The New York Giants have endured a rough few seasons, falling out of contention early, making headlines for all the wrong reasons and briefly becoming an NFL laughingstock before the Jets wrangled back the reins from Big Blue.
As poor as the perception of general manager Dave Gettleman & Co. has been, might there be an actual method to the madness? Could there be more than meets the eye in East Rutherford?
While most media entities continue to push an anti-Giants narrative, those in the know around the NFL are viewing things through a different set of glasses.
Those glasses aren’t rose-colored, but they certainly don’t depict the same vision of doom and gloom so many seem to have when it comes to the Giants. In fact, one NFL rival believes the Giants have not only found stability within their organization, but are readying themselves for a legitimate run at success once again.
“What the Giants have right now is stability,” an NFL executive said in Street and Smith’s annual NFL preview. “And a lot of other teams don’t have that.
“Dave Gettleman has seen it all over his 30-something years. The one thing I know about Dave: He works really hard — always very conscientious, thorough. Pat Shurmur is a blueblood football guy. To me, that’s important. You see the good, the bad and the ugly over all those years of coaching in the NFL. So, now you have to try to eliminate the bad stuff and go to town.”
The executive stopped short of naming the Giants a Super Bowl contender here in 2019, but cautioned that those dismissing Big Blue may want to rethink their stance — especially over the next several years, providing the strong drafting continues.
“Are they better than a year ago?” the executive wrote. “They’ve got to be a team on the rise. They’ve got to get right tackle squared away. You bring in Kevin Zeitler, which helps, Will Hernandez had a good rookie year. Nate Solder was great in New England, but Tom Brady got the ball out so fast. Maybe the Giants need to speed things up a little bit and Eli Manning has got to get the ball out quicker.
“You got Saquon Barkley there. There’s been a lot of positive things there. I would say the Giants have taken a step forward. They’ve got to get another good draft next year and another good draft after that, then I think you’re on the upswing.”
