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OPPOSITION TERRITORY: New York Giants · The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views

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All right, folks, you are listening to our next installment of opposition territory
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here at the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show, the longest running weekly Philly sports
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podcast show in the world, ten years strong, and we got a great
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discussion coming your way. We're gonna be getting into the New York Giants,
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one of the Eagles rivals here in the NFC East, a team that did
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go to the playoffs this past season for the first time in quite some time.
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Brian Dable, new head coach, really setting the stage for the future.
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I think for this Giants team, what are they gonna look like in
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this NFC East. We've got a great discussion coming your way with a fantastic
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guest. Let's get to it, and it's great to have back on the
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podcast. She is so generous with her time whenever we ask her to come
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on. To get into this New York Giants team, their off season,
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what the draft looked like, and inevitably, what the future holds for this
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team. We have from Sports Illustrated Giants Country dot Com, the one and
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only Patricia Traina. How are you doing, Patricia, I'm doing great.
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How are you I'm doing okay? You know I mean, we're able to
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take a little bit of a breath now after this NFL draft, at least
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some of us are. I know that you and your colleagues at Giants Country
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dot com have been doing great job in terms of content that you're putting up
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about the New York Giants. Of course, as an Eagles fan here at
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the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show, don't necessarily want the Giants to do all
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that well, but I gotta say it like they've had a pretty impressive offseason.
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I think, you know, as somebody who is objective about this,
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Giants are looking pretty good for this upcoming season. I think, yeah,
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on paper, they've shored up some of the areas that last year they were
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lacking in. Yeah, the run defense was a problem, so they added
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some depth there the back end of the defense. Gotta add speed back there
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to keep up with the NFC East speedsters. You know, on the offensive
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side of the ball. They were dead last in big plays of over twenty
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plus yards in the passing game, so they added some speed there. The
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big acquisition of course being tight end Darren Waller or hopefully if healthy, will
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open up a lot of stuff. So yeah, they really went after aggressively
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the weaknesses that they had last year in a hopes to close the gap between
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themselves and the Eagles and the Cowboys. Absolutely, and we're gonna get into
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some NFC East talk with our discussion here a little bit later. But if
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you're not following Patricia on Twitter at Patricia Underscore Trainer, she is a great,
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great follow And let's really just start getting into this Giants team and what
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the offseason has looked like. Look last year, Brian Dable certainly took this
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Giants team in a new direction. I mean, he not only won Coach
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of the Year, but he got the Giants back to the playoffs after some
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time. And arguably I think two of the most important games that he coached
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last year, Patricia was the Sunday Night football game where the Giants came back
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to win over the Commanders. I thought that was a decisive win. It
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really showed I think the Giants fan base and the NFL fan base too,
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what the Giants are all about. And then the playoff victory over the Vikings
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was huge too. So in my opinion, those games really highlighted and showcased
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his coaching prowess. What did Brian Dable's first year, mean to this Giants
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team as the head coach, and what are the expectations for him heading into
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the second season as the Giants head coach. Yeah, so he came in
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and you know, the team, as you know, hadn't been doing very
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well. Yea, they hadn't been able to get over the humps. So
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basically he came in throughout the old program, started from scratch, but this
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time, you know, unlike previous head coaches, he had some core pieces
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with which to work. So he laid down this foundation, build up the
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players trust and buy in, and created more of a democracy, if you
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will, amongst the players. The players do have a say and you know,
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what they like to run, what they don't like to run, whereas
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some coaching staffs don't allow that. It's basically, you run what I tell
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you, and that's the end of the story. So he gave everybody in
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that building really a piece of ownership of the football program, whether you were
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you worked in a lunch room or you were the third string quarterback. You
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know, So he gave everybody that that ownership. And when you get people
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that sense of ownership, they're going to want to succeed and that just totally
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you know, put the locker room, I think in the right direction.
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So I think the expectations moving forward are to build on that, continue building
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on that. You know, they didn't accomplish what they wanted to accomplish last
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year. They had some personnel deficiencies because you know, they were kind of
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hamstrung a little bit in the beginning of the year with the salary cap and
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everything. But you want to grow, you want to make progress. So
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you know what is progress? Well, I wrote an article go about it
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over on Giants Country, and one of the things you probably want to do
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to show progress is you don't want to be involved in as many tight games
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as you were last year. I want to start winning them more convincingly.
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Yep. Absolutely, And you know it's good from a personnel standpoint that the
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Giants do seem to have that quarterback of the future and they didn't need to
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really dive into the quarterback position. During this NFL Draft and getting into the
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draft, Patricia, a lot of analysts gave the Giants front office a grades
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for their twenty twenty three draft class. You know, Deante Banks was a
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great pick at cornerback, in my opinion, John Schmidtz, a top rated
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center that they nabbed with the number fifty seven overall pick. And then wide
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receiver Jalen Hyatt, who I was really high on and I'm thinking to myself,
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boy, great if the Eagles could possibly get him, but no,
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he goes to the Giants. A top fifty player. Was a great pick
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in my opinion. So I'm wanting to do the Giants or do you think
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that the Giants drafted well for the future? And what would your grade actually
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be for this draft class and why I'm actually not going to give you a
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grade because I got to see these guys on the field. That being said.
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That being said, I feel that they did address a lot of the
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deficiencies that they had. You know, I've been screaming or a pure center
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for weeks, about months, and they finally answered the call the top center.
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For sure. I suspected that they were going to maybe look to revamp
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the cornerback situation because you know, Dorry Jackson is entering the last year of
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his contract and you know, he's been okay for them, but he hasn't
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really made that many big game changing plays, right, So that being said,
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you know, it kind of went mostly the way I thought it would.
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There were a couple of things that I thought they would do that they
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didn't, but you know, they added depth. You know, Joe Shane,
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the general manager, has said, I want to build through the draft
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and use free agency to supplement as opposed to you know what the previous regimes
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were doing, where they were building through free agency and supplementing through the draft
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because of just poor drafting. So I do think they are on the right
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track. I think overall they are a better team on paper, but we've
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got to see them on the field because you know, we could sit here
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and you know, say, oh, the Giants got an A plus draft,
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but you know what championships are at one in a so you have to
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see how everything kind of meshes together. Absolutely. I think it's interesting how
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you mentioned the Giants front office kind of taking this new, this new approach,
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this new road to travel down where you really do build the team through
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the draft and then with free agency, you know, you're just kind of
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filling in some spots here and there. And I think a lot of successful
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teams in the NFL we're seeing that more and more. You know, whether
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it is the Kansas City Chiefs, whether it is the Philadelphia Eagles, how
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they've been building through the trenches and building their team through the draft and having
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successful drafts over the past few seasons. It's interesting how the Giants front office
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has really embraced that, especially during this season. But that kind of leads
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me to another position on the field I wanted to dive into with you about
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and a certain individual who I absolutely loved. He played football at the school
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district, the high school and with the school district rate over from me where
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my family and I live. And that's one Saquon Barkley. I mean,
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the contract situation involving him and the Giants doesn't appear to be resolving itself anytime
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soon. Both sides really do seem to be at an impass and I wonder
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how much of this might be as a result of not only were the running
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back position has gone in this league, but maybe also how the Giants front
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office have been seeing how players like, for instance, like Miles Sanders formerly
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of the Eagles, and how Ezekiel Elliott formerly of the Dallas Cowboys, who
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knows he might come back to the Cowboys. You know, how they had
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certainly a nice good impact on the field, but they weren't the end all
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be all when it came to the offense and winning games for them. That's
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just my thoughts there. So I'm wondering, how will the Saquon Barkley contract
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drama and when it's all said and done, and is there any worry that
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this situation might actually be a hindrance for say Quon on the field perhaps this
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season and might have affect his productivity? What are your thoughts? The market
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is what it is. I mean, look, we all have a right
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to go to our employer and say we want X number of dollars. That
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doesn't mean that our employer is going to agree and give us what we ask
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for, right. So that being said, you know, you do have
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to have an idea of what the market is. Se Quon Barkley, obviously
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they have a better They have a different idea of what he's worth, as
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opposed to maybe with the Giants think he's worth. When all is said and
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done, there are many more reasons for sae Quon Barkley to get a deal
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done at the market value than there are for him to play on the tag.
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Okay, I think this one being the threat of injury. Right,
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if he gets injured again and he's playing on the tag and he ends up
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missing any time while playing on that tag, he can kiss goodbye any chance,
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you know, excuse me of a big pay day. So that being
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said, if you're Barkley and you want to gamble on yourself and say,
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okay, you know what, I made it through last year relatively unscathed.
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I had a good year. I taught my career rushing high by five yards.
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I think I could do better. The Giants are not going to be
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able to tag everybody, you know, they got Xavier McKinney coming up.
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You know, Leonard Williams is in the final year of his contract at Doory.
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Jackson's in the final year of his contract. They're not going to be
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able to get everybody done and tag everybody. You say to yourself, okay,
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do I want to play on that tag for ten point one million?
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Do I want to gamble on myself? I mean, look, we all
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you know, if you're looking at the safest gamble you could take, Yeah,
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you bet on yourself, right, But when there are external factors like
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in this case, and injury like I mentioned, you might want to think
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twice about that, and you might want to say, look, the market
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is what it is. You know, this is my history. To get
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more than ten point one million guaranteed over several years, it's probably better than
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digging in and just hoping for that sixteen million or whatever it is he's looking
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for per year. I would agree, Yeah, yep, I would absolutely
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agree, and hopefully for Giants fans, hopefully for Giants Nation that gets itself
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straightened out sooner rather than later. And again, folks were talking to Patricia
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Traina from Giants Country dot com and you can follow her on Twitter. She's
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a great great follow at Patricia Underscore Traina, and I wanted to get into
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the strengths and weaknesses of this Giants team as we're you know, moving along
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here during this off season. You know, you do incredible analysis with regard
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to this with the majority of your articles, I think you're always touching on
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something with regard to a strength and a weakness with this team with you're writing,
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Patricia, So let's start off with the strengths, like the biggest strength
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of this Giant's team heading into twenty twenty three, what is that? And
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why I would say probably the defense affront. That's what I was going to
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say too. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, Dexter Lawrence
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is coming off of a career year, just got a new contract. Leonard
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Williams had some injury issues last year, missed some time, but he's still
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a very good football player. They they beefed up that defensive interior with Rakim
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Nunez Rochez and a Shawn Robinson, So hopefully the run defense is going to
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be a little bit better. You're throwing Bobby o Karaka in that front seven,
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much improved linebacker for that run defense. So I would say the defense
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affront is probably the strength still of that team. You know, You've got
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some question marks still on the back end that I think needs to be worked
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out over. On offense, you know, you could say, okay,
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the offensive line, yes, they upgraded it, but is Evan Neil the
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right tackle It's probably the biggest question mark right now. Is he going to
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take that step forward that they need him to? Yeah? You know,
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is Daniel Jones going to continue to progress or was last year an outlier?
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You know what about these receivers? Are these receivers going to work out?
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So, you know, based on what we know past history, defensive front
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is probably you know, the biggest strength right now. Yeah, I would.
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I would agree with you on that too, And I think it's I
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think it's imperative that NFL teams in general, whether you're the Giants or another
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team in this league, you know, building through the trenches and making sure
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those upfront guys in personnel are are are absolutely dominant. I do think that
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the sorry, the Giants actually really do have that dominant defensive front. I
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do think it's their biggest strength. On the flip side of that biggest weakness
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of the Giants heading into this two twenty three season, I don't know what
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are your thoughts. I have my thought on what it is because of what
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the league has become, and I want to see if you have the same
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thoughts. So, what's the biggest weakness of this team? Oh, that's
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a tough one. Um, I'm going I'm going with wide receiver, believe
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it or not, because I think the league has gotten to the point where
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you do have to have specific types of wide receivers and I'm not sure think
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Okay, okay, I can't go with that. Okay, I'm sorry.
