Yeah, Giants fans aren’t happy with their team
Fans of the New York Giants aren’t happy.
Listen to the boos raining down from MetLife Stadium and that much is clear. Take a look around the comments sections here, and the point is driven home like a nail through the forehead. Pretty much every fan of the Giants is some level of disgusted.
It was widely expected that Daniel Jones would be benched following a disappointing season culminating his his poor performance against the Carolina Panthers. That happened, and then Jones requested his release, which the Giants granted.
Now the Giants’ quarterback room consists of Tommy DeVito, Drew Lock, and Tim Boyle.
The team decided to start second year quarterback Tommy DeVito against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, ahead of primary backup Drew Lock, and the team turned in an embarrassing performance in their 30-7 blowout.
Hence the aforementioned disgust.
In the wake of all that, we asked the Big Blue View community whether you thought firings were in order.
The majority of Giants fans, 51%, are in favor of firing everyone and starting over from scratch.
Doing so would mark the third time in seven years (since Dec. 4, 2017) that the Giants have completely cleaned house. There’s no doubt that both Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll have made mistakes.
The feeling here is that Schoen’s biggest issue is in evaluating and weighing risk. The Giants’ front office has made a number of calculated risks under Schoen, and each of them have blown up in his face. Daboll, meanwhile, has seemed to struggle with the “CEO” aspect of the job. He has had an… inconsistent handle on managing the overall flow of the game, not to mention managing the various “departments” underneath him. The messy divorce with Wink Martindale as well as the apparent exile of Mike Kafka stand out.
The second largest group of respondents, 29%, is in favor of patience. And they have a point as well.
Schoen has assembled a roster that should be competitive. The Giants’ offense has a solid offensive line (with Andrew Thomas), and dangerous skill position players. The defense has talent at every level and an encouraging mix of veterans in their prime and talented young players.
Brian Daboll has players running open on most plays, while Shane Bowen’s defense is among the NFL’s leaders in sacks and the league’s seventh-ranked passing defense. There’s a foundation to work with there.
The quarterback position is the foundation of the team, and Schoen and Daboll had to deal with an inherited quarterback in Daniel Jones. Jones is, by all accounts, a great guy. He works hard, he’s obviously tough, and he’s well liked in the locker room. But it’s also possible that his ceiling is that of the best backup in the NFL. If so, that puts a limit on what Schoen and Daboll were able to do with him helming the squad. We’ve seen — with the Houston Texans, Washington Commanders, and Miami Dolphins — just how transformative having The Guy at quarterback can be.
The 29% likely believe that John Mara should afford Schoen and Daboll the opportunity he denied Jerry Reese: To try and find their quarterback.
Maybe things will finally click if they can get the passer who fits their vision for the team.
The remaining subsections of fans likely fall into the above categories: Brian Daboll should go because of his mismanagement or Schoen should go because he’s failed to properly evaluate risk and get value for players he never intended to re-sign.
Ultimately, the future of the Giants’ franchise is in John Mara’s hands. He may want continuity and to allow Schoen and Daboll to finish what they’ve started, but his hand may also be forced if the locker room gives up on the team.
With all that in mind, it isn’t much of a surprise that only 21% of the Big Blue View community thinks that the team is headed in the right direction.
This is almost certainly a response to the deflating performance from the team against the Buccaneers.
There was almost a catharsis last week following the benching of Jones, as 42 percent of respondents believed the team to be headed in the right direction.
One bad loss later, that percentage has been cut in half. As we saw with the 51 percent of fans who want to fire everyone, there’s likely little faith that the current regime can get the quarterback position right — or perhaps that the right quarterback isn’t even available this year.
Right now, the biggest hope is that the team at least shows some life against the Cowboys.
The Giants are 3.5-point underdogs on the road against a bad and injured Cowboys team, per FanDuel sports book. Of course, the Giants are injured, bad, and seemingly adrift at sea themselves, and just 18 percent of survey respondents believe that they’ll cover the spread.
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