Giant changes in New York
McAdoo, Reese fired after 10th loss
The New York Giants made a rare in-season house cleaning, firing coach Ben McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese on Monday, less than a year after the team made the playoffs for the first time since 2011.
Giants co-owner John Mara confirmed the moves at a hastily called news conference on Monday, saying no one incident led to the changes but that something had to be done with the team mired with a 2-10 record in a season where they expected to compete for a Super Bowl.
“This has been the perfect storm this season,” Mara said, who said he informed Reese and McAdoo of the decisions on Monday morning. “Everything that could have gone wrong this season has gone wrong.”
The dismissals came a day after the Giants lost in Oakland, with quarterback Eli Manning benched and the offensively inept team performing badly again. The firings cap an injury-marred season highlighted by the loss of catalyst wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. on Oct. 8.
Defensive co-ordinator Steve Spagnuolo will take over as interim coach for the final four games. He coached the St. Louis Rams from 2009-11.
Mara did not know whether Manning will return as the starter this weekend against Dallas.
Assistant general manager Kevin Abrams will take over on an interim basis for Reese, who became general manager in 2007 and had two Super Bowl wins on his resume. But the Giants missed the playoffs four times in the last five years, and this year his failure to address offensive line problems played a major role in a horrible season.
Mara said Abrams and Spagnuolo will be offered the chance to be candidates for the head coaching and GM jobs. Former general manager Ernie Accorsi will be a consultant in hiring a new general manager which Mara wants in place before a coach.
The moves came less than a week after the 40-year-old McAdoo made one of his biggest mistakes of his short tenure, mishandling the decision to bench Manning, a two-time Super Bowl MVP. Mara was forced to address the matter the following day and said he wished the decision had been dealt with better.
McAdoo had a 13-16 record, and his firing is the first mid-season head coaching move by the Giants since Bill Arnsparger was replaced seven games into the 1976 season by John McVay.
The 2-10 mark is the Giants’ worst 12-game record since they were 2-10 in 1976, and their worst since the advent of the 16-game schedule in 1978.
The general’s manager’s job has proceeded with orderly succession. The late George Young turned the team around in the 1980s and was replaced by Accorsi, who eventually gave way to Reese, who joined the team as a scout and worked his way to director of player personnel before getting the GM position.
Going into this season, no one could have expected that the Giants would be replacing a coach before it finished, coming off an 11-6 record in McAdoo’s first season.
Those expectations ended quickly. The Giants lost their first five games, the last three after the defence failed to hold fourth-quarter leads.
NFL slams Gronk with one-game suspension
As piling on goes, the NFL went light on Rob Gronkowski.
The league suspended the New England Patriots tight end Monday afternoon for just one game without pay, for his dirty slam job on a Buffalo Bills defender in Sunday’s game.
In a blind rage right after Bills cornerback Tre’Devious White was not flagged for defensive pass interference prior to intercepting Tom Brady, Gronk ran over to White – who was sprawled bellywise on the ground – and forcibly slammed himself onto White’s upper back and helmet, even getting an elbow into the back of White’s helmet before bouncing off the 5-foot-11, 192-pound rookie.
Gronk weighs 265 pounds and easily could have broken a back or neck vertebrae in White, the hit was so impactful.
White left the game and remained in concussion protocol Monday as a result of Gronkowski’s act, Bills head coach Sean McDermott said.
In informing Gronkowski of his punishment, NFL VP of football operations Jon Runyan wrote:
“Your actions were not incidental, could have been avoided and placed the opposing player at risk of serious injury. The (NFL’s) competition committee has clearly expressed its goal of ‘eliminating flagrant hits that have no place in our game.’ Those hits include the play you were involved in yesterday.”