Maybe this means nothing; this is reality TV, after all. I can’t imagine anyone rushing out of a restaurant just because Gordon Ramsay attacked a poor sous chef like Bobby Knight. Many of the drive-ins, diners, and dive bars that Guy Fieri visits may whet our appetites, but too many of them would require us to carry around a gallon of pre-made Alka-Seltzer.
So while it’s certainly been fun to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the Giants’ life over the past few weeks with HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” it’s not going to translate to the kind of regular season (and beyond) success Giants fans crave. One only has to remember watching hours of The Life and Times of Aaron Rodgers last summer, and it all resulted in four plays from scrimmage.
And it’s true that we might be just as impressed if we were to sit in Brett Veach’s office in Kansas City, Brandon Beane’s in Buffalo or John Lynch’s in San Francisco: To be an NFL general manager, you have to be the wittiest person in almost every room you walk into.
Even the bad ones are very smart, organized and energetic.
So maybe we shouldn’t give Joe Sean a bowl of ice cream for the way he introduced himself on TV, and wait until we take a closer look at the team he’s put together this year and the plans he has hatched for the next few years.
Still a Giants fan do not have With this rare glimpse into how coordinator hires, free agent plans and rookie drafts work, you can be sure you’re at least somewhat impressed with what you’ve seen so far. Some of you may disagree. Veteran football impresario Michael Lombardi spoke at length about that last week, as did others. Well, okay.
Still, from what we can see on camera, the Giants appear to be in good hands. Coach Shawn is making a good impression. So is coach Brian Daboll, whose interrogation of quarterback prospects has been like a football Will Hunting, a sobering reminder of how little we amateurs know about what it takes to be a skilled NFL quarterback. New defensive coordinator Shane Bowen is also making a good first impression.
When the Giants begin training camp this week for their 100th season, we’ll find out if it’s TV magic or the real deal.
“We always have room to grow, room to improve,” Sean said in April, the day after the draft. “I always say this: We don’t play until September, so we have time between now and September to make acquisitions, final cuts or whatever. I like the team we have right now.”
Actually, there’s something to like about it. The defensive big three of rookies Brian Barnes, Dexter Lawrence and Kayvon Thibodeau are the kind of trio that make you dream about chilly Meadowlands afternoons, even when the temperature hits 98 degrees. Rookie wide receiver Malik Neighbors seems to bear more than just an on-field passing resemblance to another LSU Tiger who was down this road not long ago.
Daboll? Last year was tough, but this time last year he was fending off comparisons to a younger Parcells because of how well his first season went. He’ll probably fall somewhere between Parcells and Purdy, and we’ll know more about him this year, but it’s important not to write off 2022 too easily, especially considering how rough 2023 was.
So, the good. The bad is that the division still seems too deep for the Giants to win given their roster, schedule, and the fact that the team is still in the rebuilding phase. The offensive line has improved thanks to John Runyan Jr. and Jermaine El-Montana, but it’s hard to imagine them being as bad as last year.
And there are a lot of unknowns. Daniel Jones will be ready to resume his role as QB1, but like Daboll, they must declare whether he’s closer to the man who felt like a bona fide breakout star two years ago or the regressed Jones who was largely ineffective last season and then lost badly. What was a $160 million question last year is now, with the first quarter of that season behind him, just a $120 million question.
If this were the real Hard Knocks, it would mostly be the Daniel Jones Show, but since it isn’t, we’re slowly figuring out where Jones is and who he is. Starting this week, he’ll start telling us. They all will. And we’ll start asking, when we’re done watching the TV show:
How much of that was true?
