SO WHAT NOW FOR BIG BLUE?
News has 5 questions for Gettleman & Mara as offseason begins
Giants co-owner John Mara and GM Dave Gettleman are scheduled to meet the media in Zoom interviews on Wednesday morning. Mara’s decision not to speak on Black Monday, and to let Gettleman speak for the organization once more, indicates one of two results: either Gettleman is entering a forced retirement or he is coming back for Year 4.
The Friends of Gettleman say he is coming back. We’ll believe it when we hear it from Mara himself. In the meantime, if Mara and Steve Tisch really are bringing Gettleman back as GM, here are the Daily News’ five questions for Wednesday’s Giants State of the Union Zoom call:
WHY IS THIS GOOD ENOUGH?
Is it really lost on Mara that the main reason the Giants missed the playoffs this season is because Gettleman did such a horrible job in Years 1 and 2? The Giants would have won the 2020 NFC East with ease if Gettleman had done what he’d been hired to do in 2018: rebuild the roster and find a new franchise quarterback.
Gettleman’s many misses left the Giants with a bare bones roster until the GM and Joe Judge collaborated this offseason to land some quality free agents like James Bradberry, Blake Martinez, Kyler Fackrell and Logan Ryan. That’s the only reason this year’s team was even competitive.
Gettleman has a 15-33 record in three seasons. He went 5-11 in 2018, 4-12 in 2019 and 6-10 in 2020. This year’s team was one fumble between Wayne Gallman’s legs away from finishing the season with four straight losses. The only reason they were alive for a playoff berth deep into December was because they were playing in one of the worst divisions in NFL history.
The only reasonable defense of Gettleman’s first two years would be Mara admitting that he tied the GM’s hands for two years to stick with Eli Manning for far too long and try to win one more Super Bowl. Even then, a GM must stand accountable for the moves and record on his watch.
By any measure, if Mara is bringing Gettleman back, he is saying that Gettleman’s six wins in 2020 were good enough to demonstrate progress. And he is indicating that the context of why his franchise is still so far away is not a factor. How discouraging.
HAVE YOU SPOKEN WITH JEFFREY LURIE?
Switching gears, it will be fascinating to hear if Mara has anything to say about the Philadelphia Eagles’ Week 17 tank against Washington that kept the Giants out of the playoffs.
Judge already blasted Doug Pederson and the Eagles, so it’s possible Mara will let Judge’s words stand on behalf of the entire organization.
But if I know Mara, he had to have picked up the phone and called Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie either Sunday or Monday to hash this out.
Mara is the chairman of the NFL’s management council and also sits on the league’s competition committee. He is one of the most influential people in the sport and helped guide the NFL through this pandemic season. There is no way he will stay silent on this, whether he airs his grievances behind closed doors or publicly.
Personally, I would like to see Mara pass on griping about the Eagles on Wednesday, because the Giants truly are to blame for their own failures this season. But it will be interesting this offseason — both Wednesday and at spring owners’ and committee meetings — to see if Mara wields his influence with commissioner Roger Goodell to address the Eagles’ tanking.
WHEN WILL IT BE THE GM’S FAULT?
As long as Gettleman works here, I will never forget this exchange between a reporter and the GM from July 2019:
“You were 5-11 last year,” the reporter said.
“I wasn’t 5-11,” Gettleman
corrected. “The New York Football Giants were 5-11.”
“Okay, the team went 5-11,” the reporter clarified. “Thank you,” Gettleman said. Five months later, the Giants were firing Pat Shurmur, the head coach who had the skills to develop Daniel Jones and the stones to bench Manning in Week 3 for the rookie. But Mara retained Gettleman, saying the GM’s job was unfinished.
This year, offensive coordinator Jason Garrett certainly deserves to be jettisoned for running a pitiful offense in 2020, but again the scapegoat is likely going to be someone other than the GM.
Even Garrett, whose play-calling was often underwhelming, has a fair gripe to point to the lack of talent at his disposal: an offensive line still in flux three years after Gettleman arrived, a quarterback who inspires minimal confidence, a roster with no No. 1 receiver.
So why does the finger always point away from the top of the front office? Just asking.
WHY ARE YOU CONFIDENT IN JONES?
If you had told me in September that Jones would throw 11 touchdown passes in the 2020 NFL season, I would have told you the Giants would be looking for another GM in January and drafting another quarterback in April 2021.
Jones didn’t even play in the team’s most impressive win of the season: a Week 13 road victory at Seattle with Colt McCoy at QB.
Judge has publicly stated his confidence in Jones several times this past month, and holding the No. 11 pick it certainly looks like the Giants plan to run it back for a third season with Jones as their starter.
But if Garrett is fired, that will mean a third offense in three years for Jones, who has 38 total touchdowns to 39 turnovers in two NFL seasons so far.
This is a very simple question that Mara and Gettleman both need to answer: why do you still think Jones can be the guy? And for Mara, with so much uncertainty still at quarterback, why is the GM’s job no less safe?
WHAT IS THE BAROMETER FOR 2021?
If Gettleman can retain his job after winning 15 games in three years, trading up to draft DeAndre Baker in the first round, replacing Odell Beckham Jr. with Golden Tate, and trading away draft picks for Leonard Williams when he could have signed him in the offseason, is there really any threshold for what is unacceptable here?
Mara warned a year ago that Gettleman knew “the batting average has got to increase” in free agency and the draft. Free agency was better this year. There is no clear sign yet the draft was.
Mara also said he and Tisch needed “to feel like we’re building something that’s going to compete for a championship” when the 2020 season ended.
“If we’re able to play meaningful games in December, that would obviously be a sign that we are doing that,” Mara said.
But is Mara aware that this year’s December relevance is not indicative a championship is around the bend? The Giants lost three of their last four games, including to the Arizona Cardinals, who lost five of their last seven.
Above all, the question on Gettleman is this: Mara has a chance at a do-over now from his mistake of hiring Gettleman in December 2017. Since the Giants’ rebuild is only now in its infant stages, Mara can use his mulligan to wash his hands of Gettleman’s mistakes and start fresh at the beginning of this new program with Judge as head coach.
Is he really going to pass up that chance? You know what they say about doing things the same way and expecting different results.