DRAIN THE SWAMP
Giants fire coach, GM in bid to save sinking franchise
Jerry Reese and Ben McAdoo deserved to be fired for their mismanagement of the Giants, but co-owner John Mara somehow came out of this Blue Monday looking worse than both the general manager and head coach he canned. Mara admitted in a stunning about-face that he actually had “signed off” on McAdoo’s plan to bench Eli Manning at halftime in Oakland on Sunday, a proposal that turned the fan base against the coach for good.
He claimed Manning’s benching and resulting outrage “really had no effect whatsoever” on his and Steve Tisch’s decisions to fire Reese and McAdoo — a tall tale if there ever were one.
And then Mara defended Reese’s negligence of the offensive line, saying the 2016 line “was good enough to win 11 games” and that the GM’s poor evaluation of that position was not specifically what ultimately cost him.
This means Mara was directing and complicit in both McAdoo’s and Reese’s biggest mistakes. And that means the firings of Reese and McAdoo don’t solve the real problem here: Mara’s errs in judgment and leadership contributed to some of the franchise’s all-time lowest moments this season.
Mara, therefore, has a long way to go to regain the Giants community’s trust no matter whom he hires to replace Reese and McAdoo full-time in 2018, especially after his Monday backpedaling at the podium in East Rutherford performed so smoothly it bordered on a moonwalk.
It could be unforgivable from fans’ and former players’ perspectives, though, that Mara not only oversaw but approved the disastrous plan that ended Manning’s consecutive start streak at 210 games for nothing.
That is probably why Mara is downplaying its significance in his decision to clean house: He can’t take the blame for the Manning chaos, as he did Monday, and simultaneously call it the reason for Reese’s and McAdoo’s firings, especially the coach’s.
Still, in so many words, that’s the double-talk that Mara tried to pass for his logic here.
Last Wednesday, one day after Manning’s locker room tears in a Daily News video went viral and enraged people across the entire NFL community, Mara made it seem McAdoo had gone a step further than the co-owner had intended by telling Manning he was going to sit at the half no matter what and keep the streak intact.
Mara said “it was presented the way Ben thought it ought to be presented” and stressed a disconnect between him and the coach, adding: “I didn’t necessarily think it had to be at the half.” But it turns out when McAdoo claimed he and Mara had been “on the same page,” he had been telling the truth.
Monday, Mara shockingly said he had OK’d the exact plan McAdoo had pitched to the two-time Super Bowl winner.
“You ought to stop blaming Ben and Jerry on that,” Mara said. “If you want to blame anybody, you’ve got to blame me. I certainly had the power to overrule it if I wanted to and I chose not to do it.” Mara explained “the plan was Ben was gonna talk to Eli, tell him that he was gonna start and play the first half and that Geno would play the second half. I signed off on that. “But again, my hope was two things: one, that I was gonna speak to Ben and try to get him to be a little bit more flexible — although I do not like interfering with a coaching decision about who’s gonna play. I’ve never done that before,” Mara added. “I also … was hoping that Eli would be playing so well it’d be impossible to take him out.” Good intentions, however, aren’t enough. Mara and Tisch at least understood that they couldn’t put McAdoo back on the sideline at MetLife Stadium on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys given the hostility McAdoo grew to engender in a disenfranchised fan base. “I’m very conscious of the fact that three of our last four games are at home,” Mara said. “I’m conscious, having lived through it before, of what the reaction was going to be.” Mara also unquestionably feels the weight of this season’s embarrassment. “I think most people that know me know how painful that is to me and know how committed I am in trying to put a winning team back on the field,” he said. “I know our fans are suffering, but I’m suffering more, I guarantee it.” He even got emotional discussing his parting with Reese, which he called “as difficult a meeting as I’ve ever had.” “Jerry has been here since 1994. He is homegrown. Started out as a part-time scout and rose all the way through the ranks to become our general manager and to become the general manager for two Super Bowl teams,” Mara said. “(McAdoo and Reese) both thanked me for the opportunity. My meeting with Jerry was a little more emotional just because we had a longer history together and because he’s meant so much to this organization. “I’ve talked to him a couple times this morning and he thanked me for the opportunity and everything we have done for his family,” Mara said. “I thanked him for everything he’s done here and that was not an easy meeting for me and it was not for him either.” Mara’s emotions for Reese also were a reminder, though, that Reese was his guy, the one he kept on board when the Giants pushed Tom Coughlin out the door after the 2015 season. That decision led to this day. McAdoo was the guy he hired to replace Coughlin. That hiring led to this day. And Manning is his guy, or he was, until Mara botched his benching, setting off the firestorm that culminated in Monday’s firings. That mistake made Monday happen. Mara can claim Manning’s embarrassing fall from grace at the hands of his own organization wasn’t what motivated this house-cleaning, but when he was asked if he had considered these changes last week and he answered, “No,” that said it all. McAdoo and Reese had their shortcomings, but their boss enabled their failures.