really disappointed. There were Twitter polls in preseason showing fans looking heavily for a division win/playoffs. Percentages were anywhere from 68%-78%, which was completely out of synch with an O/U of 7 games from Vegas. I understand the fan-atic bias, but unbridled enthusiasm is reckless.

If there is a glimmer of hope, against a good WFT front 4, the Giants OL held up in the 2nd Half. At least Bredeson, Price and Hernandez seem to be preventing a jail break. Thomas has been solid. RT is a problem, but if that’s the only problem, you can scheme that. What is the next problem? Lack of depth, again. These guys need to stay healthy or else the OL woes will be front and center faster than you can say New Orleans Saints.

Win vs ATL. Then big time tests vs tough teams. We won’t stop rooting for the Giants to put it together. At least we no longer have the silly 2007 talk about starting 0-2 and dreaming about Super Bowls. 8 out of the last 9 seasons with 0-2 starts has cured us of that nonsense.

2021 NY Giants Season Preview

Let’s cut to the quick. If you think you’re getting a guesstimate on the Giants record this season, you’re sorely mistaken. Sorry. Not sorry. With only 3 preseason games, extremely limited looks at starters, many starters held back from playing even a single snap of preseason, and new players (starting? name the guy pictured above for extra credit) added at the roster cutdown, it’s a different league with way too many unknowns.

Way too many unknowns. Offensive Line unknowns. This NY Giants blog has been talking about restocking/rebuilding Offensive Line since 2010 (yes, 2010, not a typo) when we saw an aging line that needed new blood. So here we are embarking on the 2021 campaign, and once again the Offensive Line cupboard in preseason was threadbare. Shocking! We talked about aggressively continuing to draft OL this past offseason.

Our reason was simple- if your optimism about Thomas Peart Gates Lemieux and Hernandez was correct, then let’s get DEPTH! Your worst case- we’re wrong!.. Those 5 guys are fantastic. Woohoo! So now we have depth when 2 of them invariably get hurt. There’s a word for this kind of business planning. It’s called being proactive. It means proper prior preparation to prevent piss poor performance.

We understand why you wouldn’t necessarily go to Free Agency to find Offensive Line help. After all, it’s a marketplace of ‘B’ players at ‘A’ prices. Look no further than Nate Solder, where our GM overpaid, making Solder the highest paid Offensive Lineman in the NFL in return for 2 years of mediocrity.

You get after Offensive Line in the Draft. Gettleman was a day late and a dollar short after going for WR Kadarius Toney at 1.20. Everyone here knows what I think of drafting WRs in Round 1. Until these (mostly) divas turn around after a TD and honor their OL, I don’t believe that they are part of building a lasting commitment to a franchise. (Don’t hold your breath. For every Larry Fitzgerald, there are too many that chase the money instead of investing in their franchise.) The Toney choice set in motion a series of missed opportunities to get Offensive Linemen. Gettleman made his single best decision as a Giants GM in trading down 9 spots for massive draft booty. But it took all of a few more months into August preseason to see the consequences of those Toney dominoes. The second string OL was (shocking, yup) Swiss freaking cheese, and it dawned on Gettleman that this wasn’t going to work. More shock… one of the starters, Lemieux, got hurt in camp. Whodathunk??!! So instead of being proactive in April, our fantastic GM becomes reactive in August, scrambling to make trades for Price and Bredeson, plus the signing of Larsen. THREE Giants Offensive Lineman came aboard in August who are now on the roster. That should tell you all you need to know about the Offensive Line and this GM.

Gettleman finds himself in these bad predicaments on a regular basis because he makes too many bad decisions on a regular basis. But don’t go telling him that. All you’ll get from him is how he’s been to “7 Super Bowls,“ implying his decision-making and architecture as a GM led to those appearances. If we look a little closer, we note that only one of those 7 appearances was Gettleman the GM, the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers of 2015 had tremendous talent…. six All-Pros in one season. SIX. One season. To give you some perspective, the last time the NY Giants had ONE All-Pro on their roster in any season was 2016, with Landon Collins.

