Giants have wide GM search, but Mara’s nepotism is concerning
On one hand, it’s silly for anyone to question how John Mara does business.
The Giants are the NFL’s second-most valuable franchise at $4.3 billion, according to Forbes, and Mara’s family has a 50 percent ownership stake. So it’s understandable that with such a large investment, the team president wants to control how his team operates.
This is the sports industry, after all — not the stock market. What fun is there in owning a team if you’re going to just sit back and let others play with your toy?
But here’s the catch: If you don’t make the right decisions, eventually your customers will stop paying the bills. The business won’t completely tank but the product will suffer, and we all know that Mara hates to lose.
So at some point he should swallow his pride and cede some control if the Giants are going to become a respectable franchise again. It’s been five straight seasons of double-digit losses and no playoffs. The process is not working.
When Mara spoke Wednesday about the state of the organization, he was combative to the idea that his family should consider taking a step back within the football operations.
Despite all the front office upheaval during this disastrous period, his brother, Chris Mara, has remained senior VP of player personnel since 2011, and his nephew, Tim McDonnell, is co-director player personnel and has been involved in scouting for nine years.
“The only two voices at the end of the day that matter are the head coach and the general manager,” Mara insisted. “They make the final determination. They listen to (Chris and Tim) because they recognize their evaluation skills, but there are other people in the building who have evaluation skills as well and who have voices as well. But they do not have undue influence on the final decisions that are made here. They absolutely do not.”
Mara downplayed his brother’s role as being nothing little than “doing evaluation of college players,” but that’s a significant part of the operation and the Giants have been drafting poorly overall in the last decade.
So when Chris Mara keeps his job while others take the fall — Mara himself said the Giants needed to completely blow it up and start over after finishing 4-13 — you have to believe there’s nepotism at play.
Mara did at least offer hope that they will have a more thorough search for a general manager this time around.
“I think looking back on our process, I wish it had been a little more extensive, that we had seen more people and maybe taken our time a little bit more with it,” he said. “We’re going to try not to make that mistake this time.”
The Giants interviewed only four candidates before hiring Dave Gettleman in December of 2017. There was a higher level of comfort to that decision for Mara because Gettleman previously worked for the team from 1998-2012, and Gettleman might’ve been the only person on board with the foolish idea of trying to win with Eli Manning one last time instead of blowing up the roster.
We all know how that went. Mara allowed Gettleman to graciously “retire” as part of the
family on Monday, insisting that firing him in-season wouldn’t have given the Giants a head start on their GM search because their top candidates are currently working for playoff teams.
Fair enough. The Giants are now looking outside the organization for the first time since hiring George Young in 1979, and that’s encouraging.
They have begun interviewing nine people: Bills assistant GM Joe Schoen, 49ers assistant GM Adam Peters, Ravens director of player personnel Joe Hortiz, Chiefs director of player personnel Ryan Poles, Titans director of player personnel Monti Ossenfort, Cardinals VP of player personnel Adrian Wilson, Cardinals VP of player personnel Quentin Harris, Titans VP of player personnel Ryan Cowden and 49ers director of player personnel Ran Carthon.
Mara said the Giants won’t even be able to interview 20 percent of interested candidates,
but now it’s on him and coowner Steve Tisch to make the right call.
“This is a very desirable job,” Mara said. “We happen to have a lot of draft capital coming up. I think this is an organization that people want to work for, so I’ve been heartened by the fact that so many people have expressed an interest and including people who are very talented and who have a legitimate shot at getting the job. We haven’t been turned down by anybody yet.”
What’s strange, though, is that the Giants announced Chris Mara is joining his brother and Tisch for the first round of virtual interviews. It’s impossible to believe Mara’s claim that his brother “does not have any authority” when he’s one of three people with a hand in picking the new GM.
“Chris is in those interviews because he’s part of ownership and I value his opinion. I value his skills and I want him in there,” Mara said. “At the end of
the day, I’ll listen to him, but it will be Steve Tisch and myself who make the final decision.”
Which, to be fair, is completely Mara’s right.
Which, to be fair, is completely Mara’s right. It’s also his right to say the new GM will lead the search for Joe Judge’s successor as head coach, but ownership will give final approval. The owners should absolutely have a say in the face of the franchise.
It’s still fair to question whether Mara has fundamentally changed enough about the way the Giants do business to have success.
Perhaps simply casting a wider net for a GM this time will fix the franchise. Yet until ownership proves it can make good decisions, fans should be skeptical.