Some people are fans of the New York Giants. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the New York Giants. This 2014 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group.
Your team: New York Giants. And I'm just gonna go ahead now and tell you that this preview will be extremely half-assed. I did the Skins and Pats on Tuesday, and I hate those two teams more than I hate anything. The Giants are the sad gray sherbet that follows that hate feast. They are the palate cleanser.
Your 2013 record: 7-9, featuring an 0-6 start. Their first win came against Josh Freeman, who played the entire game from a therapist's couch. Was Eli shut out twice last season? You know he was. According to Wikipedia, "The Giants became the first team in NFL history to have a five-year era in which they won the Super Bowl in the third year of the era but missed the playoffs in all other years." That is a very specific stat … the kind of stat you gin up to show people that the Giants are the shittiest team ever to occasionally win a Super Bowl.
Your coach: Tom Coughlin. Still. Christ. I would say the Giants need new blood, but that suggests old blood is currently running through Coughlin's circulatory system, which is not true. Coughlin's veins are stuffed with old hair tonic and axel grease. The Giants just need BLOOD. Any blood will do. Anyway, you know the drill here: the Giants will play at least seven listless horrible games this season, and in those games, Coughlin will scour the field, looking for players to blame …
They will never fire Coughlin, even though Coughlin loses his players halfway through the year, every year, even the years they win. Oh well, at least Coughlin finally fired Kevin Gilbride. Fun fact: Every Giants fan calls Gilbride Kevin KILLDRIVE. Oh, that Giant humor. Never gets old. Killdrive is the Obummer of idiotic derisive football nicknames.
Your quarterback: Eli Manning, shown here giving his mom facial cues that it's time for a diapie change …
This man was born concussed. Eli could win another 10 Super Bowls and the prevailing sentiment would still be, "THAT guy won Super Bowls?" Your brain will never be able to compute Eli Manning. God, that face of his. It's as if God himself designed the perfect punchable face. Eli is the kind of guy who probably spends an entire airplane ride staring at the back of the seat in front of him. There's nothing there. Every time I see him on the TV, I want to wave my hand in front of him to see if he can process human movement.
Eli threw 27 picks last season, more than any other QB in the league. He threw five against Seattle alone. If his last name were anything other than Manning, Ryan Nassib would currently be the Giants' starting quarterback. Instead, here the Giants are again, stuck with Eli and Coughlin. Still fucking that chicken. Even
The Simpsons aren't as stale these days.
What's new that sucks: Well, the former first-round running back was forced to retire after suffering a catastrophic neck injury. So that was fun. Prior to his graceful exit from the NFL, David Wilson was known primarily as the running back Tom Coughlin yelled at a lot for fumbling. I bet Coughlin feels like a real dick now JUST KIDDING WHEN IT COMES TO SHITTING ON HIS PLAYERS COUGHLIN HAS NO SOUL. To protect Eli from defenders who can't wait to punch him in the face, the Giants overhauled the line and brought in Rashad Jennings and rookie Andre Williams to make a token attempt at running the ball. I drafted Andre Williams last night in fantasy. I already regret it.
A handful of notables from the Super Bowl teams are gone, including Justin Tuck and whatever is left of Hakeem Nicks's hamstrings. Chris Snee retired to a quiet life of having his father-in-law scream at him. To make up for the losses, the Giants drafted Odell Beckham, who is hurt already, which means Coughlin
hates his guts. They also brought back Super Bowl hero Mario Manningham, who owes David Tyree a steak dinner for making him the SECOND flukiest Super Bowl hero of all time. The Giants also imported two Broncos, including Trindon Holliday—who is incapable of fielding any kicked ball cleanly. I assume Peyton sent Holliday and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie to Eli as a prank. THOSE MANNING BOYS. Always pranking each other and shitting in each other's mouths! What a hoot.
What has always sucked: The Giants are an aunt's house you dread visiting. Every time the Giants come onto my television, the screen magically reverts to standard definition. This is the NFL's favorite son of a franchise. When Roger Goodell dies, the Giants will get the house and all of daddy's municipal bonds. The Jets will get nothing. They are the perfect teacher's pet for the NFL league office: stodgy and humorless and dead on the inside. The Giants suck for three notable reasons:
1) Like the Bears, they hold up a team from 30 years ago as an absolute moral paragon, and they believe that there's higher virtue in matching its strengths than in winning.
