(This is the first in a four-part series by NJ Advance Media that will examine what’s wrong with the Giants and how they can fix the mess.)
Wellington Mara would sit in a corner during scouting meetings, a fly on the wall. He’d occasionally ask a question, but he was there mostly as an observer. He attended nearly every practice, and sneaked quietly into the locker room before and after important games. He owned the Giants, but he didn’t interfere. He often laughed at Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who gave frequent press conferences and named himself general manager. Wellington Mara spoke only when he thought it was necessary.
“Mr. Mara was always around,” said Glenn Parker, a Giants offensive lineman from 2000-01. “It was a family for the Maras. But they didn’t get in the way of stuff. They let things happen.”
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Once Mara took a less active role in the day-to-day decision-making in the 1970s — especially when general manager George Young was hired in 1979 — it took more than 25 years before he was motivated to step in. In 1999, the Giants had just lost 34-17 to the Vikings in the next-to-last game of the season, all but crushing their slim playoff hopes. The stands at Giants Stadium were half-empty. So Mara spoke to his team. He was angry. Even then, he was brief.
“If you aren’t willing to work,” Mara told players in that rare address, “I’ll do everything in my power to get you out of here.” Later, he summed it up for the media: “I guess basically my message was: ‘Shape up or ship out,’” he said.
The Giants finished 7-9 and gave coach Jim Fassel a one-year, prove-it extension. He took them to the Super Bowl the following season. Back then, a losing record was a reason to panic, but the Giants would kill for seven wins now. They have won seven games just once in the past eight years.
These aren’t Wellington Mara’s Giants anymore. They are co-owner John Mara’s — and this is a franchise in disarray. On Sunday, the Giants were embarrassed by the Eagles, 34-10. They’ve lost by double digits in five of the last six games. At 4-11, this once-proud franchise has lost at least 10 games for five straight seasons — and seven of the past eight.
Every department needs to be fumigated: Ownership and the front office have made bad decisions — from costly personnel to free Pepsi. Scouts, under VP Chris Mara, have screwed up draft picks and free agents. Coaches have failed to get the most out of the quarterback and high-paid talent, and an assistant coach has been fired midseason each year under head coach Joe Judge, who somehow has job security despite all of this and a 10-21 record.
Whether the Giants call it a firing or retirement, general manager Dave Gettleman is not coming back. He is to blame for a lot of the mess the Giants are in, but the problems go much deeper. Changing the GM will not be enough.
Some believe the Giants must aim higher: After a decade of blunders, maybe it’s time for John Mara to relinquish control of football operations.
“John is not like his Dad,” a former longtime Giants scout told NJ Advance Media, speaking on the condition of anonymity to allow him to speak freely. “Where Wellington would listen, he wouldn’t dictate. I think John dictates. Wellington was never like that. I think these guys [John and Chris Mara] have been involved literally their whole life, so they have their own answers for everything. They’ve done things the ‘Giant Way’ for so long. It might not be a bad idea to bring somebody in.”
John Mara, Wellington’s oldest child, won two Super Bowls early in his ownership, but his Giants haven’t even won a playoff game in a decade. Since their most recent championship, they are 61-98 — 22-57 since their last winning season in 2016. Mara whiffed on Gettleman. He swung and missed on head coaches Ben McAdoo and Pat Shurmur, with Judge looking like a possible strike three.
But what the Giants should do and what they will do have been at odds throughout John Mara’s recent reign of ineptitude. NJ Advance Media spoke to experts, former players, executives and scouts — some with ties to the Giants — and the overwhelming opinion was that John Mara likely will not give up control and hire a football czar to take over the most important decisions, like hiring a GM and coach.
One reason: Family members like Chris Mara and Tim McDonnell — his nephew and the Giants’ co-director of player personnel — hold prominent positions.