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They have they have different they have different guys, and I look at what
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they were able to get out of out of the receivers they had last year,
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which as we know, they were, you know, considered middle of
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the road type guys, and they were able to optimize those guys and what
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they were able to get out of them. So I would say maybe the
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biggest question mark back into the defense, the back end of the defense.
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Okay, you know, because again, you know, you've got Deontay Banks,
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their first round pick, but he's a rookie and until we see him
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out there, you know, Well, one of the big things that the
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Giants struggled with besides the run, defending the run was coverage, man to
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on coverage. They weren't able to do it as much as I think they
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wanted to. Yeah, will they be able to do that this year?
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Will they be able to be more physical with these speechers that they see twice
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a year and then the others that they're going to see. So that to
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me is probably one of the biggest question marks on this team. I think
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the other question mark we're going individually Evan Neil the right tackle, okay,
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you know, I mean, you know, a lot of promise in this
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young man. And you've got to take into consideration that last year was his
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first time playing on the right side exclusively. He had played left tackle.
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I believe in college before being drafted, they need him to take a step
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forward. If he does not take a step forward, going to be a
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long year for that offensive wide. So I would say that's probably the biggest
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question mark on the offensive side of the ball. All right, all right,
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very good, Well moving along here, don't of your colleagues recently wrote
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an article over on Giants Country dot com about players who need to have a
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breakout season for the Giant in twenty twenty three to get to that next level.
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On the list was you know, Cavon Thibadeaux, Xavier McKinney, Darius
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Slayton to name a few. Which player for you is at the top of
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your list in terms of needing to really have that breakout season to get the
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Giants to that next level and especially in the playoffs. Evan Neil all,
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I got to go there. I got to start with the offensive life.
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Yeah. Look, you can have all the talent you want in the backfield.
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You can have you know, Bart Star as your quarterback. You can
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have Barry Sanders as you're running back. Um, you know, Jerry Rice
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as your receiver, Dame Casper as your title. But if you can't block,
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if you can't protect the quarterback, if you can't open up holes,
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if you can't you know, allow for the offense to develop, what good
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is it? Exactly? So you know, and I don't want to dump
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it all on Evan Neil. It's probably not fair to dump it all on
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him. Definitely general because you know, you've got you've got a new you,
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a rookie center, You've got probably a new left guard coming in.
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I think they're you know, the plan is for Joshua Zoo to be the
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left guard, and his rookie year was cut short. Yeah, you know,
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right guard Mark Lewinski is coming off of a type of year. Really,
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the only proven guy on that offensive line right now is Andrew Thomas.
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So that offensive line has to come together. It has to form into a
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human brick wall, and it has to start bulldozing people in the run game
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because if it doesn't, then it doesn't matter who the Giants get is their
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scale position players. It's going to be a long, long season. Absolutely.
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I mean, we did see that the Giants offensive line had some issues
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and difficulty against Philadelphia Eagles in the games they played against them this past season.
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You know, we're sae Quon Barkley, I don't I'm not sure if
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he got over fifty yards in at least a couple of those games. So
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the offensive line and Evan Neil, of course, I mean, this is
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going to be the season Evan Neil. That's what it is, and that's
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what this podcast here is about. It's all about Evan Neil. But to
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close this out here, Patricia, you know, this is going to be
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a very tough and interesting NFC East Division, coming off a season where three
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teams go to the playoffs. And yes, even though they lost the Super
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Bowl and of course was heartbreaking for me as an Eagles fan, the Eagles
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are coming off a great season. They're continuing to grow, They're continuing to
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acquire talent, looking to build upon what they have established for the future.
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The Cowboys, they're still looking like they're probably going to be a competitive team.
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Commanders, we don't necessarily know what we're going to be seeing with them,
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as that organization is going through a ton of changes with the sale.
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Where in the mix. Do you think the New York Giants are within the
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NFC East Division, how do you think they potentially shake some things up as
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we're looking to this new upcoming NFL season. I would like to say that
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the Giants have closed the gap with the Eagles and the Boys a little bit.
