GIANTS RECEIVE A SAD NEWS THEIR HEAD COACH WAS FIRED BECAUSE OF ……
First Ben McAdoo lost games. Then he lost his locker room. Then, just days after a Thanksgiving loss to Washington, McAdoo made his most controversial move yet — benching starting quarterback Eli Manning in a desperate attempt to save his job.
After that, there was no going back.
The Giants fired their second-year head coach on Monday, according to Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network, ending his tenure halfway through one of the worst seasons in franchise history. His Week 13 loss to the Raiders leaves the Giants at 2-10, tied for the second-worst record in the NFL.
“Steve Tisch and I met after the game yesterday and agreed to talk this morning, which we did,” owner John Mara told the media on Monday. “We agreed that wholesale changes needed to be made to this organization to get us back to the team that we expect to be. We also agreed that it was pointless to wait any longer to make these changes.”
General manager Jerry Reese was fired Monday too as part of the organizational house cleaning.
Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo will take over as the interim head coach. “I met with Steve Spagnuolo after these meetings,” Mara said. “I asked him to serve as the interim head coach and to also be a candidate to be the head coach after the season if he chooses to do so. He agreed to do that.”
With just four games left in the season, the Giants could have easily waited to make the move after Week 17. Firing McAdoo won’t fundamentally alter their season now, but it might appease fans fed up with the team’s direction — especially Manning’s benching — this season.
“But, maybe a change attracts a bigger crowd for the last few home games. Could be a show of goodwill to the fans,” a Giants source told ESPN’s Josina Anderson on Monday morning.
So how did it get to this point for McAdoo and the Giants? What happens next?
Suspensions to key starters Janoris Jenkins and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie had raised suspicions about McAdoo’s status among the team and whether he could still command the respect of his players. ESPN’s Josina Anderson confirmed his strained relationships with a damning report that ultimately spelled the end of his time in New York.
“McAdoo has lost this team,” an unnamed player told Anderson Wednesday. “He’s got us going 80 percent on Saturdays before we get on a plane to play a game, it’s wild. Changed our off day. He’s dishing out fines like crazy. Suspended two of our stars when we need them most. Throws us under the bus all the time. He’s ran us into the ground and people wonder why we’ve been getting got.”
Even after a historic 51-17 loss to the Rams in Week 9, McAdoo maintained that everything was fine. After and a humiliating defeat at the hands of the previously winless 49ers in Week 10, he said he wasn’t embarrassed by the loss. McAdoo refused to acknowledge that his team — particularly the defense — appeared to quit on him.
Things got better briefly with an upset win over the Chiefs in Week 11, but the Giants were humiliated again a week later. And that’s when the move that will come to define the Giants 2017 season happened.