Despite selling NY Giants fans a bill of goods about having rid the team of their locker room culture problems, the brass has bungled the Baker situation, only making those problems worse.
Most of us NY Giants fans know what we were sold by Dave Gettleman and his new regime when they took over in 2018, but I’ll sum it up quickly for those who may not be informed.
In a nutshell, former GM Jerry Reese had let the locker room culture and character level of the NY Giants roster stoop to a level that would make winning impossible. Fear not, though, Gettleman would rid the team of the bad ‘apples’ – pun intended – and bring Big Blue back to glory, fast.
That ‘strategy’ including winning while rebuilding, which is a whole ‘nother story for a different day, but just the thought of combining those two tasks at the same time would have to seem arduous even to GM’s that are far savvier than the career personnel man.
The gameplan predictable fell on its face as the team has won just 9 games in two years into the Dave Gettleman era, but to narrow down a large topic to the important juncture we’re at now, that lack of winning has hurt all the much more because we’ve let so many supposed ‘bad apples’ leave due to their perceived culture concerns.
However, none of those perceived cultural concerns (I don’t have to list them by name, do I?) had ever been accused of anything like what DeAndre Baker has been accused of.
Whether or not you think Baker is guilty – my stance has remained the same since day one, including predicting why his case took an oddly timed turn for the better – you cannot preach about things like locker room culture and high character players and then allow DeAndre Baker to step foot on a NY Giants practice field until his legal case has been resolved.
Amazing how many people buy DeAndre Baker’s hired lawyers statement and likely hired “witnesses” as innocence.
— GMEN HQ (@GMENHQ) May 16, 2020
The only witnesses that matter are the ones that were there and said what was what at that time...not days later through a lawyer.
🤷🏻♂️
You simply cannot have it both ways, at least if you want to look reasonable to your fans and customers, that is.
If you’re not in favor of cutting him and are in favor of letting the legal process play out, I have no problem with that, and its probably the most advantageous route forward for the NY Giants.
Yet, it seems hypocritical to say the least that the team would take this stance after shoving the world culture down our throats for the last two years — and yes, this also applies to our new white knight, Joe Judge, who has been as culpable in this particular mess as Dave Gettleman.
What should the NY Giants have done differently?
Well, for starters, how about take a hardline stance and announce one way or another whether DeAndre Baker would be welcomed at camp – a thought that seems outrageous as recently as two days ago – before the actual day he was supposed to report to camp?
The team similarly botched the Aldrick Rosas situation yesterday, leaving them scrambling to find a kicker on the training camp report day when they had all the information needed to make a decision much sooner.
Instead, we had to find out from our good friend Justin Penik of the Talkin’ Giants Podcast on Twitter about Baker’s whereabouts that now lead us to believe he will somehow take part in NY Giants training camp after all.
Just posted on his IG story. He’s in a steak house in NY.
— Justin Penik (@JustinPenik) July 26, 2020
Suffice to say it’s less than encouraging that the first thing on Baker’s New York agenda was finding the most expensive steak possible instead of laying low which has been his M.O since being drafted by the NY Giants, the shocking part of this revelation was that we had to find out he was officially in town to apparently attend camp through an Instagram story rather than the NY Giants themselves.
Listen, I get that all NFL players aren’t created equally and that some – like first-round picks – are more valuable to a franchise than other players. I more than understand that the better a player is the better chance he has to avoid harsh punishment when there is room for mercy, something players lower on the depth chart don’t get to enjoy.
In fact, not only do I get it, I support it. I think it’s been proven that talent is more important than character in this league overall, so long as you can balance the two factors our which really isn’t that hard.
What I can’t understand, or accept, is how a team that has made focused their success model around having high-character players has allowed this situation to linger on so long without making a hardline statement either way.
Here’s a simple PR statement that could have solved all of this a long time ago, allowing the NY Giants to do the right thing while still giving DeAndre Baker a chance to prove his innocence and get paid while he would be sitting out do so.
“The NY Giants are aware of the serious allegations against DeAndre Baker, but we believe in letting the legal process play out and as such will be retaining him until his legal matters come to a conclusion. In the meantime, he’ll be placed on the NFI/exempt list (non-football injury) until he and his legal team can prove he is innocent in this matter.”
That one is free, John Mara.
Instead, the team will not likely have serious egg on its face sort of like it did back during the Josh Brown domestic violence saga, where the team held onto him for far too long under the guise of “letting the facts come out”, leaving a serious stain on the organization that holds itself to a high standard in this league as one of the true blue blood, classy organizations in this league.
Well, the facts have come out in the DeAndre Baker case through unsealed warrants and they don’t look pretty.
Again, even if you’re in favor of hanging onto him in some regard until the legal process is complete, you can’t agree with the team’s ‘culture’ narrative and then support how this situation has been handled.
The fans – and Baker’s teammates – deserved to know what the resolution was going to be far sooner than yesterday, although you could still strongly argue we still don’t even know what the resolution is even still, with training camp due to start in about 24 hours.
When Dave Gettleman took over, he said his main job would be to eliminate distractions. Well, the only thing he’s done in this case is take a major distraction and make it abundantly louder due to his response to it, AKA hypocrisy at its finest.
I have no doubt that if Baker was a Jerry Reese pick he would have been cut long ago, as we’re seeing another classic example of Dave Gettleman becoming too personally attached to a situation (cough*Leonard Williams*cough), which is the exact opposite behavior you want to see out of your general manager.
There’s still a little time for the NY Giants to get this right and turn Baker away from camp, but even then, that sends a cold and unwelcomed message to the rest of the locker room. You just have to get out in front of these things as an NFL franchise, and Big Blue has left themselves with few options to look good coming out of this now.
The last time the NY Giants were faced with a situation like this involving former domestic violence accused kicker, Josh Brown, the team was utterly embarrassed when the commissioner did what everyone knew he would inevitably do and put him on the commissioner’s exempt list, making the team look foolish for holding onto him those extra few weeks.
Although Dave Gettleman wasn’t here for that, it appears as of this moment that the NY Giants have learned little from that important moment and that they are heading down that very same road once again.
Yet this time, in 2020, you can bet the house it’ll blow up in the team’s face in a much more meaningful way.