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On today's Lockdown Giant Special episode, are the New York Giants a lot closer to being
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a competitive team than we think?
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You are Lockdown Giants, your daily New York Giants Podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast
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Network, your team every day.
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Hello New York Giants fans, and welcome to a special many edition of The Lockdown Giants
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I am your host, Patricia Trayna.
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And on today's many episodes, how close are the Giants really to being a competitive
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What John Harbour, the head coach, talk about how he expects his team to win, how he expects
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his team to be in the postseason this year?
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But how close are they really to being in that spot?
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So we'll break that down.
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We'll look at the state of the roster, what still needs to be done, and reasons to believe.
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And what the Giants also need to show in order to prove that they are indeed close or maybe
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So that's what we're going to cover on today.
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Show welcome on into everybody.
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All right, let's get into it.
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The Giants, why should we believe that they are closer to competing?
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We can start with the coaching staff.
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All right, you have heard me say on this program, if you are in every day, that coaching matters.
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And the proof the last few years has kind of been in the pudding, in that you look at
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the number of Giants players who have either been slow to develop or who have regressed.
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And you sit there and you say, what exactly are these guys being taught?
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How are they being developed?
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You look at guys who were with the Giants, who went to other teams and became really solid
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And you sit there and you say, what is going on with the coaching and the development?
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All right, I think it's been fair to question if the coaching across the board has been
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solid for the Giants.
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One of the things I have also said about the coaching is that you have had a mixture.
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You've had some guys who have been long time NFL veteran coaches.
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And you have had guys who have come in and never coaching the NFL before.
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They've been either college coaches or they've taken a sabbatical from coaching and then
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Folks, no disrespect to college coaches, but coaching in the NFL, not quite the same as
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coaching at the college level.
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You're dealing with different mindsets, different types of athletes, different levels of details
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Some of those college coaches are really good.
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They don't get me wrong and they cover all that stuff.
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But a lot of them, you know, not so much so.
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So John Harbaugh in putting together his coaching staff, every single one of those guys who's
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going to lead a position group has done it before at the NFL level.
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A lot of those guys, or several I should say, have played the game at the NFL level.
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And if you don't think that's going to make a difference, then I don't know what to tell
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you, because I think it will.
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Now that being said, all right, we should hopefully see guys who have been slow to develop.
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And I'm thinking, you know, the John Michael Schmitz is up the world.
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Or guys who have regressed a little bit, because they have struggled in different schemes
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and what they've been asked for, like, you know, a Tyler Nuban, for example, or Deontay
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Banks, the hope is that those guys now, their arrows will start to point upward.
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All right, now, here's the other thing with the coaches.
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This coaching staff, I believe, based on something that John Harbaugh said at the owner's
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meeting this week, Harbaugh said, it's all about the players.
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One thing I would expect from this coaching staff that I think that they will deliver
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is that they will play to the player's strength, not to what they want the system to look
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All right, so let me explain what I mean by that.
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We have seen instances in past years with this team where the coaches have tried to jam
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a square peg into a round hole with no success.
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You can't do that and expect to be competitive.
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It just doesn't work that way.
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Your job as a coach is not only to teach, but to set your pupils up for the best possible
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That means not playing a guy out of position, like they did with, say, for example, Joshua
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That means not asking a guy to do something that he's just not ready to do.
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Deontay Banks, you know, playing zone coverage.
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But the coaching just didn't get him ready for that.
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Not being desperate, I guess, is what I'm getting at.
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Because when you do that, now you're going to have more error.
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You're going to have more discouraged players, and it's just going to take its toll.
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Now, I'm not saying the coaches should totally avoid putting a player or challenging a player
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should say to do something new, absolutely, but make sure that that guy is ready to handle
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So I'm out there because, oh, my God, we don't have anybody out there.
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Or, oh, gosh, we've got to, you know, we've got to get the most out of this guy.
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You know, you just, you can't do that.
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That would be like, you know, asking me, I mean, I've never studied Italian even though
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That's like asking me to go stand up and give a speech in Italian.
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I couldn't do it because I didn't study it.
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I mean, I know words here and there, but I don't know enough to speak the language and
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So I think this coaching staff has the right idea.
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I also think this coaching staff in its expectations of the players, they're not going to let stuff
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Guys are going to be expected to be at practice on time, in meetings on time.
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They're going to be expected to be prepared.
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They're going to be expected to leave their egos and their brands at the door when they
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come into 1925 Giants Drive and they're going to be expected to be all about ball.
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And that's setting the tone right there.
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Now in terms of, you know, the other factors, why the Giants could be competitive, I would
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like to think gone will be the days of the blown fourth quarter leads by the defense.
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I think the defense is going to be a lot better.
