Eli Manning Benched

Eli Manning has been benched. It’s the latest in a nightmare season for the NY Giants.

Owner John Mara, Head Coach Ben McAdoo and General Manager Jerry Reese continue to show the same bad judgment that has gotten them to 2-9. Apparently there is more respect for the rest of this motley crew than Eli, who has been stalwart despite a dysfunctional Head Coach, a crumbling OL and no Wide Receivers.

The Giants were mathematically eliminated after this past weekend. This spurred action by coaches and management, yet the decision was poorly thought out and sloppily executed. Manning seemed partially blindsided.

Manning made it known that he did not want to start a game he could not finish. So start Eli Manning, do not dress Geno Smith, and let Davis Webb play in Q4 if the Giants are down by 14+ points. Instead the Giants discard Eli while not discarding Reese and McAdoo. That does not make sense.

Here is what we said after the SF loss:

It is time to start scratching Geno Smith and start dressing Davis Webb. Webb needs to start playing mop up, and once the Giants are mathematically eliminated they should be playing Webb a lot more to get some film and evaluation.

Nowhere in our advice did we want to harm Eli. Eli deserves so much more than this.

The dysfunction of McAdoo’s regime is in full display with this decision. Geno Smith? Geno Smith?? Smith is a backup whose ceiling is limited by his poor decision-making. The only QBs I want to see right now are Eli and Webb. Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised to see Manning in Jacksonville next season. Or anywhere else than NY. And that will be a sad day for this once venerable franchise.

Where is Mara? In coming months, in coming years, we will find out his role in all of this. He has to be held accountable for so many decisions. It is humorous how we wait another 5 weeks for Mara to tell us how ill he was when the Giants played vs the Rams and 49ers. Is he ill about the way his team benched it’s Giant warrior Eli Manning? “The fact that John Mara has not separated himself from this fool (Ben McAdoo) is hard to believe,” said Mike Francesa. Yet McAdoo picks Geno Smith. We incorrectly assumed that Mara would let McAdoo go after the SF loss. Just when you thought that it could not possibly get any worse, it does. Mara is complicit in this and he is going to get the wrath of Giants fans. With this move, we have now moved into new depths, officially eclipsing the Ray Handley implosion of 1992. In ’92 it was the coach. In ’17 it is the entire organization.

The Giants stood for loyalty. Too much loyalty was given to McAdoo after SF, and too many years were given to Reese. The loyalty for Eli Manning? Answer- Geno Smith. Embarrassing. That is a recurrent theme of 2017. My loyalty for the Giants is as threadbare as it has ever been.