Don’t expect Giants to tank against Eagles this weekend…

This is a new thing happening for Big Blue right now— a new GM is being interviewed as we speak. Maybe Dave Gettleman will get the job as general manager of the New York Giants this week. Maybe it will take a little longer. Maybe in the end the Giants will decide to wait for someone like Nick Cesario of the New England Patriots or take a risk on a young rising star in the front office ranks like Trey Brown, the 32-year-old director of college scouting for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Meanwhile “Spags” is in charge and you gotta know he wants to send a message to his ownership and to the guys on his roster that he deserves a shot as the new HC of the New York Giants.

That’s why the Giants will be fighting hard to get a win over the Eagles this Sunday.

Sit their veterans and play the string out with their reserves? That ain’t gonna happen.

New York Giants interim head coach Steve Spagnuolo confirmed Monday that Eli Manning will be the team’s starting quarterback Week 15 against the Philadelphia Eagles, as reported by Michael Eisen of the Giants’ official website.

“Absolutely,” Spagnuolo stated when asked if Manning would start. “That’s a pretty safe assessment.”

(Manning returned to the starting lineup in Sunday’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys after being benched for the team’s road game against the Oakland Raiders. He threw for 228 yards in Week 14, notching one touchdown and two interceptions.)

You would be forgiven for thinking the Giants (2-11) have thrown in the towel and will mail it in for this upcoming game against the Eagles. But I don’t think that’s the case.

That’s because Spags is determined to prove he can take the mess he has inherited and turn it into a winner in 2018 if NYG ownership gives him the chance. He certainly had his guys playing hard for him last week against Dallas.

There is a classic debate in the Big Apple right now about which way to go with the Giants:

Ed Valentine of BigBlueView sums it up:

Rebuild or revamp?

“Yes, there is a difference.

“A rebuild would mean most likely hiring a young, first-time coach, jettisoning Manning, letting most if not all of the veteran players heading to free agency walk, perhaps even looking at the roster and stripping away a highly-paid veteran like Janoris Jenkins, whose $28.8 million in guaranteed money has already been paid. This is the blow everything up and start over approach.

“Revamp would mean looking at the roster, including the long list of key players who are on injured reserve, and concluding that what you are starting with should be closer to the 11-5 team it was in 2016 rather than the two-win disaster it has become this season. In this scenario, you are probably inclined to keep Manning with the belief that the right head coach, coaching staff and a few key personnel moves could push the team back into contention.”

And of course, what is your quarterback plan?

“The Giants are standing firmly at the crossroads with Eli Manning. Neither Gettleman nor anyone else is getting the Giants’ GM job without a firm plan for Manning, and the future of the franchise at the quarterback position. And, of course, without ownership being OK with that plan.

“Move on from Manning this offseason? Draft a quarterback in Round 1 and keep Manning for a year while your first-round pick learns? If that’s the plan, who’s your guy and how do you sell it to Manning? The chalk right now has Josh Rosen going to the Cleveland Browns at No. 1 and Sam Darnold going back to USC. Can you sell Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson to ownership as a franchise quarterback? Would you prefer to keep Manning, trade out of the No. 2 spot in the 2018 NFL Draft, collect some picks and bet on Davis Webb as the future?”

I’m glad the Eagles are not in the organizational situation in which the Giants find themselves now. But truth be told, it was just two years ago when we were in a similar boat, trying to find a new direction out of the eventual chaos which ended up in the firing of Chip Kelly.

My friends over at Ultimate NYG have given up on the season. They didn’t even bother to post a game recap on the most recent loss to Dallas. I feel for the guys who have have been doing that column for the last 10 years. This season has driven them to the brink of fan depression.

What they’re missing out on right now is Spags has the remaining healthy members of his broken team pretty darn ready to play.

