Breaking News: Jaxson Dart OUT Indefinitely! Disaster for Giants!

0:00It's the Mike Francesca podcast on the Bet Rivers Network. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Mike Francesca podcast part of the Bet Rivers Network. I wasn't expecting to do something before tomorrow, and I was thinking more along the lines of evaluating what the Yankee choices are against lefties and righties without judge next week against the Red Sox, although I, because I don't think they're going to sweep away this week and have Tampa lose every game. I wasn't expecting the judge stuff. I don't think anybody, I mean the thoughts stuff. I don't think anybody was last night. It seemed that they had a fairly good handle on what they were looking at. Now they obviously had not had a chance to do major testing. They had not done an MRI, which they didn't do it all this morning. And obviously that's why we're all convening because the news is bad, maybe the worst.

1:07We don't know officially yet. There are obviously stories and headlines everywhere saying that thought is out for the season. We don't know that yet the giants with hardwood did not step up and say that that's the reports are inaccurate because they're not inaccurate. Clearly they found they much more severe injury than they thought they had. It isn't just a sprained MCL. It is obviously a tear somewhere, the question that I gather they're debating now. And that's why a Harvard was not in any way definitive when he met the media is because I think they're probably deciding whether rest is the issue right now or do we operate immediately. Usually on these situations to get a jump on them so that you don't make the time he's

2:08out longer than anticipated. They want to get to surgery quickly. The question is is there a way to heal this without surgery? Can this be healed over a period of weeks with rest and with rehabbing? We don't know all this yet. And that's clearly what the debate is. If you listen to what Hobba said, we have to all get together and there are decisions that have to be made. Clearly the decision falls with the doctors and then it falls with thought. That's how it works. He's going to do what the team tells them to do. He's going to do what the doctors tell them to do. They do all their work with special surgery. Who are the best there are? Nobody's better as these things. Fixing them, rehabbing them, getting the player back than special surgery is. It's the best hospital of its kind in the world.

3:09Having been there very often, including just this past April, I know it very, very well too well since I've been operated on there. I believe five times in my life. So the place very well. Though the folks there pretty well and they are the best at what they do in every facet of what they do. So he is in good care, but that does not help the giants on the field. This is now the giants looking at either a long injury for thought or most likely an injury that will take him out of play for the rest of the season. It's one that clearly is going to take him out of play for a long time. So how do the giants deal with that right now? So thought is not the issue at the moment. The issue at the moment is what are the giants options as they go into week three of what

4:16they felt was a promising season, a building season, but a promising season under their new head coach. Let's start with the backup quarterback who gets thrust into the position because of need. I believe that James Winston had reached stage of his life where his whole vision of what his role is, his whole vision of what he saw for himself going forward included everything except playing. I think that happens. He was there to have a good relationship and to help bring along a very talented young player to make the quarterback room one where it was a good place to be where it was camaraderie

5:16where he provided leadership, where he provided knowledge, where he provided a friendly ear for the things that thought needed. He was serving all that. They have a relationship. Winston has a very good reputation. He's a good guy. The organization likes him. The players like him. Everybody likes him. He's got a future on television. We know all those things. What he isn't in my mind and the giants have to dispute this right now because they have no other option. What he isn't in my mind is a useful quarterback anymore. And I didn't realize the extent of that until last night where I will differ with their head coach. I don't think he ran the offense even acceptably and his passing, his throwing in the game

6:18was absolutely dreadful. It wasn't bad. It was horrific. It would make you be afraid of any opponent. The next four opponents that they can play against and even beat, Tennessee, obviously, Arizona, a trip to Washington and we don't know their quarterback status. And then the improved Saints who would look to be the toughest of the batch. But those are four games where the giants would clearly, with thought going with the expectation of winning the football game. That changes now. The giants had to get themselves off the mat last night. The coaches had to get themselves off the mat last night. There is no more stunning thing than to have your quarterback go down in the early stages

7:19of a season when everything is built around that player. And in the NFL, let's be honest, everything is built for the most part on most successful teams around the quarterback. And there is nothing in this league that is a big attorney off. Then to get a game in the NFL played with two backups of limited, and I mean limited ability, the games stink. The offenses don't move. And last night, the giants had an offense that offered no threat. Zero. They got to go on the 11-year online. They got a penalty from the Rams on first down. They were off sides. They had to blow on the six-year online. They could not advance it. Their running game didn't work. Their offensive line didn't work.

