Three weeks after the Giants reacted to a report of a potential Ben McAdoo firing by claiming that he’d be on the job for the rest of the year, he’s out. The question remains whether he ever should have been in.
Hired from Green Bay to bring an unimaginative, non-creative, system-obsessed offense to New York, McAdoo did enough to be in the right place at the right time when ownership decided to fire Tom Coughlin, keep everyone else, and promote the offensive coordinator. Last year, McAdoo led the Giants to an unlikely playoff berth, seemingly securing his status for years to come.
But flaws that emerged with the offense late last year lingered, with the offense sputtering and McAdoo seeming to be less and less of a guy who gets it.
Is it really a surprise? Long before he decided to slather copious amounts of Brylcreem in his hair, McAdoo showed up at his introductory press conference wearing a grossly oversized suit. No matter the excuse (he’d apparently lost a lot of weight since last wearing the thing), the fact remained that his first impression with the New York media consisted of a poor impersonation of David Byrne.
Petty and superficial? Sure. Meaningful and significant as to the way he’s perceived inside and outside the organization? Absolutely.
Apart from the suit for 2016 and the choice of hairstyle for 2017, the ultimate evidence that McAdoo doesn’t get it comes from his ridiculously bungled benching of quarterback Eli Manning. McAdoo came off as smug and smirking when explaining the news last week to the media, and McAdoo then seemed to dispute co-owner John Mara’s account that it was McAdoo who decided how the message would be publicly delivered.
It became a low point for the organization. The fact that a franchise that prides itself on stability would fire McAdoo with four games left shows how badly things have gone.
Which brings me back to the real point of this piece: Shouldn’t Mara or co-owner Steve Tisch have realized at some point during multiple years of working with McAdoo that he’s not the right guy to coach the team? It’s a question that Mara and Tisch need to ask themselves -- and answer honestly -- before they make their next hire.
It’s now abundantly clear that McAdoo never should have been the last hire, and those who signed off on the move need to seriously question their capabilities before using those muscles again.