One of the more interesting coaching situations in the NFL belongs to the New York Giants, who are coming into the 2019 season with a second year coach and a lot of uncertainty. Pat Shurmur definitely didn’t turn the Giants around in one year in 2018, but then again, that wasn’t necessarily the expectation.
It’s hard to define how many losses and bad performances are acceptable for a new head coach who didn’t inherit a good team, but with the New York Giants being in a generally demanding market with a demanding fanbase, it’s hard to see Shurmur lasting too much longer if further seasons are repeats of his rookie year.
Going into this season, though, Shurmur’s coaching staff wasn’t ranked very highly on a Bleacher Report ranking of all of the staffs in the league. Here’s what Bleacher Report’s Gary Davenport had to say about the New York Giants in 2019 while ranking them at number 29 in the league:
The New York Giants are Pat Shurmur’s second bite at the head coaching apple—the third if you count his single game as interim HC with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2015. With a career record that has 19 fewer wins than losses, it could also mark his last.
There are at least a couple of reasons for optimism. James Bettcher’s defense in 2018 wasn’t especially good (24th overall), but it did improve in several statistical categories relative to the year before. Mike Shula’s offense spurred an increase in scoring, with 123 more points than in 2017. That’s Big Blue’s largest such increase in 85 years…
If Shurmur is still in the Big Apple at the beginning of the 2020 season, it will be something of an upset.
The article does mention however that Shurmur isn’t being given much talent to work with after Odell Beckham Jr. and several other important players were traded away and replaced with various alternatives. Davenport also believes that the Giants will turn the quarterback position over from Eli Manning to Daniel Jones sometime during the 2019 season, which is a rather bold prediction but isn’t one hundred percent out of the question depending on how good or bad the team is.
Will Shurmur make it out of the 2019 season? The Giants aren’t known to fire coaches quickly, so it looks possible. But regardless, this may just be the make or break season for the head coach – and the rest of his staff.