8:21Don't ask me what the receivers for the most part were doing. And honestly, I don't know why neighbors bothered to come back in the game because... Did you notice anything that would be the least bit impactful at a him last night? If you're in the game, you have to make... If you're supposed to be that kind of wide receiver, you're in the game, you have to, at some point, make your presence felt. One catch, one yard. Now on the play that Winston was intercepted, he under threw the receiver so badly that it was a miracle that the defensive back wasn't giggling, I'm not sure he was, as he caught the ball. I mean, that's how badly if you go back and look at that play, it's hard to fathom a

9:25throw being worse. And there was a lot more of those throughout the evening. James Winston last night looked like he couldn't play dead. And he offers you, I don't care if it's Tennessee coming to town, I don't care if it's the worst team in history coming to town. You can't be a confident group with him at your quarterback. I'm going to think he's going to be better with a week of practice with the idea that it's now him and charge with them also taking the dot part of the offense, which they couldn't use last night. Now think about the offense they put in last night. There were probably 40% of the plays, or at least 30% of the passing plays, or running plays that involved the quarterback on that sheet or card, whichever you prefer, they couldn't

10:27use. You can't throw it up on the run, you can't run. He had one time where he rolled to the left, there was not a defender in the same area code. And instead of running for what would have been forever, he threw another lousy pass. Now they'll put some stuff in that he can do. They're also playing Tennessee. They hope they can line up and run the football, which will be the first thing they are going to try to do. They will play their very big fullback. They will play their multiple tight ends and they will try to pound the ball at the line of scrimmage, which is what Tennessee will understand, too. Now Winston has always been a guy who could get the ball down the field, could always throw the ball down the field, but usually would couple that with some bad interceptions. He was not a guy who couldn't pass the ball, though.

11:29Now it looks like he is a guy who can no longer throw the football. That's the stunning part of this. I didn't expect that from him. Now, going somewhere else for a quarterback. The kid on the roster, who knows? And he's on the practice squad. Going out and having help. Well, you can forget your division. No one in your division is going to ever help you. That's number one. Number two, you can forget the conference. No one in the conference is going to help you. That's number two. And then you can look to the AFC and the odds on getting your hands on somebody that isn't as bad or worse than what you already have is pretty remote. Getting in league quarterback help when your quarterback goes down is virtually impossible. If you're scouring the short list and every position has a short list, that list being

12:30the guys who are out of the sport, who you could call up on an emergency and can play that position. They haven't been retired very long. They some of them have made it known they're actively seeking to get back into the league. Okay. Other than that, haven't been removed from it that long. And they're on the short list and not anybody's roster. They're a phone call away. They don't keep quarterbacks that can play on that list. And the idea that you're going to call up somebody who is retired and bring them out of retirement. That stuff doesn't work. Don't bother calling rivers again or don't bother calling breeze or anybody. It's not going to help. It's not going to make you better. The bottom line here is this no dot no shot. With thought. This team was going to be competitive. It might have even been a little better than competitive.

13:33It was going to be fun to watch without thought. This year will take a very different tone, very different feel. It will be about building for the future. And it's funny. Because I thought of earning a cross year last night. And we know that he has just we just received a news this days ago about his passing at the age of 84. But one thing Ernie preached and he preached it all the time. It was his mantra. You can never have too much good quarterback depth on your roster. If you have X number of quarterbacks and you have a chance to get another one that looks good, get them. I was his belief. I see was very much the disciple as I told you the other day.

14:35They mentioned that on the game last night of the great John United's who greatly influenced them. And it's a good person to influence you because he is whether you know of him or not or haven't paid that much attention to football back in those days or was way before your time. And it's the father of the modern quarterback decision. And in this era of this many teams, there are not enough quarterbacks to go around. There are not enough good quarterbacks to go around. And there are very few backup quarterbacks that you can win with. Very, very few. The guy who joins me on Fridays now, Sean King was a guy you if you plugged him in, he

15:35could play. He's a real good college player. He was a capable backup. See I always look at the first thing I look at when I look at the guys who are career backups. I don't look at anything except one thing. What was their record as a starter? I want to see some W's. If they want a pretty good team, fine. If they want a really good team, I'm going to adjust that. If they're on a really bad team, I'm going to adjust it. But I want to see some W's. I want to see if they could go in and run a game and win a game because that means that they had to at some point in those games drive their team down the field to get points because without points, you're not winning. And so many backup quarterbacks can't drive you for here to there, even when you give them the call there like last night when they gave you the car on a five-yard line, the first thing goal and you couldn't score.

