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In his second season as general manager of the New York Giants, Dave Gettleman has not been convincing of being the person that can rebuild this once proud franchise.
After a 5-11 season last year, Big Blue has so far followed it up with three wins in 14 games. Some of Gettleman’s draft picks have showed promise, but those have been sprinkled within rounds of questionable decisions from the general manager
Even with those questionable decisions, Gettleman has refused to speak in-season, to address Giants’ fans concerns.
WFAN contributor and NFL Network reporter Kim Jones joined Joe Benigno Friday afternoon to discuss Gettleman’s tenure with the team.
“Jerry Reese spoke every year during the bye week,” Jones said of the Giants previous GM that helped the team to two Super Bowl wins.
“Generally speaking, there is some expectation to hear from a GM, Dave Gettleman obviously did not speak during the bye week, he traded for Leonard Willams, an incredibly unconventional trade between those teams,” Jones added.
The Giants traded a third-round pick in 2020 and a fifth-round pick in 2021 for the defensive lineman who’s a pending free-agent.
While it’s Gettleman’s policy not to speak in-season, it’s not an unfair request to expect a state of the union address, especially when the team is underperforming.
“Last year Dave puffed out his chest that they went from three wins to five, so it's hard to take a step back and tell us everything's on track with whichever plan we’re on to now,” Jones said.
“It would be hard to justify everything’s going well and everyone’s going to stay in place.”
Jones did acknowledge the Giants have some positives or at least non-negatives. Rookie quarterback Daniel Jones who has been a bright spot at times, “could be the defining moment and if so, it’s a win for Gettleman,” she said.
USA TODAY Images “By trading Odell, he minimalized the pick of Saquon.”
“The drafting of Saquon Barkley was great because of the way it completed the Giants offense. This year, defenses uniformly have gone into games against the Giants saying we’re going to stop Saquon,” Jones noted.
Suffering an ankle sprain earlier in the season, Barkley has just half the rushing and receiving production that he had a season ago. Three times this year Barkley has rushed for more than 100 yards, each one was with Eli Manning under center.
“You made your running back worse, by taking away a player who almost always demanded the attention of two defenders, it makes no sense,” Jones said regarding the Giants' decision to trade Odell.
When asked by Benigno if she would get rid of both the coach and general manger at the end of the season, their second as a tandem running the Giants, Jones wouldn’t rush to a decision.
“I would ask hard questions about why we did some of the things we did especially after seeing the product on the field."
While she wouldn't jump right to firing both Dave Gettleman and Big Blue's head coach Pat Shurmur, Jones didn't offer an endorsement for either of them.
“The Giants don’t have a lot of star power, they don’t have a lot of wins, they aren’t competitive sometimes in these game…the play calling at times has been absolutely head-scratching."