2) They strive to represent the parts of New York that the
Times actually does write about, which means they have a stick lodged firmly in their ass at all times.
3) Every time I think of them, all I think about is Billy Crystal telling Bruno Kirby that he's getting a divorce. That seems like a Giants fan thing to do.
Let's go to the game and we can talk about how Helen never loved me. Oh, and Eli will throw a pick.
The Giants gave nicknames to two separate RB committees (Thunder & Lightning, Earth, Wind & Fire) when none of the five RBs were any good. They used to play in the ugliest, most charmless, and least convenient stadium in the NFL. Then they built a new stadium, and now they play in the ugliest, most charmless, and least convenient stadium in the NFL. It's like trying to root for your father-in-law.
Also, Jason Pierre-Paul is always hurt now, and there are no tight ends.
What might not suck: Every four years, the Giants stumble into a Super Bowl title. So just wait one more year, gang. Goodell will hook you up.
Hear it from Giants fans!
James:
Eli Manning looks like he cuts his own hair with safety scissors. Also, fuck Will Beatty.
Jim:
The passing attack depends on short accurate passes, from maybe the most inaccurate passer in the league, and the o-line is still awful….This should end well.
Gino:
First off, we built a stadium for 1 BILLION DOLLARS that only caters to rich Manhattanites and Hoboken posers. They have no idea what the fuck is going on but they get a free buffet and a lounge so that makes it all worth it. The normal fan like me needs 3 hours to get in the building because I have to park 7 miles away and there is 2 entrances in said Billion dollar stadium. The ultimate reward for the stadium was the worst fucking Super Bowl in years and gridlock from Parsippany to Queens.
Second, my brother in law. Watching a game with him is like that Bud Lite commercial where the guy with the lisp hates Ramsey because all he does is yell. My brother in law will scream over a 5 yard run and a 75 yard bomb the same way. If we get a really big TD he beats his chest like King Kong. He will gladly fight with anyone who has anything negative to say about the Giants and since he's half brain dead, he can only verbalize so much and then starts to curse and scream and whoever is with him then has to separate the altercation.
Also, I and 10 of my friends will personally argue with you tooth and nail that Eli does no wrong and is better than anyone in the league in a big game because we are assholes as well.
Stephen:
What is the obsession with Syracuse? I'm an SU student so I think it's sort of cool that some go to my favorite NFL team but everyone knows that the Orange are an average D-1 football team full of 3-star or lower recruits. Jay Bromley was a solid player for SU but wasn't projected higher than the fifth round, yet the Giants picked him in the third round. True story: Bromley was at a food store on campus when he got drafted, NOT EVEN HE expected he'd go that early.
Justin:
I have more faith that we can go to Seattle and win than I do of beating Oakland at home.
Ronnie:
Eli is impossibly overrated and underrated at the same time and looks handsome the days he wins and ugly the days he loses.
Dan:
I don't have much to complain about as far as the team is concerned, so I'll complain about Met Life stadium, which absolutely did not need to be built and has all the charm of a pile of steel girders. The one and only time I went, we made the huge mistake of going without a parking pass. We ended up having to park at some random office complex approximately 10,000 miles from the stadium, and THEN had to take a bus to the stadium, and THEN sit in FUCKING TRAFFIC ON SAID BUS. As if this wasn't enough, after the game ended, we had to wait on line for a hour to get back on the same stupid bus and sit in traffic to get back to our car, then sit in traffic some more. Oh, and it was a night game, so I probably didn't get home until the fucking sun was about to come up. In conclusion, Met Life stadium can eat a bag of dicks.
John:
Our best corner is a billion years old and the rest of our secondary most closely resembles a bunch of confused 5 year olds trying to play tag in a ball pit.
Ian:
Four players have already retired this year to escape our shit team.
That Butt fumble team had more wins than us last season.
Chris:
Eli refuses to take his ADD meds.
Sean:
I went to the home game against the Eagles with two friends of mine who were Eagles fans (first mistake). As we sat in the nosebleeds, an older gentleman threw a beer bottle at one of my Eagles friends. They weren't being obnoxious or yelling or being a distraction…this guy, probably an ex-Teamster, just felt like it. My second mistake was that I yelled at the guy for throwing the bottle, because five minutes later, I was pelted with another empty one in the back. Pelted right square in between Victor Cruz's #80.
