The New York Giants have been going nowhere for too long and must embrace a rebuild.
The New York Giants are a lost franchise. Another losing season beckons and they are on course to miss out on the playoffs by a wide for another year. Well, unless something extraordinary happens in the NFC East.
Since the 2011 season, where the G-Men upset New England in another Super Bowl, Big Blue has only posted two winning seasons. In the last three seasons, they’ve gone 13-36. Two lost seasons under Pat Shurmur and a farcical year with Ben McAdoo have left the Giants lost in a sea of mediocrity.
The New York Giants are one of the most storied names in football. They are not the New York Jets; the Giants expect a competitive team every year. The Mara family has been involved for too long and has brought too much success for their team to mix it with the NFL’s lower class. But has that eagerness always to field a strong, competitive team cost them?
Spoiler alert; it has. The Giants are once again staring at another top-five pick in next year’s draft. Competitive teams don’t pick in the top five. Dave Gettleman has been tasked with an almost impossible job. He has had to move the team on from the Eli Manning era and turn an inherently flawed team into contenders.
The Giants’ problems go all the way back to the start of the last decade and, while they were able to bag a championship as one of the streakiest quarterbacks got hot like never before, the Giants still were not a good team.
The refusal to rebuild has cost the New York Giants and the NFL trade deadline can change course.
The mere thought that the Mara family thought they could keep ticking over at 9-7 while Manning got worse was laughable. I get it; no one wants to tank. But, unless you are an organization such as the Steelers or Patriots, rebuilding is necessary. They are now paying for missing on draft picks. Eli Apple, Paul Perkins, Ereck Flowers have all been big busts.
At the same time, the likes of Will Hernandez and Lorenzo Carter have yet to show any tangible improvement. Spending money or draft capital on veterans such as Golden Tate, Dion Lewis or Logan Ryan to get a three-win team that may win six games is a waste of time. The end goal has to be aiming for the playoffs and beyond. Merely surviving so that you can be a stale team next year is no good.
The New York Giants have been trying to compete for the last decade and they’ve had three winning seasons. Had they committed to a full reset, they may be in better shape for the next few years. Instead, again they have tried to be competitive this year, having brought in some veteran names.
The Giants only have five picks in next year’s draft. Ownership needs to decide whether general manager Dave Gettleman is the man as we advance; they have a superstar running back; they believe they have their quarterback. But they do not have the other cornerstone positions covered. The need for a middle linebacker, wide receiver, cornerback and the others still need a lot of work too.
Subsequently, the New York Giants must become big sellers as we near the 2020 NFL trade deadline. If they can grab picks for some of the tradeable assets they may have, it will put them in better stead for the draft and beyond. Yes, they may be a bad team for two or three years but they’ve been a bad team for a long time already. They’re just a bad team with no plan. At least with a full-blown rebuild; there is a plan.
There can be a future if they can get the roster younger and fresher and have the right GM in charge. They have the right coach, Joe Judge has been impressive in his manner and his benching of Andrew Thomas shows they are building the right culture. Now he needs time, the right picks, and for ownership to embrace the rebuild. It can be done but, if they refuse to do so, the Giants may be stuck swimming in a sea of mediocrity for a long time.