“They’re giving it away,” said my stepfather. My family was a bunch of games players growing up. We knew that if something was being ‘given away,’ it meant that it wasn’t being given away. You were best served to stop, pause, and assess the proposition carefully. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Keep walking. Don’t touch. Nothing to see here. It’s likely a trap. This is called second level thinking.
The first level thinker sees two lanes on a street, one nearly empty while the other is packed, and chooses the empty lane. Except the empty lane turns into a “right turn only” and now you can’t get back in to go straight. The second level thinker is careful to first ask why before choosing the more seductive path.
This being a NY Giants blog, you’re already asking what this has to do with our beloved Gmen. Since you’ve already been warned, let’s set the table. The Giants are improved from last season. They were 9-7-1 but could have been even better. Consider:
- During the offseason they plugged in Bobby Okereke to significantly upgrade LB.
- They got a blue chip TE/quasi WR in Darren Waller.
- Thib and Neal are expected to make sophomore jumps.
- Ojulari can’t be more hurt.
- Banks and Schmitt could be plug and play.
- The WR room is crowded with loads of depth. The Giants (beyond Slayton) had zero vertical attack last year and this year they’ll be able to go downfield with Waller and Hyatt.
- By the end of the season, the offense was running through Jones instead of Barkley, a critical step in the maturation of the Offense.
- Key pieces of the team are back.
- Continuity is a big plus, as the same coaching staff returns with players expected to know the playbook that much easier so that they can play instead of think.
That’s all a great story. Is everyone all bulled up now for a terrific season?! Sure, the schedule is harder, but the Giants should win at least the same number of games, if not a lot more. Right?!
We go to Las Vegas and see the Giants Over/Under win total is roughly 7.25… you actually can bet Over 7.5 at ~pick’em.
They’re giving it away.
Well, we’ve heard this one before. There’s no free lunch. Stop. Pause. Think. Assess. Be a second level thinker. Ask the hard questions.
“It’s not clear at all that the Giants have value at 7.5,” said Wonder, the UltimateNYG Giants blog draft analyst. “Their schedule is really tough, and importantly, they have no gimme games like Houston (or the rest of the AFC South, where they swept last year).”
Wonder continues. “Washington has no QB but the Giants rate to lose at least 3 if not 4 in their division. Bubble games like the Saints, Raiders and Jets will see the Giants as (slight) underdogs.”
It’s actually true that the Giants are technically favored in only 7 games this season. Those lines are already out. There’s no free lunch. Las Vegas is not giving anything away.
So what to do? Of course we can do nothing. We don’t just get involved because betting is legal in NJ or because it’s our team. Call it additional second level thinking, but I believe there’s a key variable that’s been left out that is critical to the analysis.
Coaching.
In what we already referred to as one of the most significant offseason developments, Kafka missed on getting a HC job. His loss. Our gain. Daboll and Kafka are 21st century minds. The Giants have one of the best coaching staffs in the NFL. When I pointed this out to Wonder (that I’d place the Giants coaches in the Top 5), he agreed and remarked that the collective group of NFL coaches “are morons.”
Maybe we are going to keep this analysis simple, at our own risk. This Over/Under is a bet on the Giants coaches. This proposition is that the Giants coaching staff will be the same overachieving catalyst that they were last year.
- They put the players in the right positions to succeed in 2022, and they will overachieve once again in 2023.
- This coaching staff is always adapting and adding to the playbook.
- They adjust to personnel and opponents.
- They make halftime adjustments. The Giants won 4 games last season where they were losing or tied at the half, and lost zero games when they were ahead.
The conventional wisdom is that a good team in one year is not necessarily a good team the following year. We agree that there’s plenty of reversion to the mean in the NFL. Why? Coaching staffs spend the offseason not only working on their own players/playbooks but also studying what other teams did in the prior year, particularly reviewing those coaches’ schemes. This would support the contention that 7.5 is fair. Yet my confidence in Daboll and Kafka is so high that this is where I believe the incremental divergence lays. These coaches adapted so many times during 2022, continually supplementing and reinventing themselves. So why would we think that Kafka and Daboll are going to sit back and rely on 2022’s work? They won’t do that, not in the slightest. Their advantage in 2022 will be their advantage again in 2023. They play chess. The rest play checkers. They will continue to have the coaching advantage, making (over) 7.5 wins value.
As one small example, last season, with schtick drek on Offense, the Giants were 6th in the NFL in ‘Goal to Go’ TD percentage. Now they add guys like Waller, Campbell, even Crowder (who may not even make the team because of the depth), and Bellinger (who lost a chunk of the season due to an eye injury). That translates to TDs instead of FGs, which is how you win these close games in the NFL. Maybe Schmitz helps shore up the interior OL so that the RB can be used for pass catching instead of protection. I believe the chess continues and I see value.
This roster is no longer a 7-10 roster. And this coaching staff certainly is not a 7-10 coaching staff. Barring a lot of (key) injuries, I think Daboll is not thinking anything close to 7-10. He’s realistically thinking about more wins/success than last year. And I would not sell him short.
I’ll have a heaping of what they’re giving away.