What we have learned across the past two days is that the Giants’ presumed corporate credo that a coach must be allowed to finish whatever season he’s started, regardless of what actually happens between Labor Day and New Year’s Day, may be a kind-hearted notion but a wrong-headed conception.
If we are to believe John Mara’s version of events — and whatever flaws he may have as an owner, transparency has never been one of them — then he initiated this Quarterback Quandary that consumes his team. He suggested the team take a hard and complete look at what they had playing the position. And that is certainly his right.
He, too, took responsibility for what just about everybody believes was an absurd parlor game that went something like this: Let’s see if Eli will go for this off-the-hook-ridiculous play-for-a-half strategy.
Eli, to his credit, said “No, thank you.”
See, though: These are the kinds of things that bedevil coaches who should already have been fired, but who have been given the illusion that there is still something that can salvage them. It’s been an American anthem for close to 50 years now: Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. McAdoo has even less than nothing left to lose.
So he proves that old Kris Kristofferson lyric beyond the shadow of a doubt, because he doesn’t have enough spine (or any spine) remaining to tell his bosses, if it was their idea, how stupid it is.
And figures: If I do as I’m told, maybe they’ll forget to fire me.
Memo to McAdoo: That isn’t happening.
Memo to Giants fans, who for a solid month have been exchanging worried glances and asking themselves, What if we finish strong? Can 6-10 save his job? 5-11?: Mara and Steve Tisch have eyes, too, and ears; they have seen what a dysfunctional mess their team has become. By some accounts it would seem Mara has been personally answering more letters this week than Kris Kringle.
Sometimes you can wonder if your owners care.
In this case, you needn’t. They care. They know what has to be done.
They just haven’t done it yet, and because they’ve tried to adhere to Wellington Mara’s general rule to not scapegoat a coach (though the Patriarch himself wavered from that rule twice in his time running the team), they’ve allowed the face of this team, for the rest of the year, to be McAdoo’s.
And that’s already yielded an awful mess.
McAdoo wasn’t equipped to be a head coach, as he’s emphasized week after hapless week this year, and he certainly has neither the heft, the charisma nor the gravitas to be the team’s most public visage.
Ben McAdoo telling the world that he believes Geno Smith gives the Giants the best chance to win Sunday afternoon in Oakland? That’s Humorless Lt. Hauk (Bruno Kirby) in “Good Morning Vietnam” declaring: “Sir, in my heart, I know I’m funny.”
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Every day another layer of slapstick forms on top of another, and McAdoo remains in the middle of it all, sounding more and more like a parody of a football coach than an actual one. He has become as toxic as any coach or manager in recent memory. Maybe Isiah Thomas inspired this level of fury by the faithful, but it took a bit longer than two years.
Maybe you need to go back to Rich Kotite. He was another one who got to ride out a whole season when his career was left for dead around Week 9.
“We played HARD” was Kotite’s relentless mantra that drove Jets fans truly psychotic by the end, same as “Take a look at the tape,” has gotten for Giants fans. Of course, by comparison, Kotite had it easy: When he replaced Neil O’Donnell with Frank Reich (and later Glenn Foley), there was barely a yawn, let alone a symphony of public outrage.
By the time Kotite was fired, it almost felt like a form of professional euthanasia, one that should have been done weeks before, if one wanted to be truly merciful. Sound familiar?