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I think the scheme that, you know, based on what the North Wilson ran in Tennessee, I
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think that scheme is going to be a lot more exciting to watch and a lot more efficient.
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So I've got reason to hope there.
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And then, you know, the other thing besides the players, you know, in the makeup of the
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locker room, the Giants have the 17th easiest schedule, all right, or I'm sorry, the 17
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hardest schedule in the lead.
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There's strength of schedule 4.98.
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There's strength of schedules 0.498.
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So that ranks 17th in terms of the hardest schedules in the lead.
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So that's certainly going to help, all right.
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So there are a lot of elements that you would think would suggest that are successful for
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the Giants more than, you know, winning just four games like they did last year or three
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games like they did the year before.
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But there are also things that the Giants are going to need to get on their side, some
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of which has to do with luck, some of which has to do with planning.
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So we will talk about those right after this.
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A Giants don't forget to check out the Every Day or Club for ad free episodes and access
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to a group chat with me.
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To get more information, just tap the link in the show notes or go to Lothon and my Giants.supercast.com.
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All right, Giants fans, welcome back to today's mini episode of Lothon Giants.
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We're talking about how close are the Giants really to being a competitive team?
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They have probably the best foundation that they have had years between the coaching staff
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and how the roster is being built between having core players at key positions.
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But it's not all about what they have, it's about what they're also going to need and
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some of it's going to be based on luck, some of it's just going to be based on planning.
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So let's talk about that in this segment, all right.
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So what do they need in order to be competitive?
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Well the number one thing, they've got to stay healthy, all right?
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They have got to stay healthy.
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This team for the last, I don't know how many years has ranked up there in the top 10,
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it's not the top five in being the most injured teams as far as man games lost.
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That has got to stop.
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You know, point blank.
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To that end, the guys that are coming off of injuries, Malik neighbors came scataboo,
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they need those guys to be what they were prior to their injuries.
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Might take some time, but hopefully not a whole lot.
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What else do they need?
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They need continued growth of their players.
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You know, we talk about every year, about second year players that need to develop,
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third year players that need to develop, you can't have guys going up and down.
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You need the arrow to basically go be going up.
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All right, so Jackson Dart needs to continue developing.
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Theo Johnson needs to get rid of the drop sees problem that he had and continue developing.
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Kyler Nuban needs to get back on track and show more of the rookie year proest that he
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showed as opposed to looking so lost at times last year.
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Darius Slayton's got to clean up the drops problem, all right.
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There's so many things that need to go in the opposite direction that this team just
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seem to, you know, everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.
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This team on the field.
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So that progress that forward progress needs to be there.
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In order for this team to really be competitive, the mental errors need to be cut down.
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The pre-snap penalties that needs to go away, right, discipline, attention to detail,
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all things that just for whatever the reason have not been consistent year in and year out
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And, you know, speaking of consistency, the offensive line, which has been pretty good
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the last couple of years, they need to continue that.
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Now, they're going to probably have a new piece in their right guard.
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So, you know, that consistency needs to continue and get better, particularly in one, the
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run rushing offense, right.
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The run blocking was pedestrian for lack of a better term.
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Needs to get better.
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It's got to be better than pedestrian.
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And speaking of the run, the run defense, they better figure out how to stop the run.
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Now they've redone the linebacker group.
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Hopefully that will be better.
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Hopefully a healthy, extra Lawrence will make a difference.
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Dexter was not healthy last year.
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So these are all things they needed.
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Oh, by the way, one other thing I'll throw in there.
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Better special teams.
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They have to flip the field in their favor, whether they're going on offense or whether
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they're going on defense.
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They have to do a better job of flipping the field.
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The giants did not do a great job of that consistently.
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So there are things that definitely need to happen for the giants to be competitive.
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But again, the good news, folks, is that the core foundation is in place for that to all
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It's just a matter of it all clicking together.
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It's a, you know, there's going to be setbacks.
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You know, you can't go through a season and expect everything to be perfect.
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But you want to have a plan B. You want to be able to overcome adversity because that's
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a true strength of character.
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And you just want to keep to your script, which, you know, your head coach, John Harball,
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And the giants can do all that.
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This year is going to be a lot of fun to watch the games.
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It's going to be a lot of fun to talk about them.
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And let's just keep our fingers crossed that everything falls into place because giant
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fans, you are so long overdue and you deserve a winning football team.
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So hopefully the sheer John Harball makes good on his down to bring it to you.
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And we can all have happy Mondays when we talk about the game.
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All right, giant fans, that is going to do it for this edition of Lockdown Giants.
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Again, thank you so much for tuning in, spending part of your day with us, keeping it here
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all week long on the Lockdown Giants Podcast.
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We have plenty more episodes for you as we remain five days away free and available wherever
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you get your podcasts.
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Have a good one, everybody.