C Ryan Kalil, QB Cam Newton, LB Thomas Davis, LB Luke Kuechly, CB Josh Norman and RB Mike Tolbert. All 6 were on the roster BEFORE Gettleman got there.

Gettleman was fired only a year after that Super Bowl appearance too, which tells us more. When questioned by reporters for daring to challenge any decision he has made, he offered his latest 2021 pushback of self-righteous indignation: “Do you think I do this for a hobby?” Well, frankly, I write this blog for a “hobby,” and in one (November 2017 Penn State) tweet, I’m probably more qualified than our perennially reactive GM.

All which brings us back to 2021. Gettleman has thrown the kitchen sink at this roster. He brought in 3 notable Free Agents, all with an injury history of varying degrees: WR Kenny Golladay, CB Adoree Jackson, and TE Kyle Rudolph. All 3 are terrific when healthy. Yet all 3 have been sidelined in camp, due to injuries of one sort or another. Essentially, Gettleman did Reese-2016-lite, jettisoning the pod and igniting it. It’s a bold move. It’s also a somewhat selfish move too, because Gettleman knows he won’t survive this year anyway if his 5-11, 4-12, and 6-10 seasons don’t improve to 9+ wins/playoffs.

The Giants rebuilt last year. Speaking for myself, I believed 2021 would be the year we finally saw results. And I certainly see that for the Defense. The addition of Jackson (if healthy), Ojulari at EDGE, the return of McKinney in his first full season, the comeback of Carter from injury, the maturation of Dexter Lawrence, and the continued Pro Bowl quality play of Bradberry & Williams all make me believe this is a Top 5 Defense. The secondary is absolutely loaded. Peppers and Ryan were excellent last year. The system of Patrick Graham is in its second year, so players will be flying to the ball on instinct instead of thought. The missing piece in 2020 was EDGE, so with Carter, Ximines and Ojulari, any one of them will make the D come together, and we may see 2 if not all 3 make their presence felt. McKinney has the versatility to line up all over the place, making it harder on opposing QBs to make pre-snap reads. Yes, this Defense can be VERY special.

So why the sour grapes on Gettleman? The damn Offensive Line. Daniel Jones has the accuracy. He needs the time. I still have my reservations about his pocket presence/poise/decision-making/ball protection. Those things are amplified/catalyzed without pass protection. And the 31st ranked OL was dead last, 32nd out of 32 teams in pass protection last year. The latest datapoint, training camp, was ugly. Lack of depth was punctuated by Andrew Thomas yielding 2 sacks and a pressure in limited snaps in the final dress rehearsal. If there was one guy on the OL who I was counting on to be improved and solid in 2021 after playing hurt in 2020, it was Thomas. Now we have to start thinking about him too?! For the Giants sake, I hope not. Bredeson will be an improvement but he’s new to the line, so even if he helps he’ll have miscommunication issues along the way. Hernandez had a good camp. He’s in his contract year and money talks. If that’s not enough incentive for his play to be salvaged from 2.34 draft disappointment, I don’t know what is. Peart? I have no clue. While I am hoping he’s ready to make the jump in his second year, I have not seen enough to know. 

The Giants Offense will have the “weapons.” Naturally, Evan Engram, who had a strong camp, is injured and doubtful for Denver in Week 1. If you can figure out if this enigma helps us more than he hurts us, you’re better than me. Golladay and Toney, our two latest toys, haven’t played a single snap in a Giants uniform due to injury. So how the hell does anyone make a 2021 prediction based on that? Or the post-ACL return of Barkley? One can argue it will come together for the Giants offense, or that it will be another stinkpile, and frankly I can see either and possibly BOTH.

