Had this been almost any other organization, Ben McAdoo might have already been looking for a job. But the New York Giants have yet to remove their head coach from his position despite a 1-8 record that was made worse after a Week 10 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, who entered the game 0-9 on the season.
The team looks as though they’ve quit on their head coach while he remains defiant and, at times, angsty with the media.
It’s an almost unbelievable turn of events for a team that was expected to challenge for the NFC East division title entering this season.
It would be difficult to pin all of the blame on McAdoo considering he is working with a depleted roster that wasn’t built correctly in the first place.
Quarterback Eli Manning is without his top two receivers Odell Bekcham Jr. and Brandon Marshall for the season while the offensive line has been ineffective at protecting the veteran passer. The largely unchanged offensive line is the brainchild of general manager Jerry Reese, who decided not to acquire new blocking talent during the offseason.
But to see a team that is one of the biggest embarrassments of the NFL this season playing uninspired football against one of the worst teams in the league falls on the coach.
And most of the time, it gets you a pink slip.
But the Giants are an organization that rarely change coaches during the middle of a season.
In fact, the last time it happened was in 1976 when Bill Arnsparger was canned after an 0-7 start to make way for John McVay, who finished the season at 3-4.
Don’t expect the Giants to break that streak, at least for this week, according to SNY’s Ralph Vacchiano:
Ben McAdoo will do his regular Monday conference call with the media at 5 p.m. I assume they wouldn’t let him do that if he was fired, so carry on with your day.
— Ralph Vacchiano (@RVacchianoSNY) November 13, 2017
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport shared a statement from Giants owners John Mara and Steve Tisch, further cementing the fact that McAdoo isn’t going anywhere for the time being:
“Ben McAdoo is our head coach and has our support. We are in the midst of an extremely disappointing season. Our performance this year, particularly the past two weeks, is inexcusable and frustrating. While we appreciate that our fans are unhappy with what has occurred, nobody is more upset than we are.
“Our plan is to do what we have always done, which is to not offer a running commentary on the season. It is our responsibility to determine the reasons for our poor performance and at the end of the year, we will evaluate the 2017 season in its entirety and make a determination on how we move forward.”
It looks like the Giants could just be mailing it in this season and will blow things up come 2018.
