New York Giants: Mara, Reese, McAdoo need a reality check
By Curt Macysyn
NBC has to try to put lipstick on pig tonight, with a game that few envisioned when NFL schedules were released.
As much as the New York Giants want to sidestep the issue, they are a winless team. By any measure, that’s a failure. The saddest aspect (of many) is the manner in which this franchise goes about its business.
Quite simply, they over-estimates their importance in life’s continuum.
Sure there are many fans who say they bleed blue, and good for them if they want to invest an inordinate amount of emotion and human capital into NFL football. For the vast majority of fans, including Giants fans, their lives have more balance.
So if co-owner John Mara says something that isn’t entirely positive about Odell Beckham, most of us will survive. If general manager Jerry Reese wants to play semantics about his draft board, well, more power to him. And if Ben McAdoo wants to hold player conduct sanctions as secretive endeavors, that’s on him.
The New York Giants fancy themselves as the atypical NFL franchise. We hear the word “classy” passed around NFL circles like a box of munchkins. Classy endeavors don’t hold onto secrets. Classy establishments don’t treat their customers with disdain. Classy organizations take authoritative action when rules are broken.
If the New York Giants want to be the outlier of NFL teams, then they would practice transparency. That’s the exact opposite of how the NFL conducts itself.
Double Secret Probation
This week, McAdoo looked as pathetic as Dean Wormer when the head coach suspended cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. Sure, there are two sides to every story, which is why McAdoo and the team ought to go public with whatever happened.
According to the New York Daily News, McAdoo finally addressed the DRC situation with the team on Friday. Keep in mind the first incident in this affair occurred in last Sunday’s loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. McAdoo offered this lame excuse:
"“The timing of the matters played a factor. When you want to speak and address an issue you want to make sure you have all the details.”"
Hopefully McAdoo was able to keep a straight face when he said that.
New York Giants
In fact, McAdoo’s press conferences have become painfully inept, as has his coaching. If the head coach didn’t have the facts, then who the heck would?
If the team’s leadership thinks they are getting something over on everyone, or even anyone, think again. In life, there will always be a subset of people who will believe anything put out there. They are called “true believers” for a reason.
For the rest of us, the mortgage, job, family and bills require most of our emotional capital. What Jerry Reese says, not so much. If he wants everyone to think that Ereck Flowers is the next coming of Anthony Munoz, good for him.
Keep in mind, we don’t have to believe him. Perhaps, the real narrative is that the team screwed up another draft pick. Now that would make sense, but it would also screw up the “smartest people in the room” that these guys have carefully cultivated.
And maybe they don’t even realize that they become less believable by the day.
Just the Facts
One thing they cannot change is that their winless team is going on national television against the Denver Broncos. If the game turns into a full-fledged embarrassment, there won’t be anywhere to hide.
Surely, the Beckham injury will come up. And surely, the DRC suspension will come up. But how does that affect Eli Apple’s play? How does Brandon Marshall being out for the season affect Ereck Flowers? Or Bobby Hart? Or Kennan Robinson?
As Jerry Reese and Ben McAdoo fight for their jobs, hopefully most everyone can tune out the lame excuses. This sideshow will run its course around the time everyone completes Christmas returns. And then John Mara will have a decision to make.
Will he do the right thing, or will he play Hamlet at the year-end press conference? Unfortunately for this triumvirate, it’ll have to be done in public.
Or maybe they can schedule the press conference for 1:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day. This way only the true-believers can tune in, as the rest of celebrate the New Year. At the same time, Mara, Reese and company can celebrate the same old Giants.