McAdoo fiasco teaches lesson

Giants’ big dreams for coach fell flat

When Ben McAdoo was promoted nearly two years ago to succeed Tom Coughlin, the Giants thought they were catching a rising star. After all, while coordinating Coughlin’s offense for two years, McAdoo was apparently known around the team’s headquarters as “a young Andy Reid.”

It turns out he was hardly the next Reid. Nor the next Mike Tomlin. Or Sean Payton.

Now McAdoo, 40, is another example of what happens when teams whiff after projecting that a first-time head coach will blossom into a long-term solution. This looks like a Giant-sized regret. “I don’t think so,” Giants co-owner John Mara maintained Monday, when McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese were cast aside. “That’s semantics. I thought that he was the right guy for the job.”

Think again.

McAdoo got off to a great start in taking the Giants to the playoffs last year. But during the adversity of a 2-10 2017 season, Mara & Co. discovered that he was the wrong guy for the job.

Why such a short tenure? Mara didn’t specify, but it’s rather clear that McAdoo lacked one significant trait that has fueled the success of coaches who flourished with their first prime-time opportunity.

Think about Tomlin, Payton, John Harbaugh or a young Jon Gruden: A common denominator extending beyond X’s and O’s could be found in their leadership. They commanded respect, which in turn typically resulted in players who bought into their systems. All are leaders of men.

That, on top of talent and creative playbooks, is essential to a winning formula. Miss on the leadership trait, and — as the Giants discovered — you’re setting yourself up for another coaching search.

McAdoo reportedly lost his team this season, which included the suspensions of both of his top cornerbacks, Janoris Jenkins and Dominique RodgersCromartie. And before the bungling last week of Eli Manning’s benching, McAdoo publicly threw his star quarterback under the bus early in the season, blaming “sloppy quarterback play” for a costly delay-of-game penalty.

Even without the benefit of all that occurs behind the scenes, those were among the signs that formulated such a bad public look for McAdoo, whose promotion Manning fully supported in 2016.

Coughlin exuded the aura of a leader in control and was surely a tough act to follow. But McAdoo never came close.

“I’ve spoken to players over the past few weeks, a handful of them, to try to get a handle on whether guys were quitting or whether they weren’t playing hard, and that was not the message that I got back,” Mara said. “I think that people felt they were still playing hard and for most of the season, with an exception of a couple of games that I can think of, I thought players did play hard.”

But reflect on what Mara said in early 2016, and there was a clue that McAdoo might be in over his head.

“Some have suggested that he may not be ready,” Mara said after elevating his new coach last year. “We want a coach who feels like he has something to prove.”

It’s unclear how McAdoo’s failure to prove himself will affect the Giants’ next coaching search.

Mara said he wouldn’t rule out hiring a rookie again. But if they go that route, they should know better.

Start with leadership.

BRAD PENNER/USA TODAY SPORTS Ben McAdoo finished 13-16 in less than two full seasons leading the Giants.