16:35Does it say something about the offensive line? Yes, does it say something about their running game? Yes, does it say something about their execution? Yes, it also says a lot about the fact that quarterback was not in any way a threat. He was really bad, alarmingly bad, so much so that I came away with, give me some other possibility. But I don't even know that that's remotely possible. And if you listen to the hubbys clearly going in the direction of his backup quarterback, he's here because we know we have faith in him nonsense. They don't want to play him. They want to think about what the back, no one in the league goes in and thinks about what the backup quarterback is going to do for them. They don't even want to think about the backup quarterback getting in any game that isn't

17:3740-nothing I'm winning and he's handing off in the final five minutes of the game. Nobody thinks about their backup quarterback playing unless you don't have a quarterback. And if you have two quarterbacks on your team, well then as the old adage goes and a smart coach told me a long time ago, if you say you have two quarterbacks then you have no quarterback because it only works when you have one quarterback and you know who he is. The Giants had one quarterback and now he's on the shelf. And instead of being on the shelf for a week and instead of hearing about how he wanted his uniform back last night and how the general manager whispered to somebody either the sideline reporter or walked past the truck and knew somebody or somebody came running out of the truck and tried to prompt him for some information. All that goes on at NFL Games. Okay.

18:38I don't know who he leaked the information that hey all guys okay but that clearly was in some way quoting him that he last night made it known that their quarterback was okay. Well they found out today after a night where I think they all thought he was going to be okay within a week or two at the latest they found out something else today that the injury was far more severe now exactly what that injury is. I'm assuming it's a torn MCL but I don't know that. The reports of them being out for the season clearly there has to be a serious tear and serious injury in there. It could be multiple. It could be cartilage. You have medial meniscus and lateral meniscus. It could be tear or it could have thrown either one of those. I would gather the medial from the hidey took.

19:41He could have thrown the lateral though it's not impossible on the outside. I don't think this is in any way a total knee job which means that it was a dislocation of the worst kind because those are devastating. Those are almost like accidents. They look like a bunch of somebody blew up a thing of spaghetti and everything's all over the place. You know that right away and that wasn't the case. But clearly they thought what was a spray in turns out to be probably a rather significant tear. That's what I think we're looking at although we have not been given the definitive word yet because I think we haven't because they haven't decided what form of remedy they're going to use. Rest and rehab or surgery would probably figure with surgery but maybe not. We'll have to wait for that answer and how long he's out but it sounds like he's out

20:45for a significant period of time. It's not the season and let's be honest. Most teams can't absorb a hit like this. The giants clearly can't absorb a hit like this. The perspective and the anticipation and everything that was so positive after the victory over the Cowboys has been washed away. I feel very badly for the giant fans because there's no more there's no more dead feeling than when your quarterback goes down early in the season. I remember as a kid and I always I rooted for obviously I was an NFC guy because it was around before the NFC and the AFL but I really had a fascination with Joe Namath

21:53like so many people did and I remember that preseason game against the Lions when Joe decided to go chase an after Mike Lucci in a preseason game. August 7th 1971 if I remember right right and he gets hit by a lion linebacker as he's trying to make a tackle in a preseason game on a linebacker a whole a fame linebacker and Mike Lucci who was picking up a fumble and going to run with it. In these days he wouldn't even be and remember in those days they played six preseason games and players played in those preseason games. Now you wouldn't chase a defender you wouldn't be in the game and soon we won't be playing any preseason games the way things are going.

22:56What's they want to play in the national? He went down for the season before the season began and it just it's like a thud. It's like a dull pain that because your whole year is over everything that you hoped about everything that you thought about the high that giant fans had after the cowboy game has been just completely leveled and just destroyed flattened to where now there's this dull sense that I have to wait all the way to the next four now to have my season with Don and with Harbor and with the team that can go and do some damage and maybe make a run in the postseason and the answer to all that is yes. They're not going to be able to pull a rabbit out of their hat by finding some quarterback.

