He’s in deep McAdoo-doo
FLAILING GIANTS REPORTEDLY TUNING OUT COACH
The growing player revolt against Ben McAdoo is detailed in stunning ESPN report Wednesday as 1-7 Giants’ season reaches new low.
GUYS ARE GIVING UP
HAS LOST THIS TEAM
GUYS JUST DON’T CARE
Ben McAdoo is Chip Diller, Kevin Bacon’s Omega fraternity brother in the classic comedy “Animal House,” his voice cracking as he futilely tries to maintain order at a lawless parade. “Remain calm. All is well!” Sunday’s 51-17 blowout loss to the Rams made it look like the Giants had quit on McAdoo. But Wednesday’s latest locker room leak confirmed it.
ESPN’s Josina Anderson reported that multiple Giants players told her during the bye week — even before that Week 9 embarrassment at MetLife Stadium — that McAdoo “has lost this team” and that “guys are giving up on the season.”
“McAdoo has lost this team,” an anonymous Giants player told ESPN on Oct. 31, the same day Janoris Jenkins was suspended for violating team rules. “He’s got us going 80% on Saturday before we get on the plane to play a game, it’s wild. Changed our off day. He’s dishing out fines like cra- zy. Suspended two of our stars when we need them the most. Throws us under the bus all the time. He’s ran us into the ground and people wonder why we’ve been getting got.”
Another Giant told ESPN: “Guys are giving up on the season and nothing’s being done. Guys just don’t care anymore.”
The Giants said McAdoo, who already had conducted his weekly Wednesday press conference, would have no comment on the anonymous player quotes.
The comment about McAdoo running players “into the ground” is a major indictment of McAdoo considering the Giants have been decimated by injuries this season, after keeping a high percentage of starters healthy in 2016 upon the arrival of McAdoo and new strength and conditioning coach Aaron Wellman.
But of course these are top-to-bottom rip jobs of the coach. And though these comments reflect poorly on the players, too, co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch have to be wondering how McAdoo is even going to coach out the remaining eight games of this horrific season with players constantly going behind the coach’s back.
McAdoo looks clueless in hindsight, too, when he walked up to the podium Wednesday (before ESPN’s report became widely circulated) with a prepared statement explaining the message he delivered to his team this week, and proceeded to preach the same old coach speak and mantras that gave gotten the team to 1-7. He added: “You may think I’m a little bit out there, but I believe we have a run in us.” “Out there" doesn’t cover it. Desperate is more like it. Let’s connect the dots for McAdoo: Players told ESPN last week that they have quit on the team and season. Five days later, they lost, 51-17, on their home field. Several NFL analysts who aren’t even plugged into this locker room observed independently on Sunday that it looked like players, particularly members of the secondary, had quit on the coach. And now here is a report confirming some players feel that way.
Then there was Eli Apple, accused by several national media members of quitting on that infamous 3rd-and-33 Robert Woods touchdown, saying Wednesday that he was unaware of McAdoo’s message to the team. “What was his message?” Apple said. What? How could he not know? There are only a couple explanations for this enormous disconnect between player and coach: either McAdoo’s message was intended for public perception more than for his players, or Apple wasn’t listening to McAdoo.
Either way, this season has reached Code Red for Big Blue. And Mara told NJ.com after Sunday’s loss that the embarrassing loss to the Rams “speaks for itself,” so imagine how aggravated Mara is now, reading anonymous player comments that reinforce they clearly have no respect for this head coach.
Jenkins, by the way, has been in a ghost in the locker room so far this week and unavailable to the media after being reinstated from his suspension.
This looks worse than bad. It looks irreparable. Even defensive captain Jonathan Casillas, who’s been out injured, had a striking answer when asked if he thinks the team quit. “Watch us this week. If we show up like we did last week I might agree with you,” Casillas said.
Later Wednesday there was an unsubstantiated report by someone named Dan Schneier, whose Twitter account says he works for 247Sports, that McAdoo would be “fired shortly” and replaced as interim head coach by defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.
The Giants declined to comment on that, too.
And truly, if McAdoo were to be fired midseason, would his replacement really be Spagnuolo, the coordinator of the defense with a secondary in disarray that gave up more points at home Sunday than a Giants team has since 1964?
Maybe it would be Spagnuolo. Maybe the disgruntled players would rather play for anyone other than McAdoo at this point. But maybe McAdoo will fire back, root out the culprits of these latest leaks, and issue more fines and suspensions. Maybe we’ll find out when Sunday’s inactive list comes out who’s to blame.
Or maybe the Giants’ season will proceed on its Incident-A-Day course, and continue to be so hopeless that on Wednesday when the media took roll of the practice roster and no players were missing, it felt like an accomplishment for McAdoo, and for a team that can’t do anything right.