With one curious move that felt like an April Fool’s joke arriving five months late (or seven months early), the Giants just ladled a little extra pressure on two of their most prominent players, both of whom were already going to have a blinding spotlight on them anyway.
Davis Webb, whom the previous administration burned a third-round pick on 17 months ago and who played respectably across this preseason, was cut. Alex Tanney, who is 30 years old and has played in exactly one NFL game in seven years, is the presumptive backup quarterback.
That means:
1) It is now imperative, if not essential, that Eli Manning, who is 37 years old, remain in good health for another year. He has artfully avoided devastating injury during his first 14 seasons in the league, which means he is either a) extremely indestructible; or b) extremely lucky; or c) extremely due. The Giants are gambling it isn’t c).
2) What was already down as the biggest shadow certain to dog Saquon Barkley during his career just became a little longer, and a little darker. It was presumed that one of the reasons Dave Gettleman opted not to use the second pick in last spring’s draft on a quarterback — besides the severe case of puppy love he contracted whenever he saw tape of Barkley toting a football at Penn State — was the notion that the Giants believed that in Webb they had an able backup for Eli, and possibly a guy good enough to be their quarterback of the future.
And, oh yes: The interrogation lamp is now affixed a little more closely to Gettleman’s eyes, too. Give the Giants’ GM this much: He certainly isn’t afraid to be wrong. He is unaffected by conventional wisdom, and clearly unmoved by the fact that he has ended his honeymoon period quickly. But it’s one thing to not fear making mistakes.
It’s another to actually avoid them.
His players can make Gettleman look awfully smart awfully quick. If Manning looks as sharp starting Sunday as he did in his brief August glimpses, that would help. If Barkley’s remarkable gifts translate seamlessly from the Big Ten East to the NFC East, that would be even better.
What’s funny is: The most disposable player for the Giants for most of the last 14½ years — from the moment Kurt Warner reluctantly passed the baton to Manning 10 games into the 2004 season until Geno Smith’s brief time as a promoted understudy — has been the backup quarterback.
In between, Tim Hasselbeck, Jared Lorenzen, Anthony Wright, David Carr, Sage Rosenfels, Curtis Painter, Ryan Nassib, Josh Johnson combined — COMBINED — to throw 89 times, complete 54 of them, and toss three touchdowns. In the meantime Manning was 4,319-for-7,220 with 334 TDs.
So in any of those years, the Giants could easily have gone with someone like Alex Tanney out of Monmouth — the one in Illinois, not the one down the Jersey Shore — and it barely would have registered. In any of those years they could’ve let Kyle Lauletta, the other QB who made the team, idle as the backup even though he played at FCS Richmond and almost certainly needs an advanced period of development. Perhaps Eli is destined to enjoy a football life separate and apart from both his brothers, both of whose careers ultimately had a harsh reckoning of pain.
If not …
Well, speaking frankly, if Manning goes down for an extended period of time, the Giants would be staring at the abyss anyway, even if you happened to think much more highly of Davis Webb than either Gettleman or coach Pat Shurmur clearly do. But what if he merely sprains an ankle, or dings a rib, or finds that simply willing his way through plantar fasciitis or a shoulder dislocation isn’t the degree-of-difficulty fun that it was in his 20s?
You feel OK handing the reins for a month to Alex Tanney, that old Monmouth Fighting Scot, who did break the Division III passing record with 14,249 passing yards in four years but entered the league as an undrafted free agent with Kansas City in 2012 and has been picked up and cut loose by the Chiefs, Cowboys, Browns, Buccaneers, Titans, Bills, Colts, Titans (for an encore)? It was in Tennessee where he got his one taste of game action, going 10-for-14 with a TD pass in a loss to Indianapolis that closed out a 3-13 season.
Gettleman does. Shurmur does. If Manning stays upright, and if Barkley makes like Emmitt Smith, they might even be right about this. But that wouldn’t be where the smart money is right now.