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But you know, I'll be honest with you, I'm not really into
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making predictions because anything can happen. Right now, what happens, if God,
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what happens, if God for big Jalen Hurt suffers a season ending injury,
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then we got Marcus Mariota out there. Okay, but but you see
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my point. All it takes is from one thing to upset the apple cart,
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and you can take all the predictions you did in the off season and
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throw them in the garbage. Right. So that being said, I look
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at the Giants and I think they are better equipped to handle their opponents,
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their NFC East opponents, because that's where it starts. You've got to win
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in the division, and if you don't, you might as well forget about
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it. And the Giants haven't really had success winning in a division and I
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don't know how many years now, so you've got to start there. I
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think they are a little closer in terms of, you know, matching up
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better with the Cowboys and with the Eagles, but there's still so much to
20:00
take place. I mean, how are these cookies going to integrate in and
20:03
not just on the Giants, but on the Cowboys and on the Eagles and
20:07
on the Commanders. How is this all going to come together? So,
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you know, on paper, the Giants i'd like to think could maybe pass
20:15
the Cowboys. But it's like I said, you know, I just take
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it one week at a time because I don't want to you know, if
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you tell people, oh, the Giants are gonna win the devision, and
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then if they start the injury bug, which Giant bants know it happens a
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lot to this Yes, not on occasion, it happens often a little too.
20:37
So if that starts ripping into your team, now, all those predictions
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you made, you might as well just you know, toss them. So
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I'm optimistic that the Giants will be better. You know, will they win
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a lot more games than their nine to seven and one record last year?
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I don't know. I haven't really sat down and given that some thought,
20:59
I would say probably I could see them getting to ten wins with certain games
21:03
bouncing the way, but that first, you know, seven or ten games
21:07
on the road, that that first part of their schedule absolutely brutal. Yeah,
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absolutely, and I want to see how they handle that. That's going
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to tell us a lot about what this team is all about and if this
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team has really taken the next step again, folks. Patricia Traina from Giants
21:25
Country dot com follow on Twitter at Patricia Underscore Traina. It was great talking
21:30
to you, my friend. Really, I love having you on to talk
21:32
about this Giants team, and you do such great work. Come back and
21:36
join us down the road. We'd love to have you back on. Thanks
21:38
so much for having me. I actually do think the Giants could surprise a
21:42
lot of folks this year. Yes, as Patricia was just talking about the
21:45
beginning of the first half, basically of the Giants schedule is absolutely brutal.
21:51
They are on the road so very much, and they may be playing some
21:56
catch up perhaps within the division within the NFC it's self. However, I
22:00
do think that with Brian Dable at the Helm, the type of leadership that
22:04
he has been able to bring to this organization, and more importantly stability,
22:10
I actually think that stability is more important than the leadership. You know,
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he's been able to stabilize things within Giants Nation, within this Giants team where
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I do think they could potentially be prolific this coming season, especially within the
22:22
division. So it's gonna do it for us here on opposition Territory. Again.
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Thanks to Patricia, and thank you for listening to the PSD podcast show
22:32
again going ten years strong. Celebrated our ten year anniversary last month. Absolutely
22:37
love talking Philly sports, the sports world in general, and we're gonna keep
22:41
going for quite some time. You can follow us on Twitter. If you're
22:45
not already at Philadelphia PST, you follow me at Jeffrey Underscore Warren. We've
22:49
got a great regular show coming your way this week. We're gonna have a
22:53
guest co host as my co host. Unfortunately, due to their schedules,
22:56
won't be able to join us this week. However, we're gonna be getting
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into some more NFL Eagles talk. We're gonna be getting into the Philadelphia seventy
23:04
Sixers, the debacle after Game seven of the semifinals, and what is going
23:11
to happen to this Sixers team in the future. We've got a ton of
23:15
Philly's baseball to talk about as well. All right, folks, that's gonna
23:19
do it for us here on opposition territory. Take care and we'll catch you
23:22
next time.