There are at least a few Giants who want Ben McAdoo to sink with this ship.
The leaks have started spreading, and the head coach responsible for a team that had Super Bowl aspirations two months ago and is now 1-7 is beginning to hear the whispers that follow around any losing coach.
“McAdoo has lost this team,” an anonymous Giant told ESPN in a text last week, shortly after McAdoo suspended Janoris Jenkins for an unexcused absence from practice. “[McAdoo is] going 80% on Saturday’s before we get on a plane, it’s wild. Changed our off day. He’s dishing out fines like crazy. Suspended two of our stars when we need them most. Throws us under the bus all the time.
“He’s run us into the ground and people wonder why. We’ve been getting got.”
That wasn’t the lone dissenting voice. Another player added to ESPN: “Guys are giving up on the season and nothing’s being done. Guys just don’t care anymore.”
No one has gone on record and said the players are no longer responding to or playing for McAdoo.
McAdoo has disputed the notion that he’s lost the team, saying even in the 51-17 home humiliation to the Rams on Sunday, “At the end of the day, the players did not quit. They had fight in ’em and everything we did was fixable.”
Yet, each week seems to find a new low for the Giants, who also have shown red flags off the field. Jenkins, who was reinstated this week, was only the latest player to be disciplined. Cornerback Eli Apple and running back Paul Perkins missed the same practice and were fined, though they had alerted the team to their whereabouts.
Last month, cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was suspended for a game that McAdoo attributed to four separate incidents, which seemed to culminate with DRC throwing his helmet and leaving the sideline for the locker room during a game against the Chargers.