Jerry Reese and Ben McAdoo deserve blame for Giants’ 0-2 start
Blame for the New York Giants’ 0-2 start has been directed at the players.
This is not unusual. It is the job of the players to execute on the field. When a team is winning (as the Giants were in 2016), the flaws are disguised or outright ignored. The blame is usually in the locker room when a team stinks it up on the field.
There are two other sources of blame for the Giants’ current predicament: general manager Jerry Reese and head coach Ben McAdoo.
Reese received much props for bringing in Damon Harrison, Janoris Jenkins, and Olivier Vernon to shore up the defense. Some of his draft selections have not been as successful. The biggest example of this is Ereck Flowers.
Flowers was a first-round pick. He’s in the third year of his rookie contract but it doesn’t look he belongs on an NFL roster. The Giants have said all the right things regarding Flowers but he personally allowed three sacks of quarterback Eli Manning in Monday night’s 24-10 loss to the Detroit Lions.
It’s unknown if it’s ego or ignorance, but the Giants have to come to the realization that Flowers is not going to work. His play on the field has suggested as much. All of the training he did in the offseason hasn’t amounted to much.
Meanwhile, Reese did absolutely nothing to improve the Giants offensive line. Granted, this year wasn’t a great one for offensive linemen on the free agent market or the draft. But Reese still did nothing. The Giants went into 2017 with the same offensive line from last season, the same offensive line that has only two good players (Justin Pugh and Weston Richburg).
Then, there’s McAdoo. He unceremoniously threw his quarterback under the bus in front of the media after Monday night’s loss, something that the elite NFL coaches would never do publicly. He has also exhibiting a frustrating stubbornness.
He anointed Paul Perkins as the starting running back. Perkins is not working, plain and simple. McAdoo refuses to give Orleans Darkwa a shot, even though Darkwa has outperformed Perkins with the very few touches he’s received. Perkins has 26 yards on 14 carries, a pitiful 1.9 yards a carry. Darkwa has 31 yards on six carries, an average of 5.2 yards per carry.
No one with a shred of football knowledge is going to confuse Darkwa with Emmitt Smith but giving him more touches could provide a spark to a Giants offense that needs something, anything, to get it going.
McAdoo’s play-calling is also a question mark, so much that some of the Giants’ faithful let out a torrent of boos during Monday night’s game. The best coaches tailor their offenses to the strengths of their players as opposed to fitting them into a system where they may not flourish.
He was credited for making the Giants’ offense better in 2015 before he got the head coaching job. McAdoo is still calling the plays. Perhaps it’s time for offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan to call plays. The problem with anyone who is prematurely labelled a genius in the NFL, they have difficulty ceding responsibility because they have a desire to show the world how smart they are.
The players rightfully deserve a share of the blame for the Giants’ 0-2 start. Before the season, they were predicted as a Super Bowl contender but now they (in the words of Jim Mora, Sr.), just want to win a game. At the same time, Reese and McAdoo also caused the Giants’ 0-2 start with their refusal to see the big picture.
There are still 14 games remaining and Super Bowls are not won on September 19. A team’s turnaround doesn’t begin with the players, it begins with the front office and the head coach.
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