Giants Fire Ben McAdoo And Jerry Reese
Benny With The Good Hair is officially Benny With The Pink Slip (and a key card that doesn’t work). Giants ownership made their statement very loudly today: If you make Eli Manning cry, your ass will get fired. Giants fans finally got their pound of flesh after, to quote a phrase, a Bananaland week. Now we get treated to countless Ben McA(fecal matter) tweets and Ben & Jerrys photoshops.
I think the way the entire Eli situation went down was a bigger story than the Giants benching their aging veteran quarterback to get a look at younger QBs as the franchise looks to go another direction. But the fact remains McAdoo’s offense was absolute trash during his tenure as head coach and his inability TO CUT HIS FUCKING HAIR AFTER IT WAS CLEAR THAT THE SLICKED BACK LOOK WAS JINXED was too much to overcome a coach that went 11-5 and took the Giants to the playoffs last season. If that haricut didn’t work for Ricky Vaughn in Major League 2 or Gordon Bombay in Mighty Ducks 2, it sure as fuck wasn’t going to work for Ben McAdoo in real life. I will proudly admit that I loved Benny With The Good Hair with all my heart and I stand by it. Dude was a goofy-looking, giant playsheet cooking, viral video showing son of a gun. But that man is dead and gone like Anakin Skywalker and was replaced by that evil haircut. Wall Street McAdoo took over during the summer and it has been curtains for the Giants ever since. And it’s hard not to wonder just what the world would look like if the Eagles had hired Ben McAdoo instead of Doug Pederson after they interviewed McAdoo following the 2015 season. My guess is Giants fans as a whole would be a lot happier.
Reese has been in the fans’ bullseye for years now and his home run draft picks like Odell Beckham and Landon Collins couldn’t save his inning-ending double play draft picks like Ereck Flowers and Eli Apple. You can’t overlook two Super Bowls but you also can’t overlook one playoff appearance and no playoff wins over the last six seasons either. The Giants devolved into a fucking circus reminiscent of the other team in MetLife Stadium and ownership finally had enough. Not sure why benching Eli Manning unceremoniously was the thing that spurred this. You think ownership would know something like that was coming and could throw their body in front of it if they disagreed with it. But again, the famed “Giants Way” died during the Josh Brown fiasco last year. And truth be told, Eli being the sacrificial lamb almost seems perfect. Yeah the streak died along the way, but Eli somehow being responsible for getting rid of the two boogeymen of the Giants only cements his legacy with the team.
Now Spags gets his chance to coach the Giants, granted in a much different situation than he would have ever wanted. An interim coach with few weapons on offense, a diminished team on defense, and a fan base that isn’t as angry but still fed up. In the end, this was all ugly but necessary. After years of half measures, ownership finally went with a full measure. Now the Giants have a chance to reboot the franchise with a high draft pick, a new coach, and hopefully a new franchise quarterback like they did back in 2004. And despite the rollercoaster rides along the way, things worked out pretty well twice.
Luckily all this news broke early enough that Mike Francesa can adequately work himself into a frenzy for a 1:05 PM ET Ether Bomb. Can’t wait.