There’s the Jason Garrett factor. I admit to being wrong and disappointed in his 2020 effort. A Coordinator must scheme to their roster’s strengths and weaknesses. And if I have to listen to Dan Schneier (accurately) rip apart Garrett’s archaic and simplistic playbook another season, it could be painful.

Schneier wants more presnap motion. I want one thing: to use Barkley more as a primary pass target than the predictable checkdowns. Ooooh, they’re throwing to Barkley! No, they’re not. Checkdowns on 3rd and 8 aren’t throws to Barkley. They don’t leverage Barkley. I know that Kamara, McCaffrey and Barkley are different RBs. But are they? Does anyone here think that Sean Payton would plug in Barkley and get him out in space the way he does for Kamara? Yup. So help the OL, help Jones, help the Giants, and pass the ball to Barkley in planned routes that aren’t (just) checkdowns. Not only will it help the Giants spread the field, it will help… Barkley run inside (and outside). All of these things will keep the opposing DL off balance enough that you’ll be able to go slightly more vertical to guys like Engram and Golladay. Stretch the field. It starts with flares (don’t give me a heart attack and actually execute the first NYG successful screen of the millenium) to Barkley.

There are literally 5 guys I’ll be watching the first 3 weeks of the season to figure out what we have in 2021: the LT, LG, C, RG, and RT. That’s it. That’s why I didn’t want Toney or Robinson, although they can certainly contribute. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, it’s all about the OL. Again. If they are merely mediocre (a significant uptick), the Giants will make the playoffs. That’s how good I think the Defense can be this year. But if the OL is still a mess, they will torpedo the season, and Gettleman. But what do I know, it’s just a hobby.

The Rules For Winning in the NFL v2.0

Part 1 reposted 2007’s Rules for Winning in the NFL. It was a good way to look back and see what was working then. Everything is changing. The NFL is always on the move. The rules change because the NFL changes.

Some of the change is transparent. As an example, the rule change where a kickoff touchback gave a team the ball at the 25 yard line instead of the 20 yard line has had a lot of impact. The NFL wanted more safety, so the NFL got what they wanted- fewer returned kickoffs. Like it or not, that made Special Teams less important. Then they moved the PAT back to the 15 yard line. That added 2 point conversions much more into the mix.

Some of the changes were more subtle. But seen over the past ~14 seasons, the shift is stark. Consider the ever growing importance of throwing the ball. The NFL wanted more passing. In 2006, when passing was already gaining plenty of momentum over previous decades, the NFL was 53% pass and 47% run. In 2020, it was 57% pass and 43% run. That may not seem like a big difference, but it is significant. That mix dictates how you draft and how you allocate the cap.

An even bigger way to see the change in the NFL is to go back to 1978. In 1978, teams passed 42% of the time and ran the ball 58% of the time. Why 1978? Two things happened.

In 1978, the NFL further freed up receivers with the illegal contact rule, restricting contact beyond 5 yards downfield. And it loosened the interpretations of holding by offensive linemen by giving them permission to extend their arms and open their hands on pass plays. This had the desired effect of opening up the passing game and reducing conservative play calling.

NFL Football Operations

The second thing was under the radar. Bill Walsh became a Head Coach a year later.

The 49ers were cellar dwellers and they did not start throwing the pigskin regularly in 1979. But the “West Coast Offense,” coined by Bill Parcells, was going to shape football for decades to come. It ushered in a wave of precision passing. Teams no longer ran the ball regularly on first down. Offenses are still shaped by these roots today.

The second wave of passing came as a result of different rules enforcement by officials for what was holding. Specifically, the NFL no longer called a penalty when an Offensive Lineman held in between the shoulders. This happened sometime around when the first “Rules v1.0” were published, further incentivizing passing. Why is this important to the Rules for Winning? Because the Quarterback has always been critical to the game of professional football, but today it is EVERYTHING.

RULE #1. QUARTERBACK.

