Mile Low City

Some losses are inevitable, others are preventable, and still others are reprehensible. Guess which one this was?

Through three quarters at Mile High Stadium, the New York Giants played the prefect road game. They led the Denver Broncos 19-0. Their defense had limited the Broncos to just 111 total yards of offense. While on the other side of the ball, Jaxson Dart threw two touchdown passes; the first one to a wide open Daniel Bellinger. It was the first touchdown Denver had allowed in the first quarter this season. All Big Blue had to do to secure a win was to continue to play aggressive on defense and move the ball on offense.

When Theo Johnson caught a deflected pass by Dart for a touchdown with 10:14 left in the fourth quarter to put New York up 26-8, it certainly looked to all the world that they were going to do just that. I mean, who blows an 18 point lead with 10 minutes to go, right? Even Broncos fans knew it was over; many of them started leaving the stadium at that point. They missed one helluva comeback.

Denver would score touchdowns on their next three possessions, one aided by a Dart interception, to take a four-point lead with 1:51 remaining in the game. To his credit, Dart led his team down the field and, thanks to a pass interference penalty on the Broncos near the gaol line, took it into the end zone to regain the lead for his team.

With 33 seconds left and New York ahead 32-30, the Broncos, with no timeouts left, took the ball all the way down to Giants 21 yard line, where Wil Lutz kicked a game-wining 39 yard field goal. The reason it was a game-winning and not a game-tying field goal is because Jude McAtamney missed the extra point on the Giants last touchdown drive that would've put them up by three. Then again, if McAtamney hadn't missed an earlier extra point, the Broncos would've needed a touchdown to win the game. In all, Denver scored 33 points in the fourth quarter, the most ever by a team that had been held scoreless through three. 

You can always tell when a team is in trouble: they start watching the clock instead of managing the game. The Giants, not wanting to lose, went into a shell; the Broncos, with nothing to lose, pulled out all the stops. I've watched Sean Payton teams over the years. Regardless of what the score is, there's a tenacity to them. They can be ahead by ten, they can be trailing by twenty, you'd never know it by the level of play on the field. He may have only one Super Bowl win to his credit, but he is a Hall of Fame coach, and his players all know what's expected of them.

Brian Daboll is no Sean Payton, that should be obvious. But as bad as Daboll has been over the last three seasons, his defensive coordinator Shane Bowen deserves the lions share of the blame for this latest abomination. His decision to rush only three on the Broncos last scoring drive was inexcusable. This is the second time this season that the Giants have lost a game in which they led with less than 40 seconds remaining in regulation. The first was against the Cowboys in Dallas in week two. New York lost that game in OT, 40-37.

As painful as that loss was, though, it pales in comparison to this one. According to Adam Schefter, since the 1970 merger between the NFL and AFL, only two teams have overcome a fourth-quarter deficit of 19 points or more to win a regular-season game: the Indianapolis Colts against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003 (21 points) and the Broncos against the Giants yesterday.

I can't imagine what the players must be going through. For three quarters they played their hearts out. They were minutes away from what would've been back-to-back wins against playoff teams. Jaxson Dart went 15/33 for 283 yards, with three touchdowns through the air and one on the ground. Brian Burns had another dominating performance on defense, recording two sacks and two quarterback hits. He was visibly upset after the game, and deservedly so.

Yes, I know the old cliche that good teams find a way to win and bad teams find a way to lose, but it's not that simple with this team. The Giants are not the Jets, or the Miami Dolphins, or the Tennessee Titans. There is talent on this roster, more talent than their record would indicate. They should be 4-3 and in the thick of the playoff race; instead they're 2-5, and facing the very real prospect of going 2-6 after they lose to the Philadelphia Eagles next Sunday.

This was no self-inflicted wound, like we saw in New Orleans against the Saints; this shot came from the sidelines. Even if Daboll fires Bowen tomorrow, the damage has already been done. How do you recover from a loss like this?

The season is all but done, and once more, Giants fans will have to wait until next year to raise a banner of hope.

An Open Letter to John Mara

Dear Mr. Mara,

How are those trash cans doing? I heard you threw a couple of them around your suite at Met Life Stadium after the game against the Falcons. Hopefully they didn't get too badly damaged. Good trash cans are so hard to come by these days.

