After blowout, Giants need to axe Shurmur
EAST RUTHERFORD >> Picture yourself as the owner of an NFL team, sitting in a suite as visiting fans infest your stadium, which is only about half-filled. Your home team is playing miserably again. You’re trapped in the worst three-year stretch in team history.
Oh, and did I mention it’s your birthday?
That was reality Sunday for John Mara, who celebrated his 65th birthday by watching the Giants sink closer to the franchise’s longest losing streak.
Mara has no choice but to accept that wholesale changes are needed after a 31-13 defeat to Packers in the snow. Whether it’s now or after the season, head coach Pat Shurmur has to go.
The Giants (2-10) have now dropped eight in a row — one loss from matching the team record from in 1976. They’ve shown absolutely no improvement after going 5-11 in Shurmur’s first season, and let’s be real: For each of these games that the Giants are “close” in, the opposition is always in control. It’s like watching a bully dangle a high-five to a kid on the playground, only to swipe it away over and over again.
And now the futility is translating to an owner’s worst nightmare: Fan resignation. MetLife Stadium was littered with seas of green and yellow clothing and endless chants of “Go, Pack, Go!”
Seeing his multi-billiondollar operation turn into Green Bay East has to be the final straw for Mara.
“People will change what they think of us and me when we win games,” insisted Shurmur, who raised his voice more than usual. “I’m a realist when it comes to that, and I get it. And you know what? When you don’t win, I expect what’s written and said and what people think. I expect fans to be upset, because we are, too, but we go about trying to fix it.”
As his answers grow more vanilla and little changes on the field, Shurmur is proving that he’s simply not cut out to be an NFL head coach. His .278 win percentage (17-44) with the Browns and Giants is seventhworst in league history.
“This is a historically young team that’s going out there and competing against some really good football teams, and we’ve got to do what we have to do to win games, and I understand that,” Shurmur said. “But they also are developing, and at some point, we’ll be good enough to win.”
Well, if only that was accurate. At the start of the season, the Giants featured the league’s 18th-youngest 53man roster with an average age of 26. The gap is small to Miami, which had the youngest average age of 25.2.
New York is young in the secondary, with rookies DeAndre Baker, Corey Ballentine and Julian Love and second-year pro Grant Haley playing prominent roles. But that’s no excuse to be getting dismantled game after game.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers torched the Giants for four touchdowns and 243 yards, including a 43-yard bomb to wide receiver Allen
Lazard on the first drive.
Veteran safety Michael Thomas supported the staff by suggesting that the “right plays” are being called and that the issue is execution.
“You get to the fourth quarter and it seems like, ‘Dang, we’re close,’ and the wheels fall off,” Thomas said. “It’s just experience, game experience and you can’t buy it. Sometimes only being baptized by fire is how you get that experience. And they’ll be better for it — we’ll be better for it in the future. But unfortunately, right now we’re not finishing.”
It didn’t help that the front seven generated only five pressures and no sacks against Rodgers. That’s been a problem most of the season, and it’s puzzling why coordinator James Bettcher doesn’t blitz more frequently with a defense that obviously isn’t talented enough to just sit back in coverage.
On the other side, Shurmur’s play-calling — the Giants still fail to utilize Saquon Barkley anywhere near as creatively as other teams do their running backs in the passing game — continues to hinder the offense.
Shurmur’s biggest strength this season, the development of first-round quarterback Daniel Jones, is even beginning to look shaky. Jones threw three interceptions and has a league-high 21 turnovers in
11 games. Though give the rookie credit for playing through a first-half ankle injury and making some bigtime throws, such as an 18yard rainbow touchdown to Sterling Shepard.
“It’s sore, but that’s part of playing the game,” said Jones, whose only other snow game came as a redshirt freshman at Duke. “I’ll be fine.”
Shurmur, for his part, says he’ll feel “a lot better” when the Giants start winning. But at this point, that probably won’t happen with him in New York.