That is it. Quarterback. Period. You can win a championship without a very good quarterback, but you better have 21 other really good players accompanying him. He needs to make plays. The NFL is a passing league. If your QB is pedestrian, you will be on the outside looking in. I have said this before, but the historical perspective is necessary… the great Vince Lombardi lamented how he wished the league had less weight on the QB. Yet in 1967, his last season as coach of the Packers, he still ran the ball on 72% of the snaps from scrimmage. 72%! Imagine what Lombardi would say about winning in the NFL now??!! It is a Quarterback league.

RULE #2. PROTECT THE QUARTERBACK.

Are you catching on yet? You better keep him healthy, upright, and able to do his job throwing the ball anywhere on the field. The second half of Eli Manning’s career was thrown down the toilet because he was constantly given shoddy protection. Remember the Phil Simms Rule of throwing the ball downfield? Well, that ain’t happening if you can’t protect your QB. GMs are figuring this out, paying not only Tackles huge money, but also paying up for Centers and Guards. We quantified this with Spotrac data (see ‘Manifesto’ link below) on average salaries, where the Offensive Tackle is paid the 2nd highest salary out of 12 positions on the field, the Center is now #3, and the Guard (yes, the formerly lowly Guard) is now #5.

RULE #3. RUSH THE QUARTERBACK.

Are you seeing the pattern? First you obtain a good QB. Next, you make sure you maintain/optimize him. And then when you are done doing those two things, you do your best to kill the other guy’s QB, because that is what they are trying doing to yours. This may seem overly simple, but as the late great Mr. Rogers (yes, that one) said:

Deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.

Fred Rogers

If you are doing these Rules properly, they should be fairly simple and direct. Everything else flows from the first 3 Rules. Everything else SUPPORTS the first 3 Rules. This is a pyramid. Like it or not, this is how you win. If you do all 3 well, your odds of contending for a title are high. If you do 2 out of 3, you are competitive. If your team is doing 1 out of 3 well, it is not competitive. And if it does none of the 3 well, it is probably near or at the bottom of the NFL. How did your team score against this metric? Last season’s Super Bowl teams both had excellent QBs and Offensive Lines. TB had the NFL’s 3rd ranked pass rush. The Chiefs were ranked 12th.

The Bucs drafted Offensive Tackle Tristan Wirfs at 1.13 Overall last season. As a rookie, he started all 16 games, gave up 1 sack all year, protected Brady, and did everything except go to the Pro Bowl. Considering he finished as the best Offensive Lineman for the Bucs, their ascension to the Title could not have happened without Rule #2. In stark confirmation (and title game contrast), the Chiefs had solid OL protection until the Super Bowl, when both Tackles could not play. Mahomes had no protection and the Chiefs lost the game.

RULE #4. EVERY OTHER POSITION IS IN SUPPORT OF RULES 1-3.

4a) WRs are a dime a dozen. I know. I know. Better WRs have better separation, helping your team move the ball. Just click the link, because this is about availability. QB LT (and even EDGE, to a degree) are obtained through meticulous cultivation. WR, on the other hand, is a commodity exchange.

4b) RB is not an important part of winning in the NFL.

This is not your father’s NFL. Running and stopping the run are not 2 of the 3 keys to winning in the NFL, unlike what you may have mistakenly heard from one GM. We wrote a manifesto on this topic. Since that piece was written, the following year a former Round 1 RB was released, signed to a 1 year prove-it deal, played a complimentary role and won a ring. And, Saquon Barkley tore his ACL. Case closed.

4c) LBers are worth less today than 14 years ago, but they still matter.

Don’t tell Devin White or Lavonte David that LBers are unimportant.

4d) Safeties have a bigger role in today’s NFL.

Their size and speed are necessary as a response to more passing. (CBs, while obviously necessary, have been “commoditized” by the NFL’s rules to make passing easier.)

4e) Special Teams are still underrated, but less so.

Kickoffs have been neutered.

