Hey, ho. Let’s go.
1. Davis Webb waived by New York Giants (Big Blue View)
The move means that veteran Alex Tanney and fourth-round pick Kyle Lauletta will be the backups for Eli Manning. In which order remains unknown.
Webb was selected in the third round of the 2017 NFL Draft by then-Giants GM Jerry Reese. He didn’t play a single snap last season as the Giants careened to a 3-13 season that saw Reese and coach Ben McAdoo fired before the season ended.
The Giants have turned over fully 15% of their roster since “final” cuts last week, signing multiple veteran free agents to increase the team’s useful depth while letting a lot of the bottom of their own roster go. It’s hard to argue with most of this, especially since it’s freed up salary cap space while improving the state of the team’s back-ups, but it had to suck for the guys who thought they were gonna make the roster. Still, it’s a business, and the vast majority of these moves make obvious sense.
The move that I don’t get is cutting Davis Webb. Webb wasn’t great in the preseason, but he was pretty good in extended action in the second preseason game, and I think that’s the most indicative sample we have of what he brings to the table as a backup. He looked like he understood the offense and knew how to run it, which is more than I can say for the other guys.
With Webb, I thought the Giants had a chance if Eli Manning were to go down. Without him, the Giants are dead if Eli can’t go. Lauletta’s not remotely ready, and Tanney’s flat not talented enough. Which is fine, but then why cut the guy who could legitimately back your starter up?
2. Captain Marvel
See @BrieLarson, Jude Law and @SamuelLJackson in these 10 exclusive new photos from #CaptainMarvel: https://t.co/lORjocbqsg @CaptainMarvel pic.twitter.com/nftmVxisqP— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) September 5, 2018
First look at Captain Marvel images reveal the Skrulls, a de-aged Fury, and a team-up with a Guardians of the Galaxy villain https://t.co/9zzAemRbfY pic.twitter.com/Wn6P3UOwVV— GamesRadar+ (@GamesRadar) September 7, 2018
I’m a little surprised to see the Skrulls show up. I thought they were included with the license for the Fantastic Four.
3. Friday Hair Metal: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
I’ve heard the live version three times this week on Pandora.
After a roughly 40-minute weather delay and extended Super Bowl banner reveal, the NFL season finally kicked off in Philadelphia on Thursday night for the Eagles’ opener against the Atlanta Falcons. While much of the national conversation leading up to it was focused on Nike’s new ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, there were no overt protests on the field during Boyz II Men’s performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before Thursday’s game…
With the start of the NFL regular season and Players Coaltion launch, Jenkins is once again trying to wrestle the narrative back. “Me personally, I really want to get this conversation to move away from the anthem,” he told the Washington Post. “I think it has served its purpose.”
Speaking personally, I think Jenkins is right to try to move the conversation. I don’t think folks are gonna want to let him, nor do I think much of conservative America cares about, y'know, people… in any meaningful way, but still. As it stands, the players guys have gotten a mediocre quarterback banned and given Nike a killer advertising app, but that’s about it. Sure, it’s fun to watch Jerry Jones squirm, but I’m honestly tired of all these stupid wedge issues driving the country apart.
People are easier to control when they’re righteously angry, and it feels like half the country lives their lives that way as a matter of course.
5. Final Look at Liberty vs. Army
I’d planned to include S&P+ updates in my preview of the Liberty game, but I wound up writing the preview Sunday morning because of my schedule, and S&P+ doesn’t update until early Wednesday.
It’s notable that none of the rankings systems punished Army overmuch for the loss to Duke. Basically, the Blue Devils performed about to expectations, which makes sense. Army would’ve pushed on the betting line had it not missed two field goals, though that’s cold comfort to a squad that was almost a Top 25 team just a half-year ago. As it stands now, S&P+ has this week’s game as a pick’em, though again, Army played a Top 40 team while Liberty played one from the Bottom 5. After a single week, this isn’t necessarily enough data—or enough data consistency—to learn much of anything.
My major takeaway right now is that Army doesn’t yet have anything to hang its hat on. The offense hasn’t been good after having lost two fumbles, the defense was worse than that, and special teams was actively terrible. However, Liberty’s offense wasn’t a lot better until the 4th quarter last week, and that was against an Old Dominion team that is itself not good, and Liberty’s defense hasn’t faced a rushing attack yet. The Monarchs came out with a quick-strike passing game that wasn’t accurate, and it was a little hard to watch. We’ll see how it all plays out on Saturday, but if Army’s O-Line can get decent push, I expect things will look better this weekend.
Hawaii’s S&P+ stats are also pretty interesting. Football Outsiders actually has them with the very worst defense in all of college football. That makes sense considering that they blew both Colorado State and Navy out in consecutive weeks before letting each back into the game late. Both games devolved into shootouts after extremely lopsided starts. Granted, I haven’t yet watched a lot of Navy at Hawaii, but I put it on while I was doing dishes the other night, and from what I’ve seen, the best thing you can do is to run right at this Hawaii team to soften them up and keep their offense off the field.
In many ways, Hawaii’s Run & Shoot is conceptually similar to Duke’s offense. The quarterback gets a bunch of run/pass options from which he can handoff, keep, or throw quickly. I thought Navy played okay against the run, but Hawaii absolutely killed them with quick strikes over the middle, especially when they hit their receivers in stride. Hawaii also ran longer drives than I expected. I’d expected a tempo-based offense. This is definitely not what I saw.
Navy’s problem was that they got down early. Hawaii scored, but when Navy got the ball, they went three-and-out. Then Hawaii scored again, got another stop, blocked a punt, and scored a third time, and that was pretty much your ballgame. It was frustrating because Navy was getting good push with the fullback, but they weren’t running him enough. That allowed the ‘Bows to key on QB Malcolm Perry—of course—which in turn created a systemic problem. Every time Perry pitches the ball, he pitches to a slower player, and the whole offense slows down. It’s the opposite of what you want in the triple-option. Guys are gonna smoke Perry every time because he’s the most dangerous player on the field. If he pitches, it’s like, “Whew! At least we don’t have to tackle that Perry kid.” It’s crazy. Add in that Navy FB Anthony Gargiulo was getting an easy 4 yards/carry, and it’s like… What are you doing?! Just pound the rock and be happy that the drive takes twelve minutes.
Anyway, I think that Army is uniquely qualified to beat Hawaii, but we’ll know more after we see how they look running the football on Saturday. If FB Darnell Woolfolk has a good game, then I’ll feel good about it. If Army starts fumbling again and struggles to get the Dive going, well, then I’ll be concerned, even if they win.
IN paragraph 4: "nor do I think much of America cares about, ya know, people"
ReplyDeleteNext sentence, you are sick of wedge issues driving the country apart.
I was so livid upon reading this attempt to drive Americans apart that I waited a week to reply.
Spare us your attempts to drive Americans apart and stick to Army football; a subject unlike others that you have an opinion about worth reading.
Well look. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. Truly. I’ve been trying to do that less over the past year or so, but I’d be lying if I said it was unintentional.
DeleteI’ve been doing less politics of late, but this isn’t a Football Blog. It’s more like a public diary. But the blog is intentionally designed as a salad bar—you take what you want. Politics is generally only on Fridays. And like I said, much much less than it used to be.
No you did not hurt my feelings. Rather I would characterize it as one of profound disappointment. You see I have lived my life and spent a good deal of it interacting with the party of government and have come to strongly believe that many of the policies they espouse have resulted in lost businesses, shuttered factories, and empty fields where there were once places where a man or woman could earn a good wage and have some self respect (e.g. check out any upstate NY city that is not either associated with the government or a university). And after the caring party of government takes away your livelihood they are first in line with a handout because, after all, they care about people. Perhaps talking real life is better left over a beer. But I'd be lying if I said that pointing out to you how you insulted half the country (including me and lots of people I know who work hard, play by the rules and give of their time and resources to help others) and then literally in the next sentence say how you hate people bringing up these wedge issues was somewhat hypocritical on your part was not unintentional. But I do enjoy your Black Knights football posts and find them better than the rest so I will continue to read. BTW, your salad bar analogy is a bad one. While it is true that at a salad bar you can take what you like and leave the rest, I don't recall ever being insulted by a head of lettuce.
DeleteI’ve been a registered Republican since 1992. But you guys have lost me for all the reasons you obviously know. As I said, I shouldn’t let it get personal, but it really pisses me off.
DeleteArmy 28 Hawaii 21!!!!!! Peace
DeleteMy mistake "conservative America"
ReplyDelete