GIANTS ‘CULTURE’ IS A CROCK
Desperate Big Blue signs troubled OL Wilson: ‘Like letting fox guard hen house’
The idea of a superior Giants character and culture standard is a myth. It’s propaganda. It’s fiction. That was reinforced on Thursday when they announced the desperate move of signing failed Tennessee Titans first-round pick and offensive lineman Isaiah Wilson to their practice squad.
Wilson, 22, has rampant off-field issues that include arrests, drugs, and a documented lack of commitment to football. And now the Giants are bringing a Brooklyn native with those issues back to the Big Apple thinking it will work out.
“If the Giants sign him, that’s like letting the fox guard the hen house,” a league source told the Daily News on Tuesday, when Wilson first worked out for the team.
That same source texted again on Thursday when the Giants made the signing official.
“Unreal they did it,” the source said.
Numerous league sources watched with their jaws on the floor as the high and mighty Giants brought Wilson into the fold. To many, it confirms the hypocrisy of their rationale in trading Odell Beckham Jr.
“How can John Mara and Dave Gettleman trade Odell because they say he was a distraction and then let this guy in the building?” another league source said. “How are you going to trade a generational talent — somebody who’s proven their worth in terms of jersey sales, merchandise and performance on the field — but then bring this guy in who hasn’t played, hasn’t played well and has off the field issues?”
The answer is because Mara and Gettleman are desperate, and because their standards are no higher than any other NFL team trying to save their franchise from irrelevance when their backs are against the wall.
They also view Wilson, as did many other NFL teams at the 2020 draft, as more of a guard than a tackle. So it’s a desperate attempt to fix their revolving door on the interior in the long-term.
This is the last gasp of Gettleman, who should have been fired already and should be fired again for lowering himself so far below the superior standard he has claimed over and over to hold.
The angry fan mob and the Giants already are making excuses and saying that people deserve second chances, but this is Wilson’s third chance, not his second.
And sometimes, the homework on a player simply should lead a team to the conclusion that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
By all accounts, Wilson is not a malicious person, but is a young man who regularly puts himself in poor situations. Sources do not expect him to last with the Giants long, and if he does, they expect him to end up in headlines for all the wrong reasons.
In his rookie year, Wilson disappeared twice on the Titans organization.
First he disappeared in the summer, when he was found days later at a Tennessee State party broken up by police, where some attendees reportedly were cited for drug violations, per PaulKuharsky.com.
Then he was suspended for a game in December, placed on the non-football injury list, and disappeared again in the winter.
This time he was spending days in Miami blowing through his signing bonus money and posting photos of near-naked women with dollar bills stuffed inside their panties and bras.
Those were both Titans COVID protocol violations. He caught COVID once and played a total of four snaps in one game as a rookie, the 29th overall pick in the draft.
In January, Wilson then was arrested at gunpoint in Georgia after he wrecked his car at the end of a high-speed chase with police that uncovered acid, marijuana and paraphernalia, per the Tennessean.
There is also this problem: Joe Judge said Wednesday that he doesn’t mind different “personalities” on his team as long as “you’re
an honest person, you’re gonna be yourself, and you love football.”
But here is what another league source said with 100% conviction said about Wilson: “He’s not committed to the game. He doesn’t love football.”
He already squandered his best possible chance, many believed, to turn around his career.
The Miami Dolphins swapped seventh-round picks with the Titans in the spring, bailing out Tennessee, which couldn’t find a single taker for Wilson and was on the verge of cutting him outright.
The Dolphins’ motivation was more than pure.
Wilson played at Brooklyn’s Poly
Prep, the alma mater of head coach Brian Flores and assistant Lance Bennett. No one in the NFL knows Wilson and his family better than that staff. They wanted to help him fix his life and career.
Miami then went to great lengths to create a support plan specifically tailored to Wilson, but no amount of hand-holding helped and they cut him after only three days.
Wilson showed up late for a physical and orientation, and he skipped two optional workouts that he committed to attend, per the Miami Herald. So the Dolphins cut him before even a half a week had passed.
It spoke volumes in the 2020 NFL Draft, as well, that the Dolphins needed an offensive lineman at pick No. 18, had more information on Wilson than any other team, and selected USC’s Austin Jackson instead.
Wilson then tried to start a rap label this summer, out of football, only to now land back in the league for a third chance close to home.
He is a former Georgia teammate of Giants left tackle Andrew Thomas, which is being portrayed as positive that could help create a support structure for Wilson.
“I’m still gonna focus on myself to get better every day, but I think I can help him, as well,” Thomas said Wednesday. “[We can] watch film together, help him learn the playbook, learn his way around the facility.”
But that’s another dangerous element of this signing. The Giants can’t allow any of Wilson’s bad habits, if he brings them into their building, to corrupt one of their most important players — a guy who has done everything right off the field to date.
Recently, Wilson posted on Instagram that he is trying in earnest to turn all of this around:
“Some of you know me as the biggest bust in NFL history,” he wrote. “Today I write to you as Isaiah Wilson. Before the fame and the glamour, I was just a kid trying to make history as the best player out of New York City. I was the hope for my hood.
“As time went on and success came my way I struggled deeply with trying to prove who I was to every one counting on my wins. I lost myself. I lost my mental. I lost my ability to love. I lost it all. When I lost, seemingly everyone who once was in my corner, was gone.”
Wilson continued: “The ones that have remained, I love you. Today I write to you as Isaiah Wilson, not asking for forgiveness but hoping for a second chance. With the time I’ve had away from the game I learned so much about who I am as a human. I finally love myself and it feels incredible. I now am ready to step back on that field with pride, integrity and passion.”
No one wants to see young people failing, especially when they are struggling mentally. The hope here is that Wilson gets the help he can to have a long, successful, happy life. But he hasn’t proven himself worthy of this jersey.
Or maybe he is. When you’re 6-foot-6, 350 pounds and 22 years old, some NFL team is going to overlook everything just to try and win an extra game or two.
Thursday that team was the Giants, who are just the same as everybody else.