4f) A very good Offensive Line coach is almost critical.

This is in support of Rule #2.

4g) Tight End in the Red Zone.

RULE #5. YOU WIN THROUGH THE DRAFT.

5a) Trading Down in the Draft is great.

GMs overpay for the right to choose. This has been documented ad nauseum. It is still somewhat frightening to me that Dave Gettleman made the best Draft day decision of his career in moving down 9 spots for a R1 and R4 pick and would not have done that if a WR he wanted was on the board. I don’t care if that WR is Jerry freaking Rice, Trade Down.

5b) Second Round Draft picks are the best value in the draft. No sizzle, all steak.

Verbatim from the old list. God has blessed the second round and GMs still have not figured this out. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, it is just insane how easy it is to build a team by just moving down and living in Round 2. Plus, you don’t get the divas, you get the guys with something to prove. This has been going on forever and it continues to go on forever. Mark Collins, Erik Howard, Pepper Johnson, Jumbo Elliott, Michael Strahan, Jason Sehorn, Amani Toomer, Tiki Barber, Joe Jurevicius, Osi Umneyiora, Chris Snee, Corey Webster, Steve Smith, Terrell Thomas, Linval Joseph, Johnathan Hankins, Landon Collins, Sterling Shepard, Dalvin Tomlinson, and now 2 more who I think will be special, Xavier McKinney and Azeez Ojulari.

5c) Free Agency. ‘B’ players at ‘A’ prices.

The easiest way to see how you build value is that the Draft is wholesale and Free Agency is retail. Where do you want to shop? Sometimes you have no choice. Picking up one or maybe two high priced items in a year may be necessary, but the rest of your team and the rest of the cap will need to support that. Remember that if you are always living in retail, your cap structure is not going to be competitive. (I’m not talking about the journeyman players of Free Agency. There is actually some value in that part of the market.)

RULE #6. PRINCIPLES AND BEST PRACTICES.

6a) Pitchouts still do not work in the red zone.
6b) Do the unpredictable. Once you are predictable, you are dead.
6c) Build your own Super Bowl blueprint.
6d) The only thing the Prevent Defense prevents you from doing is winning.
6e) The only thing the Prevent Offense prevents you from doing is winning.
gf) The only things worse than the Prevent Offense is the Prevent Offense when your Defense is weak/depleted by injury.
6g) It’s always the coach’s fault when a large lead is lost.
6h) The Bill Walsh ‘Quality Win’ (11+ margin of victory) is a necessary objective at all times because it enables you to win more games that are hotly contested.
6i) After 1st & Goal from the 1-2 yd line, if you fail to score a TD on your first three tries, kick the FG on 4th down.
6j) The Steve Young Rule: September is the new preseason. Continue to improve the quality of play each week, as the end of the season rarely resembles the beginning of the season.
6j) The Carl Banks Rule: You cannot turn it on and turn it off in the NFL. Do not take any game off or protect players from injury if a playoff spot has been clinched.
6k) Defense (still) wins championships. This is a league of Offense. But you have to be credible on Defense or else these high powered Offenses will run you over when it counts. In the last 8 years, the Super Bowl winner’s Defense was ranked an AVERAGE of 5th out of 32 teams. It would have been 4th averaged if Seattle ran Lynch on 2nd and Goal from the 1. As a football purist, it is still appropriate to let Defense get the last word in the Rules.

The Rules For Winning in the NFL, Part 1, v1.0

This NY Giants blog was started in November 2006, and on July 4th 2007, we published The Rules For Winning in the NFL. As many of you are aware, the blog migrated to different platforms along the way, and many years of posts were lost. At one point at the end of the first decade we were getting some of our posts reprinted in the NY Times “5th Down” online site. Thankfully the content from that site is still available, memorializing the “old” v1.0 rules. We will reprint them here to get a permanent record archived.

