Pat Shurmur Replacements: Matt Rhule Headlines Giants’ Top 5 Options

Pat Shurmur‘s days as the head coach of the New York Giants have officially come to an end. Despite improved play by his team over the final month of the season, along with Daniel Jones’ recent glimpses of greatness, a 31-17 loss to the division rival Philadelphia Eagles in Week 17 was enough to put the final nail in the coffin for the Giants’ coach of two years.

Below we’ve compiled the top-five likely candidates to become the Giants 19th full-time head coach in team history.

JUST IN: New York has requested to interview New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels for their head coaching vacancy.

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Fresh Faces & Familiar Names Headline Potential Giants Targets

5) Eric Bieniemy: Kansas City Chiefs OC

Bieniemy is a former NFL running back who played nine years in the league. After serving as the running back coach for Kansas City for four seasons, Bieinemy took over the offensive coordinator duties in 2018, fittingly enough, the same year Patrick Mahomes took the helm at QB for KC. Since then, Beienemy has helped Mahomes develop into arguably the best signal-caller in football, putting up back-to-back top-four ranked total offenses. Daniel Jones may not possess the type of ceiling that Mahomes does, but Bieniemy should help get the best out of New York’s face of the franchise.

4) Mike McCarthy: Former Green Bay Packers HC

McCarthy just seems like a guy the Giants would hone in on hard if Shurmur is let go. McCarthy has a proven track record. While coaching the Packers, he held an impressive 135-85-2 record, including a Super Bowl victory in 2011. The one drawback of McCarthy would be the rumblings out of Green Bay that claim his offense was too vanilla for the modern-day NFL. This is certainly something Giants fans wouldn’t want to see after enduring the play-calling of Ben McAdoo and Shurmur over the past few seasons.

3) Jason Garrett: Dallas Cowboys HC

Rumors of a Garrett-Giants marriage has swirled for weeks now. Much like McCarthy, Garrett makes sense for the typical old-school approach New York tends to have when making a coaching move. The current Cowboys head coach will likely be let go unless Dallas sneaks their way into the playoffs today. On the market or not, it may be difficult to sell Garrett to the New York fan base. While he did enjoy a three-plus year stint as a backup QB on the Giants roster back in his playing days, he’s proven unable to get the most out of his players as a coach. Dallas is by far a more talented team than New York at the moment, if he can’t win with those players, what reason is there to believe that he’ll be able to develop this young team into winners.

JUST MISSED THE CUT: Robert Saleh-San Francisco 49ers DC, Urban Meyer-Former Ohio St HC, Brian Daboll-Buffalo Bills OC, Josh McDaniels-New England Patriots OC, David Shaw-Stanford University HC, Jim Harbaugh-University of Michigan HC

The Favorites to be the Giants Next Head Coach

2) Matt Rhule: Baylor University HC

Rhule is the new kid on the block. However, he has ties to the Giants organization. Born in New York, Rhule served as an assistant offensive line coach for the G-Men back in 2012. Since then, he’s made a living of resurrecting universities out of the ashes of mediocrity, developing both Temple and Baylor into legitimate programs during his tenures.

1) Ron Rivera: Former Carolina Panthers HC

The most obvious coach-team fit amongst the possible head coaching vacancies in the league is undoubtedly Ron Rivera to the Giants. Rivera served as the Carolina Panthers head coach under the watchful eye of then-Panthers, now-Giants GM Dave Gettleman for five seasons. Rivers captured AP Coach of the Year awards while teamed up with Gettleman. He’s a proven commodity who his former players seem to love. Teams also tend to opt for a coach with an opposite background than the one that was previously in charge. Rivera’s defensive pedigree would be a much-welcomed addition to a unit that ranks in the bottom-nine of total defenses in all football.

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