Ray:
They're Pittsburgh Steeler fans, only with jobs.
Ashley:
The entire organization preaches this "No excuses" mantra before immediately making a bunch of excuses for why they lost yet another "classic trap game".
The fans are as delusional, racist (Peyton Hillis could fumble 3 times in 4 possessions & fans & beat writers will still masturbate to how hard he plays) & moronic as any in the league but pride themselves on not being as bad as Jets fans or as crass as Philly fans.
Jerry Reese loves "projects". Which is why I would bet the Giants lead the league over the last several years in players drafted who were out of football within 2-3 years.
Attending a live Giants home game still requires taking a trip to fucking New Jersey even though the team's owners could buy 2 stadiums in whatever borough of NYC they desired & still have plenty to support their daughters' acting careers.
David:
Even David Wilson's neck was smart enough to quit on this team.
Philbold:
Eli can't avoid picks even when he's not on the field:
Kenton:
I've seen roulette wheels yield more consistent results than this team.
Andrae:
The two best games played by a Manning in MetLife last year were by Peyton, and he lost one of them. Tom Coughlin always looks like he's sick and tired of trying to figure out how this god-damn remote works.
Bobby Big Wheel:
The idea that you can get to their stadium by public transit is absolute bullshit. First you have to go to Penn Station, which is what would happen if you superglued three different Siberian bus stations together and crammed a few hundred thousand smelly, irritable people in it every day.
Then you have to take a train to Secaucus, which is a New Jersey transit hub so you'd figure trains would leave every ten minutes or so on gamedays. Except lolnope, when I went for the Broncos-Giants game last year I had to wait for 45 minutes, biding my time by watching football in Penn Station's top sports bar (TGI Fridays) and drinking a nine-dollar Sam Adams draft.
Then, when you finally get to Secaucus you have to run to a platform that is most likely packed (seriously, it's almost impossible to move on it) while waiting for another train to Giants Stadium.
That train goes to Giants Stadium at roughly two miles per hour. Seriously, I think they haven't installed electricity on the tracks yet and it's just pulled by a team of oxen. It took me about 2 hours from leaving my house just to get there. Then, when you want to go back there aren't nearly enough of those slow-ass trains to take back everyone who wants to use public transit so you'll wait in line for about 40 minutes with 10,000 other pissed, drunk Giants fans wondering if it'd just be faster if they swam through the Meadowlands to Secaucus.
Rob:
There are two kinds of Eli Manning interceptions.
One is when he throws a perfect strike to a covered receiver and it dinks off the guy's hands right into the waiting arms of a DB who is already steaming toward the end zone. For all his talent I'm so fucking happy that Hakeem Nicks is gone because he was a prime offender (when he could actually cobble together the spare parts he calls a body and play).
The other is when he's chased or pressured and makes such a mind-bogglingly derpy throw that an interception is the only possible outcome. Like when he flipped it with his non-throwing hand into a crowd of people in the END ZONE against the Titans a few years ago. Or like when he backpedaled away from the onrushing Cowboys D-line and weakly flicked the ball right to DeMarcus Fucking Ware on his first pass attempt of 2013.
I've now been watching him for so long that I can tell when one is going to happen before it actually does. It's so painful.
Dave:
Eli has entered the "Favre Zone" where the TV commentators all decide to circle the wagons and defend an aging QB throwing ridiculous interceptions by blaming everybody else.
Todd:
Tom Coughlin always looks exactly like my grandfather did after being suddenly woken up from a mid-afternoon nap in his recliner.
Thaddeus:
We are physically incapable of covering a point spread.
Matt:
Our best all time player had sex with an underaged girl, and our best QB looks like he eats more paste than Ralph Wiggum.
Mike:
They just built a stadium where the fan experience is objectively worse than the thirty-year-old stadium that it replaced.
Jim:
This team sucks and nobody's even got hurt yet.
Mike:
Eli runs like he has Jeff Van Gundy attached to his leg.
Bryant:
I feel like every game at one point I genuinely find myself asking if Eli Manning forgot how to play quarterback.
