Fans ready to embrace change
The protest could turn into a lovefest. MetLife Stadium may not be as empty as expected.
As long as Eli Manning is back under center Sunday afternoon against the Cowboys, Giants fans planning to boycott the team with the “Outside for Eli” slogan will attend the game.
“It’s going to be more of an ‘inside for Eli’ [theme] if he returns,” Matt Meyer, a longtime Giants fan who was leading the protest, said in a phone interview after Big Blue fired head coach Ben McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese on Monday. “We’re not unintelligent fans. We recognize our season is lost and Eli won’t be around forever. A lot of us want to see what [rookie Davis] Webb has. But after everything that just happened, the fact it’s the Cowboys, we all want to be there for Eli.”
Meyer said it all depends on what happens with Manning, who saw his streak of consecutive starts snapped at 210 in Sunday’s loss at Oakland, where McAdoo benched the two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback and lifetime Giant in favor of Geno Smith. All reports indicate interim coach Steve Spagnuolo will reinsert Manning as his starting quarterback.
Meyer started the Facebook group “Outside for Eli,” which has 929 members. They were in the process of reaching out to major tailgating party groups and older season-ticket holders not on social media. The plan was to tailgate as usual but to stay in the parking lot once the game started to show their displeasure in the form of empty seats.
“Hopefully Spags will come in and [make] it right. It’s just a damn shame,” said Meyer, a 33-year-old real estate broker from Belleville, N.J. “I don’t understand why they gave this man the power to bench Eli, knowing three days later you can just fire him.
“I think we’re kind of waiting for the official [word that] Eli is starting again. We did kind of lose a lot of steam. Obviously, people are happy about McAdoo and Reese [getting fired]. If Eli’s in, everyone is going to want to get in there and make sure we show our support for [him]. We’re still waiting for that.”
The news of the firings, however, doesn’t wash away the disappointment of last week, Meyer said. He sees it as a stain on ownership that won’t go away.
“My wife is pregnant with a daughter,” Meyer said. “Mara was in the mix of names. We’re fanatics. Now, I’m not so sure.
“The record being broken will never sit right with most Giants fans — for it to be broken that way.”