23:57They're not going to unearth some talent that's going to take over and give them what they want and I don't think they're going to wave a magic wand and turn James Winston into something you can win with. I just if I can see that happen from what I saw in game one I will be incredibly impressed. This is the hardest hit you can take in what is a building hopeful season and that's what the giants have. There was a sound. There was almost a rejoicing that went on in that cowboy game. The giant fans hadn't heard and hadn't sensed in a long long time. They believed again. They couldn't wait for the next game again. They had a reason to have hope again. They had a reason to go to the ballpark again.

24:58And then last night, after thinking they all dodged the bullet, they found out the San Francisco stunningly as we all did that they really didn't dodge the bullet. And that their worst fears that they first originally thought when he took off into the tent and then into the building turns out to be true. And now their season has a completely different feel. And now there is no hope. It really isn't. That's going to have to be rekindled. And it's only going to be rekindled by somebody somehow leading them to some victories. I don't think that's possible right now. I mean, then I could lose more.

26:03But then I'm not going anywhere with James Winston. And old James Winston, a James Winston who looks like he was very happy in the role of being that other guy, being that teacher rather than player, being that confidant rather than player, being that spokesman rather than player, being that future TV personality rather than player. And now trying to be a player again. Awful. Stunning. The worst kind of news, the worst kind of hit. And you see it happen way too often. You know, we yell all the time. And we're all guilty of it. Aw, why don't they put a dress on the quarterback? Oh, you know, this league, you can't even play defense anymore. You're not allowed to touch.

27:06And the reason why is exactly what you're looking at. Conage. We've seen five or six quarterbacks go down already. We saw Sam go down 11 plays into the season. We saw Murray go down a couple of plays into his season. Caleb Williams wanted to brightest stars in the league. Daniels, a year removed from bringing one of the brightest stars in the league, thought, did another one of these very bright, shiny new quarterbacks down, down, down, down. That's why they try to figure out in this brutal game. And it is a brutal game. How to keep these quarterbacks somewhat healthy. And we all know they can get hit without hitting anybody and get hit without anybody hitting them. They can get hurt and space when sometimes those are the worst injuries. And this was not thought getting hurt being taught. Making a dumb dive on the side line,

28:11challenging a defender for no reason in the third quarter on a five-yard run. Oh, this was him in the pocket playing the position. And we thought very lucky that his leg was not on the ground because if it had been on the ground, it clearly would have torn the whole leg up the way he got whipsored. He got stood up and then hit from the side, which is how you get hurt. So he was just being a quarterback. He was in the pocket. He was doing his job. He was not doing anything flamboyant. He wasn't doing anything silly. He wasn't doing any of the stuff that you worry about with him. And as he stood there last night at the end of the game as the time ticked away, you got the feeling that, oh, I should have been on this field right now, was what he was thinking about. Not his injury. But the MRI told a different story. Exactly the story you told were the giants haven't shared that

29:14with us yet. But the news is everywhere. And the giant season has been basically shot out of the sky. It happens. It happens all too often in this league now. Look how many times it's happened already. Tennessee, Arizona, Washington, the Saints, winnable games, absolutely. Winnable games with the quarterback you saw last night. I need to see better a whole lot better. That was just bad. Plain. Bad. And I've always liked Winston. But last night he stunk the place out. He looked like he couldn't play dead. Now, I was going to do a thing on the Yankees, which I will do in the next couple of days.

30:17Because it's going to be fascinating as you've heard today that the Yankees revealing that something we already knew and that was that judge will not play the first round of the play off. And we don't know if he'll play any other playoffs. They didn't call them out, but they said don't expect them. We're not going to rule them out, but don't expect them. Well, if you know anything about care injuries, we didn't expect them. And obviously a guy like Ramon is going to play a very significant role. So as far as you see, the guys they brought in to handle those power slots if they needed them and they need them. But now the options that are available. Who plays where? Who sits? I mean, we know the guys that don't sit and we know the lefties that don't sit against lefties because Belonger and Jones and Rice,

31:20they hit lefties. We're going to numbers. They hit lefties. So they're all going to be lined up. There would be anyway. There would be anyway. But there's a lot of options. It doesn't have to play McMahon at all. You can make changes on the infield. What does he do with certain guys? What guys even make the roster? But you know what? With all that, with all that, it's going to come down to the starting pitching. The youngs have to pitch their way as far as they go because that's who they are right now. But we'll get to that more. This is football day and not a good one. We'll see you later. Thanks for listening to the Mike Princess of podcast on the Bet Rivers Network.