As Camp Draws Near, Questions Still Remain

In a few short days the New York Giants will open camp, and so will begin the first season for Giants GM Jerry Reese, and unless their is significant improvement, Tom Coughlin's last.

The Jerry Reese era started with a bang...players were released, not resigned, and lost to free agency, and yet through it all many holes were filled. Reese's first draft as the Giants GM, was for the most part a success. He addressed the secondary, depth on the D-Line, a quality WR, offensive line help, and an additional tight end to compliment Shockey. Though a lot seems to have been done, questions still remain for this team. Questions that have the so-called experts believing, the Giants are in for a long season.

Camp opens on Friday, with the younger guys reporting. Each day I will look at a glaring weakness, leading up to Big Blue Review's, pre-camp podcast where these weaknesses and more will be covered in depth, as we interview Inside Giants Football's Tony Marshall.

Day 1: Who's playing Left Tackle?
Eli Manning is a right handed QB, making his blind side to the left. Therefore, on the offensive line the LT position becomes extremely important to protect the franchise QB. One problem, the Giants LT (Luke Pettigout) was cut prior to the draft, leaving many experts to believe that the Giants were looking at central Michigan's Joe Staley to be the 20th pick. The pick came, as did secondary help in Aaron Ross, and went as did Joe Staley to the 49ers later in the draft. This leaves the question, who is playing LT?

In last year's draft, the Giants drafted Guy Whimper. Noted as a project pick, the big tackle will need to speed up his learning curve as the Giants are now out of time. Look for David Diehl to slide over to the LT position this season until Whimper is ready or rookie 6th round draft choice out of Oregon State, Adam Koets is ready to move, which is highly unlikely.

My advice ... "keep your head on a swivel Eli!" Seriously though, I think Diehl will do an admirable job, and may be better then we can imagine. But having a question mark at the line's most important position is a bit scary. I believe Reese and the Giants have a plan. Prior to the draft it was my thought the Giants would draft a linebacker since Reese seemed to cut every LB they had on the Roster. Instead, Reese went with secondary help in round 1, then made the announcement they were moving last year's first round draft choice, Mathias Kiwianuka (Kiwi for short), to the outside linebacker position. My guess is Reese and Coughlin will do something similar here, and they more than likely have a plan in place. What that plan is? who knows, but the season fast approaches, so we are sure to find out.

About the Author
Mike Podlesny co-hosts the Big Blue Review. A weekly podcast covering the NY Giants. You can listen to the podcast by visiting http://big-blue-review.blogspot.com/