Mike:
One of my friends in a fantasy league said Eli Manning is the only player in the NFL he could probably beat up. I could not disagree with him.
Matt:
Did you know you cannot do a complete lap around the stadium without going up the escalators and then back down? $1.6 billion dollars.
William:
I recently purchased the new Madden, and decided to have a few beers and play some football. After the obligatory practice game to make sure I wasn't totally rusty, I started a franchise with my favorite team, the New York Giants. Having had a few more beers than anticipated, I threw six picks over the course of a surprisingly-close-given-that-stat game. At the end of the game, I considered not saving and restarting the season so as not to have completely unrealistic statistics. Then I thought to myself, no, this is something that could actually happen.
Erik:
If Eli Manning had been born into any other family he would currently be a thirty three year old virgin working as a tour guide for Disney's Animal Kingdom.
ZS:
After Eli won his second Super Bowl, I made a point of not complaining about him again, given that he has brought me more joy than just about any other athlete in my life.
Eli is aware of this and is testing me.
Benedict:
We're looking aggressively mediocre this year, so I'm feeling pretty good about winning the Super Bowl.
Juju:
Go to a Giants game and the fans are as hyped and have as much enthusiasm as Ben Stein after he swallowed 20 muscle relaxers
Doug:
During the 2011 season, the Giants were fortunate enough to have home games against Rex Grossman, Vince Young and the legendary tag-team combo of Tarvaris Jackson & Charlie Whitehurst. I attended each of these games and the Giants managed to lose each one.
During the same season the Giants managed to defeat Aaron Rodgers on the road and Tom Brady TWICE en route to a Super Bowl Championship.
Jeff:
If you somehow manage to machete your way through traffic, road closures, and rich drunk assholes en route to the luxury boxes their rich asshole fathers bought them for not wrecking the yacht this year, you will be asked to pay an arm and a leg in parking fees, even after you've mortgaged your home and sacrificed your first born to get a ticket. As if it needs repeating, the product on the field is not worth it, but everyone in the stands will still have a good time. This is because they are reading the New York Post on their iPads and have to be reminded by the scoreboard when to cheer.
Ben:
Eli is the Forrest Gump of quarterbacks – unbelievably stupid yet inexplicably successful. And now, he has to learn an entire new offense, which by all accounts is going very, very poorly so far. It's a weekday afternoon, and I'm sitting at home by myself and just ate a Hungry Man for lunch. I still think my life is in better shape than the Giants' offense.
Jakey:
There are two types of Giants fans: relics leftover from the era when Newark was habitable, and their ungrateful, idiot offspring. The latter group, which I belong to, are the types of Francesa-worshipping mongoloids who assure you that they're not bandwagon fans because they totally loved Lawrence Taylor… a
guy who makes Ray Rice look like Ned Flanders.
Dan:
Last season made me realize how amazingly lucky they are to have won two Super Bowls with Eli Manning. We finally managed to beat the Vikings because they were spazzing out and thought Josh Freeman was the answer to everything. The Jets were better and much more fun to watch last year, and that is unacceptable.
My friend told me that Eli and Peyton are very right wing. One idea that terrifies me is that if and when they retire and stop doing Papa Johns ads, the Manning brothers will have successful careers as right-wing politicians. And then I'll really hate them. Those faces talking about politics? Making parallels between politics and football? It'll be awful.
Mike:
Everybody knows that Eli's 3-1 against Tom Brady. Nobody remembers that he's 0-2 against Vince Young.
William:
MetLife is a frozen windtunnel in the middle of a fucking swamp that is literally not close to anything besides cheap motels, highways and decomposing criminals.
Anthony:
Arriving at MetLife Stadium evokes all of the awe and excitement of pulling your car into an airport long-term parking lot.
Tom:
My roommate has Giants season tickets. I'm not a huge football guy so he never invites me and I don't mind. Last year, however, after it was clear that Eli had retreated into full derp-mode and the G-men were not going anywhere, my roommate had a hard time finding a taker for his second seat, so I went along with him to the Vikings game. My friend's seats are pretty good, maybe twenty rows up in the corner near the end zone. Not cheap. I have never seen so many people wearing sweatpants in public in my life.