Tomorrow, for Independence Day, we will release The Rules For Winning in the NFL v2.0. Regular readers of the blog and Twitter will have some clues as to what (at least some of) it may look like. The NFL has changed in the past 14 years. The only constant is change. Some of ‘the Rules’ are no longer there. That does not mean they weren’t valid. They simply were rendered less impactful as the NFL evolved. Given how we have been espousing many of the ‘new’ (updated) Rules in recent years, this will be an opportunity to codify them. The Rules 2.0 will hopefully put more clarity into what is necessary today for NFL GMs to succeed.

The 2007 Rules For Winning in the NFL v1.0

1) Do not draft a “versatile” player in Round 1 of the draft. “Dominant” should be there, not versatile.
2) Left Tackle is a rare commodity. A good Left Tackle is better than a great ______ (fill in almost any other position).
3) WRs are a dime a dozen. Do not waste resources here; pick one up when you are close to the prize. They are always available.
4) “Linebackers, I collect’em.” — Bill Parcells.
5) Pitchouts do not work in the red zone.
6) Repeat after me, Do not go for the 2 pt. conversion until there are 6 minutes left in the game. If there are more than 8 minutes left in the game, it is a 99% certainty that it was the wrong decision.
6a) The Mike Tomlin Rule: The only thing worse than violating Rule 6 is violating Rule 6 AFTER a penalty makes it a 7 yd (or 12! or 17 yard) attempt.
7) The Devin Hester Rule: If there is a special teams player in the end zone on a FG attempt, it is probably a good idea to fake the kick.
8) Do the unpredictable. Once you are predictable you are dead.
9) Trading down in the draft is good.
10) Investing all of your resources in one player is (now, more than ever in the era of free agency) a mistake. Eli Manning, Herschel Walker, Ricky Williams… the teams that do the best are usually giving the pick and getting multiple players.
11) “Read and react” is for losers. Set the tone, dictate terms of engagement, let others copy your Super Bowl blueprint. By the time you copy someone else’s, the league has figured out how to adjust, so you are wasting your time.
12) Let the clock wind down to 3 seconds and kick your FG. I have never seen a team muff the (3rd down) attempt and kick on 4th down with the extra time that you left on the clock. I HAVE seen plenty of teams kick the FG and give the other team the opportunity to win when they got their hands on the ball again. (i.e. Dallas Monday Night 2003)
13) The two-week layover for the Super Bowl makes for a lousy game and improves the chances for the favorite.
14) Special teams are always underrated.
15) The only thing the prevent defense prevents you from doing is winning.
16) The only thing the prevent offense prevents you from doing is winning.
16a) The Kenny Holmes Rule: the only thing worse than the prevent offense is the prevent offense when your defense is exhausted/impaired by injury.
17) Players are told to play for 60 minutes. Yet who benches the head coach when he only coaches for 50?
18) The Fassel Rule of Prevent: It is always the coach’s fault when a large lead is blown/the game is lost.
19) The Fassel Rule of December: Practice in December without pads — your players will appreciate it and win many more games for you with their fresh legs.
20) The Bill Walsh “Quality Win” (winning by 11+ points) is a necessary objective at all times because it enables you to win MORE games that are more hotly contested.
21) After 1st and Goal from the 1-2 yard line, if you fail to score a TD on your first three tries, kick the FG on 4th down.
22) The Carl Banks Rule: You cannot simply turn it on and turn it off in the NFL. Play every game and maintain/improve on your high level of play.
23) Second-round draft picks are the best value in the draft. No sizzle, all steak.
24) # of headcases < = strong head coaches. (If you have a strong head coach, you can have up to 1 head case in the locker room. If you have a weak head coach, you cannot have any. A strong head coach with 2 head cases means a locker room infestation and problems.)
25) The Phil Simms Rule: You must stretch the field on offense. If you do not/cannot pass the ball >20 yards down field, LBers and safeties will choke off your offense.
26) Defense wins championships.