That's what Grant over at McCovey Chronicles calls off-season Giants lineup speculation. With the first round of cuts coming up very soon, I thought we could do the yearly "who's gonna be on the 53-man roster" guesses. Position-by-position, here's what I'm hoping:
QB (3): Hill, Smith, Davis
RB (3): Gore, Coffee, Sheets
FB (2): Norris, Robinson
TE (3): Davis, Walker, Pascoe
WR (6): Morgan, Bruce, Crabtree (he'll sign), Jones, Hill, Zeigler
OT (4): Staley, Snyder, Sims, Trade/FA pickup (not sure any FAs would be worth it. Do trades like this ever happen in the NFL? Maybe use next year's extra number 1 or something)
OG (3): Rachal, Baas, Wragge
C (2): Heitman, Wallace
DL (7): McDonald, J. Smith, Balmer, Evans, Franklin, Sopoaga, Jean-Francois
LB (7): Willis, Lawson, Haralson, Spikes, McKillop, Harris, Brooks
DB (9): Clements, Brown, Bly, Green, Spencer, Roman, Goldson, Smith, Lewis
ST (4): Jennings, Nedney, Lee, Rossum
So that's my quick list. Goldson looks like he's gonna be a lot of fun to watch. He might give up some big plays, though, so look for that. His really aggressive style is more likely to make big plays, but can definitely backfire if he's not careful.
McKillop is a tackling machine. I think that he'll probably be a very good replacement for Spikes when the time comes. That should be a very dominant defensive middle with him and P 52 back there.
Overall, I'm pretty encouraged with the defensive look of things. The offense is full of ?s. Morgan? Davis? Hill? We just don't know if these guys will be able to blossom into really good players. We'll just have to wait and see. I'm very nervous that we're going to see a version of 2007 happening again.
Hill is better than Dilfer obviously, but the look of the offense is a cause for a little bit of concern. Raye seems like he's not going to take too many chances. That FG with 4 minutes left against Dallas showed a little too much conservatism for my tastes.
I really hope Singletary is not THAT conservative as a head coach, because if so then it will only be a matter of time until we're chasing him out of town too. I really think he's a guy who can succeed, but I thought that about Nolan at one point too.
The thing that encourages me the most is that the team looks like it can win games now. They were at least hanging in every game during the second half last season, and I see no GLARING holes on the team that make me think "ohhh craaaaap we're screwed". I'm actually excited to watch them, and I wasn't last year because JT O'sullivan was our quarterback. Should be fun.