Adam:
The best "play" the secondary made all of last season was having two guys simultaneously collapse to the ground and fake injuries so as to stall an ensuing five-billion yard drive by the Cowboys.
A shitfaced Jeremy Shockey could limp into the locker room two hours before the opening kickoff and he'd be still be a better option than any other tight end currently on the roster.
William:
Holy shit every time I read a Giants article there is a blurb in there somewhere on how one of our offensive lineman is still "trying to get in shape"… and it is late August.
Alex:
I love the Giants and will always be a fan. But I swear if I have to see Eli Manning's dopey fucking face drooling on the sidelines after throwing an interception (left handed, into double coverage and off his back foot of course) ONE MORE FUCKING TIME I'm going to punch a baby.
Ben:
I can't help but yawn every time I look at the Giants roster.
I feel like the Giants are going to go 8-8 every fucking year.
Richard:
Only a fucking idiot would think it was a good idea to provide less parking and fewer trains for the Super Bowl than they do for a normal game.
Brian:
Last year was the first year I had finally saved up enough money from working a shitty minimum wage job to attend my first ever Giants game. The day of the game me and my two brothers excitedly packed up for our tailgate at Metlife stadium, anticipating what what surely be the greatest day of my life. However, our first omen of the day came when we pulled up to the front gate, where the attendant informed us that we would need a parking pass to park at Metlife. Okay, where can we buy one? The internet, at least 24 hours in advance. Shit. So where do we park? Down the street, at a bar. Alright, sure. 30 bucks upfront isn't bad for last minute parking. If only that were the end of our bad luck. Unfortunately, it was only the beginning.
A few minutes after parking and getting set up, the bar would politely (albeit somewhat insistingly) ask that we park at a separate lot. Why? Because we were tossing a football. At a tailgate. But whatever, could be worse. So we pack up and move, only to realize the lot we ended being directed to was an abandoned building, surrounded by a pot hole infested lot, in the middle of bum fuck nowhere. Every part of this area was gross. It was deserted, though, which was good for me and my other brother, who are under the legal drinking age and proceeded to get shit-faced off of a cheap 30 rack of Miller high life.
We then ride a hot, sweaty, crowded and crampingly small shuttle to the stadium, where moments after stepping off, my brother decided to inform us that he desperately needed to break the seal. Unable to dissuade him, we wait patiently as he makes his way to the crowded Porta johns. About 5 minutes later, my brother had not yet returned when security begins to swarm near us. Me and my older brother then speculate what sort of debauchery could've prompted such a rapid response from security (drunken fight? Tailgate fire? Bare titty flashing?). This moment of excitement is quickly replaced by looks of confusion/disappointment on our faces at seeing the security guards had in fact been overreacting to a complaint by a lady who said that 2 kids had hit her car while throwing a fucking football to each other.
This event however is overshadowed by the raucous collective anger that is quickly grabbing the attention of everyone in earshot, as some dipshit is apparently taking forever in the toilets. The next guy in line has taken matters into his own hands, loudly exclaiming that whoever's in there better "get the fuck out, or I'm tipping this thing over". Who then quickly sprints out of there? My brother. Who also happens to be my twin. Did I forget to mention that? Needless to say I kept my head down until we had made it into the stadium.
The rest of the day included watching Eli throw 4 heart breaking picks (I wore his jersey to the game, because why not waste $90 to show everyone that I don't know what a good football player looks like), watching our defense get flattened worse than Ron Dayne sitting on a fly, and probably worst of all, watching the Giants get knocked out of the playoff race in week 2. Yep, I saw them play the Broncos, and somehow thought they might win. We stayed late into the 4th quarter so we wouldn't be stuck in traffic caused by fans who were smarter than we were to have left already, surrounded by orange jerseys (most of them with the number 18 on them), and an unending "Let's go Broncos!" chant that still has me waking up in a cold sweat.
Fuck, I hate this team.
AFC South: Titans | Jaguars | Texans | Colts
NFC South: Falcons | Buccaneers | Panthers | Saints
AFC West: Chargers | Chiefs | Raiders | Broncos
NFC West: Rams | Cardinals | 49ers | Seahawks
AFC North: Steelers | Bengals | Browns | Ravens
NFC North: Bears | Packers | Lions | Vikings
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