The New York Giants have 11 games remaining in the 2021 season — which is 11 games too many if you were to poll the entire football-watching world.
The NFL’s cruel twist of fate has only extended Big Blue suffering an extra week this year after expanding the campaign to 17 games. They are already 1-5 and coming off the heels of a 38-11 drubbing at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams. The Giants have now lost their last two games by 24 and 27 points in a season that, somehow, could be the worst in a miserable five-year stretch that has seen the team go 18-51.
My, my, how the mighty have fallen.
There was a time when the Giants brand was synonymous with first-class. After 15 seasons of irrelevance from 1964-1978, the NFL saved the Giants by forcing Wellington and Tim Mara — who could not agree on the right candidate — to hire George Young as their general manager.
In Year 3 of his tenure, the Giants were a playoff team.
He brought on Bill Parcells as head coach, excelled in the draft by selecting the foundation of two Super Bowl-winning teams like Phil Simms, Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks. He brought respectability back to the franchise and was still able to maintain it when the core of those Super Bowl XXI and XXV teams departed and when the team hit its rough patch in the mid-1990s.
Young drafted Tiki Barber, Amani Toomer, Michael Strahan, and Jesse Armstead, key players in the Giants’ resurgence when Young handed the reins over to Ernie Accorsi, who only built on his predecessor’s work.
The Giants won two more Super Bowls behind Eli Manning and the core that Accorsi had built — though Jerry Reese was the benefactor of those triumphs after Accorsi left in 2006. It was also Reese who began the nosedive that is still being experienced today.
After winning Super Bowl XLVI, the Giants have not returned to the playoffs; this year marking the 10th-straight postseason-less season barring some sort of divine miracle that simply will not happen.
His inability to build a contending team has passed down to current general manager Dave Gettleman, who for some reason, continues to have the privilege of being this team’s general manager since coming on ahead of the 2018 season.
Among his first batch of empty promises was guaranteeing a competent offensive line would be built.
Four years later, and it still hasn’t happened after he whiffed on draft pick and used big-time money for duds. Yes, Andrew Thomas looks like he’s turned the corner but you all know that old adage about a blind squirrel — especially when the Giants had a top-5 pick in a 2020 draft littered with top-tier offensive-line talent.
Gettleman’s head coaches haven’t helped. Pat Shurmer was a disaster and Joe Judge isn’t helping things along any further given how bad this team has been this season. He’s only going to get more heat with the way he kept quarterback Daniel Jones in Sunday’s beatdown against Los Angeles despite there being nothing to play for and the passer just a week removed from suffering a scary-looking concussion just one week prior against Dallas.
A defense that made major strides under coordinator Patrick Graham last season is getting torched this time around. Jason Garrett’s offense looks like it couldn’t hang 30 points on an SEC squad.
Saquon Barkley can’t stay healthy. The offensive line is ransacked by injuries, including Thomas. Kenny Golladay is hurt. Kadarius Toney picked up an ankle injury. Blake Martinez is out for the season.
But that isn’t an excuse for a football team to perform as the Giants have so far in 2021. And nothing is going to change unless this whole entire thing is torn down. So, why should we waste any more time with the product that John Mara, Steve Tisch, and Dave Gettleman are continuously forcing down our throats?
Talk to me when the house is cleaned out.
