Giants clean house with firings of McAdoo, Reese
It’s a Monday makeover in the Meadowlands.
The Giants fired both head coach Ben McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese on Monday morning, merely hours after New York’s 24-17 loss in Oakland dropped the team to 2-10 on the season.
The franchise’s worst record for a 16-game schedule is currently 3-12-1 set back in 1983.
“It’s really been the perfect storm this year,” coowner and team president John Mara said. “Everything that could’ve gone wrong has gone wrong so far this season. And it’s just one of those things you have to live through and suck it up and make whatever changes you have to make and go on.”
Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has replaced McAdoo as interim coach, while assistant GM Kevin Abrams takes over for Reese as interim GM. Mara said both are candidates for full-time positions after the season.
McAdoo, who compiled a 13-15 record since the start of the 2016 season, is the first Giants coach to be fired midseason since Bill Arnsparger in 1976.
You have to go all the way back to 1930 to find the last time a coach (Roy Andrews) was axed before completing two full seasons. The notion of it happening this year was virtually inconceivable in the preseason, given the team’s expectations coming off an 11-5 season and a playoff appearance.
But after an 0-4 start highlighted by three blown fourth-quarter leads, followed by year-ending injuries to star receivers Odell Beckham Jr. and Brandon Marshall in Week 5, the season spiraled out of control. Among other issues, McAdoo had to suspend cornerbacks Dominique RodgersCromartie and Janoris Jenkins for violation of team rules.
“I thought it was as talented a roster as we’ve had here in a long time,” Mara said. “Our defense was basically the same, our offense was supposed to be better. We had added some receivers and a tight end, a couple of tight ends. We were supposed to be better. We got off to a very poor start on offense, our defense did not play as well as they could have and then everybody got hurt.”
McAdoo, 40, served as the Giants’ offensive coordinator under Tom Coughlin from 2014-15 after seven years as an offensive assistant in Green Bay under Mike McCarthy. But his success as OC (30 points in 12 of 32 games) never translated as head coach. The Giants have failed to score 30 points in any game since Coughlin’s departure.
Reese spent nearly 11 years as GM and constructed two Super Bowl rosters in 2007 and 2011. Since winning Super Bowl XLVI, the Giants have gone 41-51 in five-plus seasons. Their only playoff appearance in that time came last season, resulting in a firstround loss at Green Bay.
Reese had been with the organization since 1994, when he began as a parttime scout.
“That’s as difficult a meeting as I’ve ever had,” Mara said. “I thanked him on behalf of Steve (Tisch) and myself for everything he’s done for this organization. I told him that I have no doubt that he will get another shot with another franchise.”
On Nov. 13, Mara and Tisch released a statement which included, “At the end of the year, we will evaluate the 2017 season in its entirety and make a determination on how we move forward.”
But two more losses and miscommunication between Mara and McAdoo on how the Giants planned to move on from franchise quarterback Eli Manning evidently made the situation untenable.
Reese, meanwhile, has been under constant pressure for a littany of reasons including the failure to address the Giants’ woeful offensive line in the offseason.
“We changed our minds, given all the events that have occurred, where we are as a franchise right now,” Mara said. “To be honest with you, it became more and more apparent that we were going to have to do something at the end of the season. So we talked after the game and again this morning about, ‘Why prolong it any longer? Why not just get it done now?’”
Mara said it’s “possible” the Giants will have a new general manager in place before the end of the season “if the right candidate comes along.” But they must wait to have contact if that candidate is still employed elsewhere.
Mara added that it’s likely the next head coach will not be hired until after a new general manager is in place and has input. The Giants will not necessarily restrict the search to those with head coaching experience, but Mara said his “very strong preference” is to maintain a separation between the head coach and the front office’s personnel control.
“We will have the GM in long before the draft (in April),” Mara said. “Our scouts and Marc Ross, our head of scouting, it’s business as usual for them. They’re going to keep doing what they’re doing.”
The Giants have four games remaining this season, beginning with a home game against the Dallas Cowboys next Sunday.
“I’m very conscious of the fact that three of our last four games are at home,” Mara said. “I was conscious of, having lived through it before, what the reaction was going to be (without the firings). It also gives us somewhat of a tactical advantage in allowing us to start looking at general managers right now rather than waiting until the end of the season.”