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Matt Nagy and the New York Giants Offense Will Give You Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
By Matt Schultz
Published:
It’s not even August yet and the Giants have already given us some real good “Wow, they’re gonna be a disaster again” content. We got Cam Skattebo doing backflips fresh off an open tibia fracture and right ankle dislocation. We got John Harbaugh getting torched online for giving a very cringe speech. And now, we got maybe the best one yet: Matt Nagy sputtering through a PowerPoint slide about being Physical, Tough, Smart, and Detailed – or having PTSD, for short:
“So. A few things offensively you’re gonna hear us talk about over and over and over: physical, tough, smart, and detailed. And you can sit there and talk about, like – the one thing with – You – We all know it when you walk – when the teams walk off of the bus, you’re – you’re in pre-game, you’re doing your, your, your, uh – routes on an air or stretching – middle of the game you look out and look at the other team and you could say, ‘Man, these freaking dudes. This is a physical team. We’re walking into a street fight.’ That’s gonna be us. That’s gonna be us offensively. That’s who we’re gonna be. That’s a mindset. Physical. Right? Physical. How you put that on tape of what you do is a mindset, and then there’s a physicality part of it that every team in the NFL, the 31 other teams, are gonna feel that from us. I promise you that… Tough. Right? Same thing. Tough. What does that mean? Well, that – we all say we’re tough, but are we really tough? Well, we gotta put it on tape. We gotta show it in practice. That’s mentally tough. And physically tough. See, there’s a lot of guys who are physically tough. But they’re mentally weak. You gotta have both.”
I had to listen to this speech like six times to transcribe it and now I myself have PTSD. So damn funny. Here are a few things about it I particularly like:
-The headliner, of course, is the PTSD acronym. Insane that he either didn’t realize it spelled PTSD, or he did notice and thought,“No, that’s good. I want it to have a double-meaning. On one hand, it’s the mental health disorder that those who suffer intense trauma must endure, and on the other hand, it’s about football. It’s about offense. It’s about what the other team senses when they see you get off the bus. They’ll sense that our team is all about PTSD. We eat sleep and breathe PTSD. We can’t get away from it. It weighs us down. But that’s actually good. That’s my whole point. All these things go hand in hand and I’m being crystal clear. I’m doing a good job.” Both possibilities are very good.
-Really enjoyed that it’s a D.E.N.N.I.S System-style speech. I don’t hear that many acronym-based presentations in my life. Would like to hear more:
-Nagy’s struggling so hard to get through this speech. He is not good at this. Makes you wonder how the hell he got his job. He couldn’t have been this inarticulate during the interview process, right? Could he have been? Could it have been this bad? Look at this sentence – this was my favorite part of the video:
“And you can sit there and talk about, like – the one thing with – You – We all know it when you walk – when the teams walk off of the bus, you’re – you’re in pre-game, you’re doing your, your, your, uh… (long pause)… routes on an air or stretching…”
The presentation had just started! He was already lost! He couldn’t think of the word “routes!” His job is pretty much entirely thinking about the word “routes,” and he couldn’t find it! Wish we could see the footage of the job interview. Imagining it going as bad as this presentation, but it was on Google Meet and Nagy had to wear a button-up shirt on camera but was barefoot and had on basketball shorts off camera and had to deal with laptop lag time. Sounds incredible.
-Having fun thinking about what other poorly named, acronym-centered offensive philosophies Nagy has lined up for the rest of his speech. A few guesses:
Creative • Tenacious • Even-keeled
Inventive • We Are Smart • Attentive • Be A Dog • Have Intelligence Remember Everything
Forget Our Underdog Repertoire • Won’t Instill Nonsense • Severing Everything About Sloppy Offense Now
Please keep the content coming, Giants. Real good stuff here.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com