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Sifting Through Training Camp Noise

By now most of us are familiar with the meaningless "he's in the best shape of his life" stories as well as the unimportant "so and so made a great catch in seven-on-seven drills." But just tonight while looking over the Giants news outlets and perusing my Twitter feed, I saw two other noteworthy examples that pose as news but actually say nothing:

The first was in the Newark Star-Ledger in an article entitled: "Giants' Tom Coughlin to Employ Running Back-By-Committee Approach."

Here's the relevant text:

Coach Tom Coughlin said he'll employ a running back-by-committee approach to offset the likely loss of [David] Wilson.

"I think we have some talented guys at that spot," Coughlin said yesterday. "I think Rashad [Jennings] has done well. I think the young kid [Andre] (Williams) has come along the more we have given him to do. Michael Cox has had his spots.

"(First-year pro Kendall) Gaskins did some pretty good things today. We'll let this thing play out. It'll be some kind of combination of people involved. They'll have plenty of opportunities in the preseason to show us what they can do and where they fit."

Where did Coughlin say they were using a committee? If Jennings gets 70 percent of the carries (a full-time starter's workload), it'll still be "some kind of combination of people involved."

No team uses only one running back for all its carries. If a combination of people involved constitutes a committee, then there are 32 running-back-by-committee teams in the NFL.

The other example is Pro Football Talk saying of Josh Gordon's suspension appeal that the two sides might settle for a reduced suspension rather than go for all-or-nothing:

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, a "slight chance" of a resolution exists. Any deal presumably would entail a suspension for Gordon that lasts less than a year.

So an unidentified person told PFT the sides might settle on a suspension of less than 16 but more than zero games debunking the assertions of zero people who insisted a four- or an eight-game suspension was out of the realm of possibility.

Moreover, "any deal presumably would entail a suspension for Gordon that lasts less than a year." Presumably? His worst-case scenario is missing a year! Obviously, he's not going to take a deal unless it results in something better than the worst-case scenario.

There will be more examples of this as the preseason goes along. Be vigilant for outlets posting or repeating misleading headlines while missing the key details. Ask yourself: what did the coach actually say? Was the source of the information someone reliable like a coach or GM, or did the writer withhold that key information? It's hard to do a perfect job of sifting through the noise, but you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be a little better than the market.