The New York Giants shocked the NFL on Tuesday evening: Eli Manning is being downgraded to backup, and New York wants to test the backups of his long-standing franchise quarterback in a long lost season. On the surface, this could make sense – but a closer look reveals a potentially far-reaching and, above all, pointless error. A commentary by SPOX editor Adrian Franke.
Geno Smith? Seriously? Geno Smith is supposed to be the answer now? Or Davis Webb? Since the Giants don’t have any Run Game, an at best holey offensive line and a wide-receiver corps over much of the season, where the number of missed starter players will soon be approaching the number of catches?
Not to mention the fact that coach Ben McAdoo has never made any serious progress in terms of the scheme to cover the problem areas. We are still waiting for the first 30-point game since McAdoo took over the team as head coach.
The Giants’ decision to put Manning on the bench is as surprising as it is wrong. Of course it’s a lost season and of course Manning doesn’t play as solid any more. The main problem, however, is by no means the main problem in view of the above-mentioned construction sites and the extremely wavering appearances of the Defense, which have drifted away to the point of listlessness.
If a team shouldn’t feel compelled to test its backup quarterbacks, it’s the Giants. We all know what Geno Smith can and cannot do. The 27-year-old is not the long-term quarterback answer, you don’t have to be an expert for that.
And Webb? Why test Webb now? The rookie’s college tape shows a player who will need a lot of time to lead an NFL offensive against NFL defenders before he can be trusted. Webb is a third round pick, which is still under contract for a total of $3.5 million up to and including 2020. So it’s not like the Giants are running out of time here.
Want to say: If the team bosses really did agree on their franchise quarterback in this year’s draft, neither Webb nor Smith should let them wait a second to draft this quarterback. The argument to look at what you have behind Eli in a lost season simply doesn’t count.
Rather, the fact that Smith is now expected to play a few games before Webb is used – remember: we only have five matchdays left – indicates that it’s a short-term decision. Otherwise, Webb could have been introduced earlier in training. Or is McAdoo really, to use his words,”eager to see genius play”?
No, McAdoo is hoping that if Webb in particular shows positive approaches, his more than shaky chair will hold. After all, the team bosses have approved the decision to saw off Manning now.
On the other hand, it’s also a decision that continues to draw the image that Giants fans have received this season from McAdoo in the same style. The 40-year-old seems to be overwhelmed when it comes to team leadership, to say the least, but a few weeks ago he had already criticized Manning in public, without any need for public criticism, while he was fighting at the same time as his half-commencing-secondary.
This picture is a factor that should not be underestimated if McAdoo remains. Players speak to each other, and a coach with the reputation McAdoo has earned over the course of the season makes hiring courted free agents more difficult in one fell swoop.
Not to mention the fact that Odell Beckham, the most important and formative Giants player in 2018, is entering his final year of contract after both sides were unable to agree on a new deal before the current season. The Manning dismantling with a potentially unclear and, in the worst case scenario, catastrophic quarterback situation in 2018 would make the talks with Beckham even more difficult.
And the Giants won’t even get into a quarterback competition like that. On the one hand, because the franchise bosses don’t operate like that, but on the other hand because New York is in the lower midfield in terms of cap space for 2018. That would only change if, contrary to what McAdoo said, Manning were to leave after the season. And even then they would still be clearly behind teams like Cleveland, the Jets and Washington.
Farewell to a well-deserved franchise quarterback, who won two titles with the team and left his mark on it for more than a decade, is never easy. We are all waiting to see how the Patriots do it with Tom Brady after the Colts and Peyton Manning met with the serious injury and Andrew Luck.
McAdoo may have stressed that this is not necessarily Manning’s end with the Giants – the mood in New York and the statements of various internal sources and insiders suggest otherwise. McAdoo’s statement is more likely to come from the fact that Manning has a no-trade clause in his contract. In other words, if New York Manning doesn’t release Manning with a dead cap hit of over 12 million, it’s up to Manning himself whether he actually wants to change and sign elsewhere.
The chaos of the current season will thus continue to accompany Giants fans into the coming year. Regardless of the fact that McAdoo’s approach on and off the pitch should not allow him to keep his job.