After an excruciating loss on Monday Night Football, the New York Giants fired Jason Garrett, their offensive coordinator. The dismissal made total sense given Garrett's gross ineptitude as the Giants' play caller. Garrett is piece of the puzzle that is solving the Giants' problems. Only about a hundred more to go.
The Giants have only made national news in recent years due to their awful on-field performances. The once proud franchise has been run deep unto the mud and it'll take years to dig themselves out. The first step is to stop digging even further down.
With Dave Gettleman as the team's general manager since 2018, New York has never once secured a winning season and failed to take advantage of the modicum of momentum that last season's defensive unit created. The Giants look as lost as they ever had under Gettleman and it doesn't look like they're close to finding their way with well-below offensive and defensive units. It's time to reset the franchise.
There is a litany of reasons for the Giants to tear down the team and replace the front-office regime they have and start over. Here are the three most obvious ones.
Giants need to clean house
1. The team is bad and not showing any improvement
This year, New York is sporting a whopping 3-7 record. Gettleman's Giants teams have never posted a better record through the first 10 games of a season.
On offense, the Giants are putrid. They rank 25th in yards per play, 26th in total points and score points on just over a third of their drives. Defensively, the Giants look nothing like the unit they were last season. Their pass rush is among the very worst in the league — the very worst according to ESPN's pass rush win rate. It's as if the progress made last year, when New York's defense allowed the ninth lowest points-per-game average in the league, has totally vanished.
The Giants haven't cracked seven wins in a season since 2016. They've got one of the weakest remaining schedules in the league so they could actually break the cold streak. Even if they do, it won't matter. They won't be any closer to being a real playoff contender.
2. The future of the Giants is not in good hands
Outside of offensive tackle Andrew Thomas and safety Xavier McKinney, both in their second years in the league, and wide receiver Kadarius Toney and linebacker Azeez Ojulari, both rookies, the Giants don't have a great collection of young talent that they can rely on for the future.
Quarterback Daniel Jones is three years into his professional career. He came into the league as a raw prospect and has shown no serious improvement. The sixth overall pick from the 2018 draft is still a masterful turnover artist and he may have just painted his masterpiece in New York's last game.
The big man's got hands ‼️
📺: #NYGvsTB on ESPN pic.twitter.com/9EmqQMW4Ws
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) November 23, 2021
Saquon Barkley, touted as the team's offensive superstar after trading Odell Beckham Jr., has massively disappointed. Even when he's healthy, which is now occasionally, he doesn't seem as explosive as he was as a rookie.
The Giants have no key centerpieces to build around at the moment. For a team so low in the standings (last in the NFC East, bottom-six in the league) this is extremely troubling.
3. Dave Gettleman has blown opportunity after opportunity
Simply put, Gettleman is not qualified to be the head front-office executive of an NFL team anymore. His tenure with the Giants has been a total failure.
The awful free-agent contracts Gentleman gave to Nate Solder and Golden Tate highlight his atrocities committed against the Giants' salary books. The Giants will have less spending power than all but two teams next season unless they can drastically reshape their contracts or shed salary. His dismal draft record over his four years as the Giants' head honcho speaks for itself. Given Joe Judge's incompetence, he may be on his third head coach in five years.
Under no circumstances should team president/CEO John Mara bring Gettleman back. Nearly a half a decade into his tenure he has built nothing and accumulated only a handful of truly impactful players. Cleaning house starts with firing Gettleman but it most certainly does not end there. For the sake of the team, Mara needs to pick up a broom and start sweeping up the mess he let Gettleman create.
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