It is the Jets, of course, who offer the cautionary tale of ownership miscalculation that can foster dysfunction and debilitate a franchise.
As another franchise-rattling decision looms for the John Mara-Steve Tisch Giants on the respective or collective fates of Pat Shurmur and Dave Gettleman, they will have to weigh the benefits of cleaning house or not cleaning house.
The smart money has Shurmur cleaning out his office on Black Monday, but scuttlebutt persists that 5-11 and 4-11 could sweep Gettleman out as well.
Every organization operates differently, of course, and the Giants under the Mara watch have long kept the football decision-making in the hands of general managers they trust implicitly and prefer keeping on the job through thick and thin.
But this is a once-proud franchise that has face-planted for most of the decade.
The record post-Super Bowl 46: 51-77.
It was after the 6-10 2012 season, two seasons after the Jets’ second straight AFC Championship season, when Woody Johnson dismissed GM Mike Tannenbaum but kept Rex Ryan. Tannenbaum took the fall for gambling on Tim Tebow and drafting Vernon Gholston with the sixth overall pick.
“Although he helped guide us to two consecutive AFC Championship games, we are not where we want to be, and a new general manager will be critical to getting this team back on the right track,” Johnson said in a statement.
Ryan had stopped winning, but he hadn’t stopped giving Johnson the back page of the tabloids or more buzz than the Little Brother Jets were accustomed to receiving.
“Like all Jets fans, I am disappointed with this year’s results,” Johnson said. “However, I am confident that this change will best position our team for greater success going forward.”
The change that was orchestrated by Jed Hughes from Korn/Ferry International, an executive search group, identified John Idzik as the next GM.
A front office Buttfumble.
Ryan and Idzik put on a happy face and were like oil and water. The Jets were 8-8 in 2013 and 4-12 in 2014 and both were fired together and replaced by GM Mike Maccagnan and HC Todd Bowles. Maccagnan and Adam Gase lasted four months together before Christopher Johnson decided it would be better to team his new coach with a new GM, Joe Douglas. The Jets have missed the playoffs nine consecutive years now.
Bears GM Ryan Pace and HC John Fox came in together in 2015 and after three miserable years (14-34), Pace replaced Fox with Matt Nagy.
Lions GM Bob Quinn inherited Jim Caldwell in 2016 and hired Matt Patricia in 2018. Ownership has kept both despite a 9-21-1 record together, and 3-11-1 this season.
Titans GM Jon Robinson fired HC Mike Mularkey after two seasons and hired Mike Vrabel.
The 49ers are now reaping the benefits of the young, bright GM-HC tandem of John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan in their third season together.
The playoff-bound Bills hired GM Brandon Beane AFTER they had hired HC Sean McDermott. The Seahawks hired GM John Schneider AFTER they had hired Pete Carroll.
There are different ways to skin the cat if you find the right team.
The winds of change are howling across East Rutherford.
The Giants continued to flounder after they fired Tom Coughlin but kept GM Jerry Reese. Reese threw drunken sailor free-agent money ($106.3 million guaranteed) at the free-agent class and Olivier Vernon and Snacks Harrison and Jackrabbit Jenkins got McAdoo to the playoffs in 2016 before the house collapsed and the Giants cleaned house towards the end of 2017.
Thankfully, Gettleman has overcome a cancer scare. But he will be 69 in February. He got Daniel Jones right, a big plus on his resume. His 2019 draft class looks encouraging. But there have been well-chronicled misses, signing Odell Beckham Jr. to trade him, and a dizzying plan of win-now-nah-let’s-win-later vacillation that has had the heads of Giants fans spinning.
He has not fixed the Giants.
Can ownership still trust him to fix the Giants?
Would ownership hold out hope that a potential reuniting of Gettleman and Ron Rivera could recreate the Super magic they had together in Carolina?
The history of Giants general managers: Ray Walsh, 1947-73: Andy Robustelli, 1974-78; George Young, 1979-97; Ernie Accorsi, 1998-2006; Reese, 2007-17; Gettleman, 2018 and 2019.
It would clearly be out of character for the Giants to abandon ship on their GM after only two seasons.
But if the Giants fire Shurmur and keep Gettleman on the job, what happens if 5-11 happens again and the Giants are still not fixed, and ownership targets a new GM to pair with a second-year head coach suddenly on the hot seat? What happens if prospective head coaches during the current hiring cycle might not want to hitch their wagon to a GM perceived to be on shaky ground?
The case for cleaning house for a franchise sick and tired of being sick and tired would boil down to this sobering reality:
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
It’s still broke.
For more on the Giants, listen to the latest episode of the “Blue Rush” podcast: