Day: January 8, 2020

Here is the cold truth: The Giants have a serious culture and leadership problem in the locker room. I can see it from the sideline images. I can see it on the faces of the players who’ve lost game after game in consecutive seasons. They (as a fan I want to say we) are headed in the wrong direction.

Enter Joe Judge.

The guy has been a solid leader in the Patriots system for years and, apparently above others, gets the seal of approval from the legendary HC. This to me indicates that the guy is a leader. He is also a teacher–having earned a teaching degree. That tells me something as a teacher myself. It tells me he knows how to adapt to different personalities and he is presented with a great number of those in the Giants system.

So, will he be successful? Yeah. I think he will. I think the Giants faithful has to get behind a few things first.

1. We need a much better secondary. That has to happen now and has to happen through draft or through free agency. Defense needs to be a top priority.
2. We have some fat to trim on the O-line. We made mistakes in free agency (Solder) and those need to be corrected. There is money available now in FA with the departures of Manning and Jenkins, and while we will be spending a ton on the D-Line, we need to address the O-Line as well. The key there is agility. We need pass protection and pulling guards, because both work towards enhancing what Barkley can do.
3. Barkley is that dude. Not Jones. Jones is a fumbler and we gotta fix that too, but Barkley is the key to this offense. Some WRs are being developed very nicely (though one has had so many concussions that I think he should retire), but it comes back to needing to establish a strong run game first.
4. Hire an OC that understands point #3. Eric Bienemy didn’t get the HC role, but we really need that dude.
5. Stick with the Defensive Philosophy. If we switch D-Coord, we need to swap a lot of players. Give this thing an honest chance to work out.

That’s all. That’s the blueprint. It remains my dream job to be a NY Giants GM. I wish they’d call and let me help get this ship right. Heck, I’d take the Knicks job right now (call me, Dolan!). We need a quality NYC team. No, the Bills don’t count.

This is the start of the new semester–first of 2020. The classes I am teaching offer me a chance to try new things and try to induct a new generation of students into the idea of creative writing. I am going to be focusing on Super heroes and the zeitgeist this semester–using that primary idea as a final project. How do we get there? Not entirely sure yet. I have few days left to figure that out.

I’m figuring a few things out, such as what to read and what I am really excited to be writing. Trudging away on the novel shows me that I am not really excited about the story, but I am going to keep trying. More changes to the protagonist are clearly required.

As for reading, I am really unclear on what I want to read. I’m in a lull. I’m presently listening to Daniel H. Wilson’s sequel to Crichton’s Andromeda Strain. I enjoy his style here and appreciate a good sci-fi adventure romp.

I feel like I need to be exploring more writing and more writers in general as part of this change to a more writing-centric life. I’m moving there… slowly…

Some Thoughts:

1. Giants have a new coach, but does that mean a new staff? Wondering what is going to happen with the coordinator positions. Specifically, what kind of Offense is gonna happen and what defense can we look forward to given that the team is built around a specific style of D and seems to lack the players to go in a different direction.
2. That seems to leave the Browns as the last organization to snap up a Patriots coach. I’d LOVE to see them grab Bellicheck…
3. Outside of that, I’m just chillin…