Giants Move on with a new coach
By Rich Mancuso
Ben McAdoo was the center of attention Friday morning when he was officially announced as the 17th head coach in franchise history of the New York Giants. So the Giants, after another disappointing season have moved on from the Tom Coughlin coaching era.
But the center of attention was still about Coughlin at the Giants facilities in East Rutherford New Jersey. After two Super Bowl championships and 12 years at the helm, Coughlin resigned last week, though it can be comprehended more that he was asked to step aside because there has been failure, 19-29 the last three years.
Now it is all in the hands of McAdoo, and at 38 years of age the second youngest head coach in the National Football League. He is not the outsider and quarterback Eli Manning is content because McAdoo handled the offense under Coughlin the past two years.
The task will be the same for McAdoo, as it was with his predecessor and that is win and get this historic franchise back to the postseason. But to do that, as co-owner John Mara said, “Now it is up to us to turn it around.” But to get back on the winning track the Giants have to rid what Mara says, “was an organizational failure on our part.”
So the attention was about Coughlin, a coach that worked around this organizational failure. As always, you can’t fire the entire roster so the head coach becomes the culprit. In defense of Coughlin, who to the Giants hierarchy was the failure, Mara was not going to be the bad guy,
“This is not about blaming Tom,” he said on a day where the entire attention should have been about his new coach. “This was an organizational failure on our part starting with me and working it way down. We all have to take some blame. Now it is up to us to turn it around.”
Mara answered his own questions and said, “Where have we made mistakes in the draft? Why have we missed on guys? Are our standards too rigid? Are they not rigid enough? Let’s look at that and figure out what we need to improve. Do we need to make some changes? That will continue to be a discussion we have.”
And the discussion to end the Coughlin era and make the change was obvious. Organizational failures usually come at the top, but in sports the changes come as to who is leading the helm.
Mara did say, the Giants have to get better in order to get their fifth Super Bowl trophy. And that task now goes to McAdoo who has possibly a top three wide receiver, Odell Beckham Jr. and the Giants expect wide out Victor Cruz to be at full strength and back to health next season.
“I think this guy has everything that he needs to be a successful head coach and we got to help him in getting better personnel,” Mara said about his new coach.
So is McAdoo the proper coach that will be successful in turning this around? He said Friday, “ I am the right man for the job. I’ve been groomed for this opportunity by Super Bowl winning coaches, players and organizations. We’re going to assemble a staff and a locker room that the fans can rally around. We’re going to set our jaw, and we’re going to get to work.”
And that work begins immediately preparing for the free agency period and NFL draft in April. The blame game is over with Mara and company moving ahead, and the Tom Coughlin name will resurface if he decides to take a job in the organization. Also the time is sure to come when Coughlin gets his name enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame, and there will a day at Met Life Stadium in “The Ring of Honor.”
For now it is the name of Ben McAdoo that the Giants and their fans will know. He will be under review as much as the plays on the field, and if there is failure you wonder how longer the tenure will last?
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