Seriously, though, have you had enough? How long are you going to let this nightmare go on before you wake up and do what has to be done? This franchise is a fucking joke, and frankly it's been that way for a very long time.

Since your last Super Bowl win in 2011, the Giants have had exactly two winning seasons (2012 and 2016) and one lousy playoff appearance (2016). The overall record during that span is an abysmal 57-80, including three losses this season. During the reign of Dave Gettleman, the man you hired to replace Jerry Reese, the record is 15-36.

You fired Tom Coughlin because you felt the game had passed him by. OK, fine, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. It's a business, I get it. But here's the thing: at least he had a resume. Ben McAdoo was an offensive coordinator under Coughlin and a quarterback coach at Green Bay, Pat Schurmer was a failed head coach at Cleveland and an offensive coordinator at Minnesota, and Joe Judge was a special team's assistant under Bill Belichick at New England. 

While you were drooling over landing Judge, several quality candidates slipped through your fingers. One of them, Matt Rhule, after going 5-11 with the Carolina Panthers last year is currently 3-0 and in first place in the same division as Tom Brady's Buccaneers, with a starting quarterback New York's other moribund football team discarded during the offseason. 

Transforming losing programs is Rhule's specialty. He successfully turned around both Baylor and Temple before jumping to the NFL. As of right now, he has the inside track to be coach of the year. Your guy? So far, he's no better than his last two predecessors. The Giants still commit way too many costly mistakes at critical moments and seem incapable of making key stops on defense when they need to. Last Sunday, Atlanta marched down the field and kicked a game winning field goal as time expired. The week before that, Washington did the same thing. Yes, Dexter Lawrence jumped offsides, but the bottom line is the defense still couldn't protect a lead.

The offensive line remains a problem; the receivers drop way too many balls; and the team hasn't had a legit edge rusher in over a decade. Gettleman has had four years to fix what's wrong and he's thoroughly failed. His decision to take Daniel Jones with the 6th overall pick in 2019 instead of Josh Allen should've earned him a pink slip. Instead, you gave him two more years to inflict yet more damage. And true to form, he didn't disappoint. Last year, he took offensive tackle Andrew Thomas with the 4th overall pick, bypassing more skilled tackles like Tristian Wirfs and Jedrick Wills, Jr, the latter played at Alabama for Nick Saban, Judge's old boss. Thomas has been underwhelming, to say the least, while the other two have excelled.

It's time to wipe the slate clean. Gettleman's gotta go. I realize you may have to keep some of the coaching staff until the end of the season, but I've seen nothing from Judge that leads me to believe he is capable of turning this ship around. If anything, he's a slightly improved version of McAdoo, but without the play calling ability.

What this organization needs is a complete makeover. The game has changed considerably since the days of George Young. The best franchises today aren't run from the front office; they're run from the sidelines. You want to know who the best GM's are, Mr. Mara? Simple, take a look at who's wearing the headsets. Besides Belichick and Rhule, Pete Carrol, Sean Payton, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, John Harbaugh and Andy Reid all run the show from top to bottom. And with the exception of Rhule, all have been to the Super Bowl at least once.

You need to get one of these guys, and now. Someone who knows how to evaluate talent and can bring out the best in it. You have two first round draft picks next year. Maybe you could dangle both to pry Sean Payton away from New Orleans. He once worked for your father as an assistant under Jim Fassel, so it'll be a sort of homecoming for him. Payton checks all the boxes and has one of the best minds in the game. If anybody can figure out Daniel Jones, it's Payton. And he'll finally fix this offensive line so you don't have to worry about stupid-assed holding penalties in the red zone that kill scoring drives.

It's time the New York Giants entered the 21st century. This is one of the premiere franchises in the NFL. As principle owner, you have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure it doesn't become a laughingstock. To allow the stars quo to continue is a slap in the face to the tens of thousands of fans who each Sunday shell out their hard-earned money to watch this team in person, and the millions more who watch it alone at home. 

It's all on you, Mr. Mara. What are you waiting for?