New York Giants: Ben McAdoo now coaching for his job

New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo is now coaching for his job during the second half of what is a lost season for Big Blue.

A head coach that guides a team to an 11-win season isn’t supposed to be on the hot seat ten months after, but that’s exactly where New York Giants coach Ben McAdoo finds himself weeks ahead of Thanksgiving. Everything and more that could’ve gone wrong for McAdoo and his side has gone against Tom Coughlin’s successor, and he can no longer avoid criticism for what was deemed to be a contender flopping so badly during the first half of a lost campaign.

Neither McAdoo nor general manager Jerry Reese can be blamed for the injury plague that infected the club during the early portions of the season. Wide receivers Odell Beckham Jr., Brandon Marshall and Sterling Shepard were all sidelined, and both Beckham and Marshall were lost for the remainder of the year well before the bye week. It’s also worth noting Reese, not McAdoo, built New York’s lackluster, and often awful, offensive line.

Defeats happen, but McAdoo is taking losses away from the playing field. In short, his locker room is clearly pulling away from him. Defensive back Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie earning himself a suspension a few weeks ago clearly meant nothing to teammates, as cornerbacks Eli Apple and Janoris Jenkins (allegedly) found themselves in their coach’s doghouse this fall. We can only guess the next time Jenkins will play following what the club is calling an indefinite suspension.

McAdoo, alone, isn’t responsible for this dumpster-fire of a season. Apologists could argue he, like fans and customers, is a victim of unfortunate circumstances that would sink even a Hall of Fame coach. That’s fair to a point. Expectations needed to be adjusted the second McAdoo’s training camp offense became nothing more than a fantasy lineup utilized in this year’s edition of Madden.

With each week that seemingly brings with it additional evidence the Giants are more dysfunctional than they ever were under the previously mentioned Coughlin, discussions about giving McAdoo at least one more year to right the ship become increasingly difficult to formulate. Where are the leaders inside the locker room who will rise to the defense of a coach unquestionably on the hot seat? Who will fight to keep the team’s structure intact past the end of December?

Quarterback Eli Manning isn’t getting any younger. He turns 37 years old in January, and there are signs the zip on his fastball isn’t what it was even a year ago. Logic suggests Manning’s best, and maybe only, chance to win a third Super Bowl is with McAdoo leading the charge. Manning routinely says only the right things during interviews and press conferences, but he and those around him need to do more talking on football fields beginning this weekend.

The Giants are 1-6 and going nowhere fast, and no closed-door meetings or player-only huddles will alter that harsh reality. Nobody can or should expect the Giants to win more than a handful of contests, at most, over the next nine weeks. Still, there need to be some signs over the next two months the players want McAdoo to hang around beyond the 2017 campaign.

Say whatever you will about former New York Jets (and Buffalo Bills) head coach Rex Ryan. Ryan was a flawed strategist in numerous ways, and his inability to develop a young quarterback ultimately cost him his tenure with Gang Green. His players fought, scratched and clawed to keep his job safe for as long as possible until the writing on the wall could no longer be ignored.

Where’s that type of passion among Big Blue players? What reasons do fans have to make journeys to MetLife Stadium to watch what will probably be losses? McAdoo faces the hardest challenge of his Giants career, to date, in answering those questions. Preparing for a postseason showdown versus the Green Bay Packers is a cakewalk compared to the task facing him heading into the first full weekend of November.

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Players only owe a coach so much. It’s on a coach to get the best out of his athletes and to do whatever possible to instill a sense of admiration and respect during the highest of highs and lowest and lows. McAdoo is building a resume to keep his job past this season starting this Sunday when the Giants host the Los Angeles Rams. That piece of paper is currently blank.

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