Clock runs out on organization

IT WAS too late. Of course it was.

Of course the Giants should have done this sooner, released Josh Brown before Tuesday’s inevitable parting of the ways with a longtime NFL kicker with a longtime history of domestic abuse. This has sullied the Giants because their actions and inactions focused too much on the perpetrator and not nearly enough on the victims. When should the Giants have purified the organization of Josh Brown? Should the ax have fallen last week, before they picked up and traveled to London, when new and damaging details — penned by Brown himself — surfaced that there was a troubling pattern of abuse of his ex-wife?

Should it have been a fait accompli back in the summer, when it was revealed Brown was charged with fourth-degree domestic violence stemming from a May 2015 incident that prosecutors dropped after five days?

Should the Giants finally have turned away from Brown in mid-September, after he served his one-game suspension, instead of bringing him back to kick for them the next five games?

The moment to tell Brown he was never going to suit up for the Giants should have come before this. That it did not has wounded the Giants and coowner John Mara.

The Giants knew and liked Josh Brown for the past three-plus seasons and also knew his marriage to Molly Brown was rocky and full of issues. They knew it was a failed marriage and Josh was in counseling. They did not know the full extent of the issues. Yet ignorance is no excuse. The Giants were too trusting of their player and not skeptical enough of the ravages of abuse and the many forms it can take.

Mara, in his statement on Tuesday, said, “We believed we did the right thing at every juncture in our relationship with Josh.’’ And then, Mara finally, finally got it right in his explanation of why it all went so wrong.

“Our beliefs, our judgments and our decisions were misguided,’’ he said.

Yes, misguided.

The Giants were misguided in thinking they had the information they needed to make a sound decision, whether or not the NFL’s investigation came up lacking or not. Josh Brown was their player, after all. The Giants were misguided in not recognizing Brown, with a long pattern of behavior, should have been viewed with more suspicious eyes.

The Giants were misguided when they did not object, upon hearing Brown insist the incident that led to charge against him was “just a moment.’’ The Giants knew it was more than that and were misguided in not challenging Brown more fervently on it. The Giants were misguided not having their antennae up when they learned NFL security became involved during last season’s Pro Bowl after Brown frightened his wife by pounding on her hotel room door. Brown, in a counseling journal he kept and made public by the King County (Wash.) Sheriff ’s Office, admitted to many terrible things. In a statement released Tuesday by ESPN, he said, “It is important to share that I never struck my wife, and never would.’’ An earlier statement written by Brown, shown to the Giants Monday night (but not released to the public until Tuesday), did not contain that line. That Brown decided to insert that disclaimer indicates he is in some form of denial — he may not have punched his ex-wife, but there is a trail of physically abusive contact.

Those who came in contact with Brown the day of his release said he was stoic, sorry for the anguish he caused the Giants and “on a mission’’ to right the wrongs. His statement included this: “In the coming days and weeks I plan on telling more of the pain I had caused and the measures taken to get help so I may be the voice of change and not a statistic.’’

The Giants will support Josh Brown in this. They have nearly a 20-year history of working with My Sisters’ Place, a domestic violence shelter in Westchester.

But Mara and the Giants were misguided in focusing too much of their concern on Josh Brown and not enough on Molly Brown, and other victims of domestic abuse.