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| Fresh Voice For A`Stale Team (Reese) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 17 2007, 03:47 PM (60 Views) | |
| BlueHeart | Jan 17 2007, 03:47 PM Post #1 |
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Gifted, But, Twisted Fearless Leader
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[size=7]Fresh voice for a team gone stale [/size] Wednesday, January 17, 2007 BY STEVE POLITI The voice was loud and firm, and it stopped all the squabbling between scouts with more experience and longer résumés. This was draft day 2003, and members of the Giants' inner circle were debating several directions for their second-round pick when Jerry Reese made his choice clear: A defensive end from Troy State. "We're stealing him. We are stealing him," Reese said that day, and those words stuck with John Mara. The Giants did draft Osi Umenyiora, and it was a steal. But it was the way Reese stopped the room that impressed Mara. This is the man Mara believes he has hired as his new general manager, someone the team's CEO thinks is forceful and bold, a decisive risk-taker. And Giants fans everywhere better hope he is right. Hiring Reese is a historic move for the Giants -- he is just the third black general manager in NFL history -- but it is just as important in a more traditional sense. The Giants, coming off another implosion to end their season, desperately need a new voice and direction. Reese has plenty of work to do. "I think he will energize the whole organization," Mara said, "and we could use a little of that right now." Mara is promoting from within when results from the past several seasons suggest the Giants should have looked outside their organization. This is a team that, in the six years since its last Super Bowl appearance, has three losing seasons and three humbling first-round playoff defeats. But the team's new leadership is following in the footsteps of the old guard, with John making a move his father, Wellington, surely would have endorsed. Mara reached out to Scott Pioli of the Patriots, but when Pioli passed on the chance to interview, he went with Reese. Now, in the coming months, the Giants will see if Reese is prepared to make the moves needed to strengthen the foundation of a flawed team his mentor and friend, Ernie Accorsi, built. "Ernie has left us with a strong core of players, and it really kind of makes me sick to look at the playoff games going on right now," Reese said. "Our team is good enough to still be playing right now. It's no question in my mind." Maybe, but that ignores what happened on the field this season. The two teams in the NFC Championship Game, the Saints and Bears, soundly beat the Giants on their home turf, while another, the Seahawks, crushed them before the Giants were felled with injuries. Another team, the Eagles, nearly swept them in three games. This is a team with a supposed franchise quarterback who has been mediocre at best, a star defensive end who is turning 36 and coming off another major injury, a franchise cornerstone at running back headed for retirement, a receiver who takes plays off, a tight end with a case of the dropsies and a defense with holes to fill at virtually every position. Fortunes can change in a hurry in the NFL -- just ask the Jets. But in many ways, the Giants are perhaps the worst kind of professional sports team, a franchise convinced it is on the verge of something great when, in reality, they appear to keep moving in the opposite direction. Reese must be prepared to make significant changes. The draft record for the team the past several seasons, including the four since Reese took over as director of player personnel, is spotty. That includes the biggest trade of them all, the deal that will define Accorsi's legacy. Reese said yesterday he was on board with the trade for Manning, and given the opportunity to make it again, he said, "If I was in that seat and we, as a group, targeted Eli? I would have done the same thing." Manning is here to stay, and so the new general manager must put the right people around him. Reese talked about bringing in another coach to work with Manning, but another top-flight receiver would make more of a difference than another voice in his head. Reese has room under the salary cap and, for the first time, will be the one with the final say on draft day. Mara described him as a strong, confident voice in that busy war room. Reese has to be more than that now. He has to be aggressive, he has to be fearless, and above all, he has to be right. |
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| Monkey Boy | Jan 17 2007, 03:56 PM Post #2 |
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Hall of Famer
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He sounds great on paper.........2nd coming of Jesus.......but let's play a season or two before we enshrine him the hall of fame shall we........ |
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| 27Hampton | Jan 17 2007, 04:00 PM Post #3 |
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Hall of Famer
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That's all I'm concerned about. He needs to do better than Accorsi who did some good things here, but overall was a failure to the organization. |
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| KCGirl | Jan 17 2007, 04:35 PM Post #4 |
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Shaper of Young Minds (aaahhhhhh!)
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Then by the same token, we need to give him a year or 2 before we trash the decision to name him GM. |
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| 27Hampton | Jan 17 2007, 04:37 PM Post #5 |
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Hall of Famer
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I don't think anybody can really trash the decision to hire him. I would have rathered somebody from outside the organization who was not tutored by Accorsi, but what can ya do. He's his own man nevertheless, so hopefully he's a better judge of talent than the bald one. |
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| Monkey Boy | Jan 17 2007, 05:19 PM Post #6 |
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Hall of Famer
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EA was bald? I would have never guessed.......... |
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| G1.. | Jan 17 2007, 05:24 PM Post #7 |
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G1
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Lets see if he can find a defense first!
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| BlueHeart | Jan 18 2007, 03:27 AM Post #8 |
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Gifted, But, Twisted Fearless Leader
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Exactly. |
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