Early in the season, former NFL executive Mike Lombardi identified the Giants’ biggest problem: “John Mara is one of the nicest human beings on planet Earth,” he said. “Unfortunately, John Mara can’t have an honest conversation about his organization or evaluate himself.” The Giants, Lombardi said, are “stuck in time.”
His words seem prophetic: On Sunday, ESPN reported the Giants intend to bring back Judge and quarterback Daniel Jones in 2022, essentially forcing them upon whoever Mara ultimately hires as general manager. There are also rumors Mara wants to promote assistant GM Kevin Abrams — in the organization since 1999 — to Gettleman’s job.
“With Kevin, everything would be exactly the same,” the former Giants scout said.
Exactly the same.
That’s the Giants Way.
“Once you’ve had some level of success, sometimes change is hard, sometimes change is uncomfortable,” said Carl Banks, a Giants linebacker from the Bill Parcells heydays and currently the team’s radio analyst. “But there comes a time when you have to look at everything. I think they’re going to do that.”
***
Even in the face of constant strife over the last decade, Mara has trusted his instincts. When he’s evaluating the state of his franchise, he leans on trusted advisers. Outside the organization, that includes ex-Giants GM Ernie Accorsi and Bill Polian.
Accorsi is 80 and has been out of the NFL since 2006. Polian is 79, has been out since 2011 and infamously said before the 2018 NFL Draft that star Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson should play wide receiver.
Inside the Giants’ building, there are two front-office figures who have Mara’s ear: Chris Mara and McDonnell.
As one the longest-tenured people in the front office, Chris Mara was a member of the team’s player personnel department from 1979-93, and a scout during that stretch. In 2003, he rejoined the Giants as vice president of player evaluation and was promoted to vice president of player personnel in 2011.
“Chris used to say: ‘You don’t have to tell me I’m a member of the Lucky Sperm Club. I know it,’” the former Giants scout said.
McDonnell was promoted before this season to co-director of player personnel, after spending two years in the personnel department and six as a pro scout. “I don’t think (the promotion) is going to change much of what’s going on, but a new title is always appreciated,” McDonnell told NJ Advance Media over the summer.
McDonnell spent eight years working for Notre Dame’s football team, building close relationships with Giants defensive coordinator Patrick Graham and tight end Kyle Rudolph.
Chris Mara and McDonnell — especially Chris — have played a heavy hand in decision-making over the past decade. Chris Mara, according to a recent report, once rejected a potential free agent signing because the player’s agent called him an “a--hole.”
The former Giants scout believes Chris Mara has been considered for GM, too.
“I guarantee you Chris has been considered,” the scout said. “But if it doesn’t go the way they want, do you want to fire a Mara?”
Ultimately, though, being saddled with an unproven head coach and quarterback, along with the overbearing presence of a Mara in any prominent front office role could make the job less appealing for the best GM candidates, because it begs the question: How much power does the general manager actually have?
The scout said this has been an issue dating back to when Jerry Reese was general manager from 2007-17.
“The GM has been GM in name, but not necessarily in control,” the scout said. “I know there are people around the league who think the same thing. Was it Dave Gettleman that picked Judge, or was it Dave alongside Chris and John? They’ve been brought up in it where they’re insulated. John can take the heat because he’s got the title of owner, but you’re never going to hear Chris get any heat.
“So I think because of that, they’re free to do it without being held accountable, the way a Dave Gettleman or Jerry Reese is held accountable or any GM is held accountable. Because it’s going to fall on the GM. The perception is: ‘When Dave does something, is it totally Dave?’ That’s where I think they are.”
***
After his final Giants press conference, Tom Coughlin walked off stage. John Mara, who had just fired him, reached out to shake his hand. Coughlin stiffed him and kept walking, and the relationship has been strained ever since. Coughlin made his return to MetLife Stadium when his 2011 Super Bowl-winning team was honored at halftime of another brutal loss, 38-11 to the Rams, in October. During a halftime speech, he begged angry fans to trust Mara, despite all of his recent failures.
