The moment the New York Giants somberly walked off the field at AT&T Stadium to wrap up the week 2 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, we all knew things were taking a turn for the worst.
What…were we supposed to expect the new regime to come in, draft a star running back, change schemes on both sides of the ball, attempt a resurrection of the offensive line, and see success immediately?
Let’s not forget the fact that the Giants have a 37 year-old immobile quarterback at the helm behind an offensive line that still features Ereck Flowers. This team was nowhere near being competitive in 2018, but we let the media tell us otherwise. We allowed our own biases to step in and sway our way of thinking because we wanted, no, needed this team to provide some sort of satisfaction on Sundays.
A well worn New York Giants narrative:
The narrative that drafting a quarterback was the better move might be correct, but the fact of the matter is that he would be sitting, or running for his life behind an offensive line that seems to be better at blocking people on Twitter rather than in games.
To get to the point, the season at hand is not only a rebuilding of the roster, but it’s a rebuilding of the coaching staff, scouting departments, scheme, and even the influence of the ownership. We will not see John Mara step in an influence the benching of a quarterback. The reigns to the franchise lies with a man that doesn’t believe in analytics, but bets his stake on his gut and his trusted advisers. This man is Dave Gettleman, the former general manager of the Carolina Panthers, a team that lacked serious talent in the secondary and had numerous holes on the offensive line. Gettleman managed to strike gold on undrafted guard, Andrew Norwell, but that happens once in a decade.
We must give the Giants brass time to develop ‘their’ team and not judge them for the mishaps of Jerry Reese and Ben McAdoo. Imagine trying to resurrect a team from the ashes after years of bad drafting and free agent signings in less than a single year. It’s impossible, and we are restless in New York, which is derived from our unfortunate competitiveness towards the Jets and just about every team we face. We want to be the ‘big brother’, the team everybody wants to mimic, but at this moment in time we are very far from that reality.
So, to wrap up this truth, we must take everything one week at a time. Evaluate the holes on the roster and what puzzle pieces are missing and need to be found for the future. The goal for any franchise is to win a Super Bowl, and the Giants are not going to achieve that goal this year, so we must sit back and analyze the roster, because one year of data can be worth years of success. Just ask the Patriots.