Ex-Panther Smith rips Gettleman

Giants GM Dave Gettleman wants all the credit, and that’s why he doesn’t have an “alpha” wide receiver on his roster and shops in “the pick-and-save aisle,” former NFL wideout Steve Smith said Tuesday in an explosive rant.

Smith has a deep disdain for Gettleman that dates back to Smith’s 2014 release from the Panthers with Gettleman calling the shots in Carolina.

But Gettleman’s Giants now lack a No. 1 wide receiver due to his 2019 trade of Odell Beckham Jr. And Smith went off on NFL Network on Tuesday in the context of the Giants’ bargain signing of former Bengals first-round pick John Ross.

“Lemme tell you where these brothers is goin’. Bang. They goin’ down in this pick-and-save aisle which is about 15 and below,” Smith said. “Woh! No. 24 on the list: John Ross. Again. They don’t want an alpha.

“They can’t take Juju (Smith-Schuster) because he plays in the slot and that’s where (Sterling) Shepard plays. They already have a tight end,” Smith continued. “So what they want are robots who aren’t going to make a stink, who are gonna fall in place, which will end up stunting the growth of your franchise quarterback because you either want a robot or a 6-foot-2, 215 above wide receiver. You don’t want a playmaker. You want cheap. You want people that aren’t gonna make a stink in the locker room. And that means you want to be (inhales) average. That’s what they want.”

Hall of Fame wideout Michael Irvin then said Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett is trying to emulate what the Cowboys did while winning three Super Bowls in the 1990s when Garrett was a backup QB.

So Irvin said Garrett needs a “big dude to make an impact” on offense, like Irvin was for Troy Aikman, and argued that the Lions’ Kenny Golladay can be that player.

“But there’s a different general manager who has control,” Smith countered. “And that general manager knows exactly what he wants. He wants to be able to sit in front of everybody and say, ‘Look what I did.’ If he brings in an alpha, the alpha gets all the attention and not him. That’s what ran him out of Carolina, and that’s what has them very pedestrian like in New York right now where they’re in the pick-and-save, shopping for value, when they got $180 million.

“But what are they gonna do? Mmm hmm. They’re gonna get a guy (in Ross) who wasn’t very good (in Cincinnati), who had 12 or 13 healthy scratches, and they gonna make him something now,” Smith added. “Not gonna happen, bruh! I’m telling you.”