
Plenty of people were sure earlier in the season that the New York Giants would move on from General Manager Dave Gettleman – at least, it seemed like there was more of a chance the team would consider it. Now, it seems like Gettleman losing his job is becoming an outlier option, after the Giants have picked up a couple of wins in the second half of the season and snapped their long losing streak to finish the year with somewhat better performances.
The key word there, however, is ‘somewhat.’
The Giants reached their fourth win when they beat the Redskins and they have a shot to reach five wins on Sunday when they face the Eagles for the second time this season. If one looks under the surface, though, the Giants aren’t very good. Even when compared to other five win teams.
This might not go down as the worst season in Giants history in terms of record, but record doesn’t always say everything about quality. It’s hard to say the Giants are much better than they were back when they were on pace for that record.
One of their wins was against the Buccaneers in a game where they needed a missed field goal to avoid a loss – Daniel Jones might have had a great performance, but without a great amount of luck, it wouldn’t have been enough to deliver an actual win.
And the Dolphins and the Redskins are two of the only teams as bad as the Giants this year. That’s proven by the fact that the Redskins beat the Giants out for the second overall pick, and the Dolphins are right next to the Giants – they didn’t remain behind the Giants in the draft order because they beat a good or even decent or below average team, but because they beat the Bengals, the worst team in the league and the one picking number one overall.
In other words, the Giants have for the most part won against the worst of the worst this year.
And they’ve looked bad in some important areas even in those wins. The offense performed great on Sunday and put up 41 points – but in the long run, that’s only going to be worth so much when giving up 35 points to the offense of one of the worst teams in the league, which ended up playing Case Keenum after their starter Dwayne Haskins Jr. was injured.
It’s the second year in a rebuild but based on the progress so far, the Giants haven’t come far enough to justify keeping the General Manager around for a third year – teams rarely go from being near the bottom of the league to being average in one offseason, and after two offseasons, Gettleman has failed to make enough improvements to put the Giants in a position to be good in year three.
There’s an argument to be made about the Giants finally having cap space, but with the team’s best performances this season coming against the worst opponents, and a historic losing streak being the main narrative this year, it’s hard to say that the current front office should be trusted to spend that money smartly and bring about better results – something it hasn’t done yet.