“The old adage ‘patience is a virtue’ is true,” he said. “Remember: It’s a long season.”
Patience has been one of Mara’s biggest problems. He’s admitted to hanging onto Eli Manning for too long. And he let Gettleman stick around as general manager for four full seasons, as he compiled a miserable 19-44 record and a list of mistakes and miscalculations longer than a CVS receipt.
After Coughlin was forced out by the Giants in 2015, he was hired in 2017 by the Jaguars as the executive vice president of football operations. He had all the power, and even the general manager, Dave Caldwell, reported to him. The Jaguars reached the AFC Championship Game in Coughlin’s first year. Coughlin was fired unceremoniously in 2019 by owner Shad Khan, who wanted to take back control. See the connection? Along with the Giants, the Jaguars are one of the most dysfunctional NFL franchises.
“Ultimate authority and ultimate responsibility rests with ownership,” said Amy Trask, the former Raiders CEO. “And ownership can delegate authority and delegate responsibility. But given that that delegation can be taken back at any time, ultimately authority and responsibility rests with ownership.”
Former Giants running back Tiki Barber doesn’t think the Giants need someone like Coughlin — or like Broncos president of football operations John Elway — to run things. They just need to hire the right general manager — and let him be the general manager.
“I don’t think he needs a football czar,” Barber said. “I just think he needs to hire the right general manager and then give him the power to make decisions. But you’ve got to have a plan. Right now, you can ask any Giants fan: ‘What’s the plan?’ And no one really has an idea on what to say. I think that’s probably the problem.”
When the Giants hired Gettleman in 2018, it was at the end of a search that never really felt like a search. Mara interviewed four candidates, three with ties to the organization: Gettleman, Abrams and Marc Ross, who was fired by Gettleman shortly after he became GM. The lone outsider was ESPN analyst Louis Riddick, considered a candidate for the job again. Riddick has criticized the Giants for “epic” mismanagement.
“You know why you need to cast a wider net?” Barber said. “The league has changed, man. The interpretation of what’s going to work has evolved. I feel like the Giants haven’t evolved enough to be there. I think [the new GM should be] someone who has very deep relationships around the league and is not singularly focused on one way of doing things.
“Because I think there’s a lot of collaboration in the NFL. I don’t know if the Giants are in on that, just because it’s all the same family. That’s the great thing about the Giants. It’s good and bad. Sometimes you get too into the family, as opposed to finding new ideas and innovation.”
When the late Al Davis — who owned and ran the Raiders from 1972-2011 — conducted searches for GMs or coaches, he’d interview as many people as possible, Trask said. He wasn’t even necessarily interested in hiring everyone he talked to — but he wanted to learn about their methods. That’s the benefit of casting a wide net.
“So even if he had no intention whatsoever in hiring someone, people were convinced that he interviewed them just to pick their brains,” Trask said. “I have differing views on that to some extent, but the point is: ‘OK, and?’ Getting more input, I don’t think is harmful. As a general rule, you’re going to benefit from more input.”
So maybe Mara won’t hire a football czar. But the consensus is that he should find someone new he can lean on, inside the Giants’ building — someone who isn’t a member of his own family.
“They’ve got to upgrade in their level of thinking,” said ESPN analyst Marcus Spears, a longtime NFL defensive lineman. “They’ve got to upgrade how they look at dudes that they want to come in and be GMs or head coaches. It’s a different time in the NFL. They are stagnant. They are not up to times in the NFL.
“And they are hamstringing themselves by having whatever ideology from ownership about how things are supposed to go. It’s time for you to recalibrate, upgrade, come up to speed, put yourself in a position to compete with what’s trending. If there was one word [to describe the Giants], stagnant would be the word. And if it’s a phrase: Stuck in their ways.”
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Zack Rosenblatt may be reached at zrosenblatt@njadvancemedia.com.
Darryl Slater may be reached at dslater@njadvancemedia.com.