(David Pokress/Sportsday Wire)
In a perfect world, Tom Coughlin would have rode off into the sunset after Super Bowl 50 and today’s press conference to introduce Ben McAdoo would be happening a month from now.
Of course, this isn’t a perfect world.
But even after two seasons of six wins a piece, the Giants went ahead with their succession plan, promoting their offensive coordinator to head coach.
“Obviously I watched him for two years, had a certain familiarity with him, so I guess you could say he was the favorite going in,” said Giants president John Mara. “We talked to six guys and I meant what I said before, I was really taken aback at how impressive they all were.”
Mara said the familiarity with the organization gave McAdoo the edge over other candidates.
“I’ve been able to watch him for two years,” Mara said. “I loved what he said, he had a really good grasp of what we had on our team, what we needed to improve on, and a great vision going forward.”
The biggest question is if McAdoo can solve the $64,000 question. Can he bring the Giants back to the playoffs?
Coughlin was able to inspire the team in his own way. However, he always had injury problems and a lack of talent on one side of a ball. Even with that, the Giants were competitive. They lost a number of games, though, in the last minute. So you have to wonder if McAdoo makes the Giants eight minutes better throughout the season? Can he make the team closeout games?
“Our theme moving forward this year is evolution, not revolution,” McAdoo said. “We’re going to have an opportunity to carry something over, some things we won’t. We know more about each other now than we had when I got here and we’re going to build off things we do well and work on fixing the things we don’t do well.”
So how is he going to do that?
“We’re going to go back and a big part of what we’re going to do here coming up and moving forward is taking a look back at last season, studying each game and going back and studying each situation, taking a look at what we can do better in all three phases to fix the problem,” he said. “And once we do fix the problem, we’ll address it in the practice schedule, we’ll practice those situations and we’ll take that rearview mirror we’ll rip it off, throw it in the back seat and look out the windshield.”
McAdoo will have an advantage going into the offseason. The Giants will have money to spend in free agency and a general manager on the firing line to prove he hasn’t lost it. They will need a strong draft and also will need key additions on both sides of the ball.
It doesn’t matter who coaches the team. Without the players, the Giants are going nowhere.
If Reese can add enough to the defense and McAdoo can reverse a Giant trend of losing players to injury, then maybe McAdoo can lead the Giants back to the promise land.
Otherwise, this succession plan will be more of the same and Big Blue will continue to spin its wheels.
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