But despite the fact that Spags will give the Eagles a helluva challenge, the focus of Ultimate NYG and Big Blue Nation is on the debacle that ended the previous HC/GM regime in New york:

“We have been critics of the Head Coach and General Manager for quite a while. For Ben McAdoo, it came in Week 2 of his second season. Regulars to this NY Giants blog know that we do not like to criticize a Head Coach in their first season. They get a honeymoon of sorts because our beacon, Bill Parcells, was 3-12-1 in his rookie year and needed that time to figure it out. The problem with McAdoo was that he was going in reverse, and quickly.

If you want to see what underachievement looks like, watch this football game.

Ben McAdoo is failing as a Head Coach. This is not Ray Handley. But it is coming close. Anything in the Handley zip code is bad.

“Well, by the time we got to the Eli Benching, it was worse than Handley. It was epic. 2-10 with an Eli Benching on that sh*t cake. It was Week 2, and the underachievement was PALPABLE. How does an 11-5 team become a 2-10 team in ONE season? Stir in one part Ben McAdoo and one part…

Jerry Reese.

“That Offensive Line was offensive. Everyone questioned what the plan was in the offseason. We got fed by the Reese front office PR machine the spin that Flowers and Hart were much improved. This blogger was a fool enough to give Reese a (VERY BRIEF) benefit of the doubt and pray that those two Tackles would not be horrible, merely mediocre. They started the season AWFUL. And it tanked the year. Flowers did get a little better but he is still a liability. McAdoo was left to scheme this mess, and he was missing in action, buried behind the diner menu aka playcalling.

“We have had more than a few bones to pick with Reese for many YEARS. Here was our latest dissection from 2 years ago when we said to show this man the door. We chronicled 12 reasons why Reese needed to be replaced. The Giants kept him on for another 2 seasons. The Giants inherit Reese’s latest gift, a $62M JPP Crickets salary with a $40M Reese guaranteed kiss. The gift that will keep giving to the new GM.

“DYSFUNCTION. UNDERACHIEVEMENT. MISERY. VOMIT. It is over. The dynamic duo are gone. That pair of Head Coach and GM may be the worst combination I’ve seen in a long time.

“New beginnings. Ernie Accorsi is entrusted with helping to find a new GM that will be much more competent, honest and forthcoming than his predecessor Mr. Reese.

“So how about this for the new GM’s architecture:

1. LINE OF SCRIMMAGE BEFORE ALL ELSE.
2. Build an identity.
3. If your Round 2 Defensive Tackle is good, lock him up BEFORE he hits Free Agency so that you use your R2 picks on someone else.
4. Draft WRs with the character to salute their OLmen when they score a TD. (See Rule #1!)
5. Draft a LBer in Round 1 more than once out of every 34 years.
6. Repeat after me, it is legal to trade down in the Draft.
7. Do not draft RB in Round 1.
8. Defense still wins championships (even in an NFL where Offense is King). “

That’s just a sample from the tip of the iceberg with regard to everything that went wrong with the Giants in 2017. What concerns me right now is Spags has his guys motivated to play, even if only to preserve their own individual contracts.

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BRISUKSEGG Fantasy Football Championship Results:

Welp, ~BROZ did it again, winning his second career Ring in the six-year history of the BSE.

In doing so, ~BROZ has solidified his chances of being named to the Eagles Eye Hall of Fame, upon which ground was broken today for the future house of the holy. Of course the hallowed ground selected is the portion of the Brizer estate in Radnor, PA formerly reserved for the poster prison known as “The Shed”. We expect a wonderful tourist attraction site there to be open to the public as early as the summer of 2019.

Here’s the box score for the Championship Final between ~BROZ and the ever-resilient TGJB99:

The history of BSE football is written by its winners:

2012….. ATV
2013…  JERKY
2014…  DUTCH RUBB
2015…  ~BROZ
2016…  ATV
2017…  ~BROZ

The bottom line is winning the BSE Lombardi Trophy solidifies any player’s chances of consideration for the EYE Hall of Fame. Doing it twice in six years is almost surefire first-ballot entry stuff.