GIANT VOTE FOR ELI ’18
Mara says he wants Manning to stay as QB
LAS COLINAS, Tex. — John Mara can’t forget the look on his father Wellington’s face when GM George Young cut Phil Simms in June 1994. Simms was one of Wellington’s alltime favorite Giants, but he gave Young power over all football decisions and Young decided Simms’ time was up. Wellington Mara stood with a pained expression on his face in the back of the press conference room. “I remember that very well,” John Mara said Wednesday. “I drove him home after that.” One thing Mara does know for sure: He doesn’t want Simms 2.0. He wants Eli Manning back for his 15th year with the Giants. Mara didn’t go into a long explanation when I asked him Wednes- day at the owners’ meetings if he wanted Manning to return to the team next season. “Yes,” he said. Back in his rookie year in 2004, Manning was Kurt Warner’s backup for the first nine games before taking over. Manning could potentially fill the veteran mentor role if the Giants draft a quarterback at the top of the 2018 draft. Can he be Warner? “He can be Eli Manning for us,” Mara said. As far as if he believes Manning still has something left, he said he did, but when asked if his play in 2017 gave him concern, he said, “I’m concerned about our team. We still think he can play. We obviously have to get better around him.” The Giants are now in for major upheaval as they finish up one of the most dysfunctional and disappointing seasons in the 93-year history of the franchise.
Mara will hire a new general manager — he said he will start with a couple of interviews next week and announce who they are — and then work with the new GM hiring a coach and then his football people will decide whether to take a quarterback at the top of the 2018 draft.
It’s the first time the Giants are hiring a new GM and coach in the same year since 1979 when Young and Ray Perkins were brought in and they selected Simms with the seventh pick in the first round.
Right now, the Giants have the second pick with their 2-11 record. The Browns have all but locked up the first pick with their 0-13 season that has a good chance to get to 0-16. As long as the Giants don’t get jumped by the 3-10 Colts or 49ers, they will be in terrific position to get a quarterback without having to trade up.
The key to the Giants future could be whether USC’s Sam Darnold gives up his remaining two years of eligibility and declares for the draft by the Jan. 18 deadline. UCLA’s Josh Rosen, who also has a year remaining, is considered a certainty to declare. Wyoming’s Josh Allen could also be a top 10 pick and the success of Carson Wentz coming from a similar level of competition could force NFL teams to move him up their boards.
As long as Darnold comes out and Big Blue is picking second, they will be guaranteed to get one of the top two guys. I think Darnold will end up higher rated by NFL teams, so the Giants can hope either the Browns feel differently or Darnold tells them if they plan to take him, he’s going to stay in school.
Mara has seen Darnold and Rosen on television
and has been impressed. By taking one of them in a strong year for quarterbacks, the Giants can set themselves up for long-term success just as they did when they traded for Manning in 2004.
No team wants to pick in the top five but it helps if you stink, to really stink, especially in a good quarterback year.
“Were going to take the best player available,” Mara said. “If it’s a quarterback, it’s a quarterback. If it’s somebody else, it’s somebody else. I have no idea how the new general manager is going to feel about that. If the new general manager doesn’t love the quarterbacks, I’m not going to say, ‘No, we’re taking a quarterback,’ because the worst thing you can do is force it and then you take the wrong guy.”
Mara doesn’t seem inclined to tell interim coach Steve Spagnuolo to get rookie Davis Webb on the field so the new GM can evaluate him before making the 2018 draft decision. Mara said he never told former GM Jerry Reese that Geno Smith or Webb had to play a few weeks ago.
“I think much too much has been made about that,” he said. “It was more off a question: ‘Don’t you think at some point we should be talking about having different quarterbacks play.’ He said, ‘Yeah, Ben and I have had that discussion.’ Then the next thing you know we were into that whole mess.”
Even so, the events that followed led to Manning refusing to start the Oakland game after former coach Ben McAdoo told him Smith would start the second half, which led to Manning getting benched and Giants fans rallying behind him.
The first thing Mara asked Spags after he agreed to be the interim coach was who he planned to start at QB. “I’d like to play Eli because I think he would give the team a lift,” Spagnuolo said. “Fine,” Mara said. Mara and consultant Ernie Accorsi will be conducting multiple GM interviews next week, likely including internal candidates Kevin Abrams, the interim GM, and Marc Ross, the vice president of player evaluation. Dave Gettleman, the former Giants pro personnel director and Panthers GM, is also expected to be among the first interviewed.
The Giants will likely continue the process once candidates become available after the season is over. But Mara didn’t rule out the possibility of not waiting. As far as the thought that the Giants should go outside the organization and hire someone with no Giant connections, Mara said, “We’re going to get criticized no matter what we do.” Mara couldn’t decide if this season was worse than 1966 or 1978, which were pretty awful, but he knew there was, “Never one where the expectations were so high and the performance was so poor. So it’s been pretty tough.”
But just as the Giants went from an 11-5 playoff team to the second worst record in the NFL, they can turn it back around next year or the year after. “Listen, in this league, you can go from first to last and last to first very quickly,” he said. “I’m focused on the long term. What do we need to do to improve our franchise long-term going forward.”
He believes one of the first decisions is keeping Manning. He doesn’t want the look on his father’s face from 1994 to reappear on his.