Getty A number of Giants' franchise greats ripped the organization's "sad" culture.
Once upon a time, the New York Giants were one of the NFL’s model franchises. But over the course of the past decade, something has drastically changed within their organization and a few former team greats are starting to take notice.
“There has been no standard there in the last decade,” said former Giants two-time Super Bowl champion kicker Lawrence Tynes on The New York Post’s Blue Rush podcast. “They had one flukey season in ’16 when they went to the playoffs with McApoop (Then head coach Ben McAdoo).
“I’m telling you, there’s no culture. I didn’t feel it. Paul (Schwartz) you asked me how’s the stadium going to feel to me. I’ll tell ya, I’ve never felt so uncomfortable in my life. I haven’t been back there in a while…but man, there’s something different going on there.”
During halftime of the Giants’ blowout loss to the Los Angeles Rams on October 17, the organization hosted their Super Bowl XLVI team for a ceremony to honor the 10-year anniversary of when they captured this title.
But since winning Super Bowl XLVI in February of 2012, the Giants have endured a mere total of two winning seasons and one playoff appearance, which resulted in an early exit in the opening round in 2016.
In fact, the Giants have the worst record in the league since the start of 2017, going an abysmal 19-51. They are also on their third head coach during this span, Joe Judge, whose seat is already getting hot in year-2 due to a 1-5 record.
Lack of Depth
Former Super Bowl champion winning wide receiver Amani Toomer joined Tynes on The New York Post’s podcast and also weighed in on his perspective of the rut the Giants currently find themselves in.
“It’s sad. And I remember, I talked to the owner before the game and he was nervous…not nervous, but he was just like bothered,” said Toomer. “Because they really care about this team and the amount of money they put in.”
According to Toomer, the root cause of the Giants’ issues stem from a lack of depth on their roster.
“They put more money into that team than they definitely put into our team and I just feel like, when you look at a roster, don’t tell me about your frontline guys,” said Toomer. “Don’t tell me about the Saquons, tell me about the guys that are going to step up when one of those guys gets hurt. That’s what we’re missing.
“You look at the Ravens. They’re missing all these players. They bring in players and they still are a competitive team. It’s not like everybody has packed it up. It’s just very sad to see that this team doesn’t have the depth that they deserve because we pay the same amount of money as everybody.”
Toomer is admittedly bothered by the Giants’ slanted reality based off the work they put in during the week, which hasn’t translated over to game day.
“One thing that bothers me about this team is like everybody is sitting there ‘Oh, we’re going to do it. Oh we’ve been practicing well. Oh we’ve been doing well in meetings. Oh we’ve been….’ I’m like nobody cares….nobody is paying to watch the meetings. Everybody is paying to watch you play,” said Toomer.
“I don’t even care if you practice at all. I just want to see better football than that. It’s hard to watch. It’s disheartening because all of the excitement that was coming into the season and with all the injuries, It’s hard to stay positive about this season even though we got more games than ever. They don’t look like a team that belongs on the field. It’s almost like (The Rams) were playing Alabama. It’s really sad to see the state of the Giants right now.”
The Giants spent big in free agency, but have been decimated by injuries through the first six weeks of the season. As a result, they are without three of their starting offensive linemen, their star running back, No. 1 wide receiver and rookie phenom wideout.
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Injury Updates
On Saturday, the Giants added inside linebacker Tae Crowder to the injury report with a thigh issue. Crowder is currently listed as questionable to play against the Carolina Panthers tomorrow on October 24.
The Giants already lost captain and inside linebacker Blake Martinez for the year due to a torn ACL. Luckily, Dan Duggan of The Athletic says Crowder is expected to be active this week.
Regardless, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport says the Giants are elevating newly signed linebacker Benardrick McKinney from the practice squad.
The Giants signed McKinney on Monday, October 18, and the plan was to promote him to the active roster as soon as he became acclimated in the system. However, McKinney’s promotion has come a little sooner than expected due to various injuries.
On an additional note, ESPN Insider Jeremy Fowler reported on Friday that wide receiver Darius Slayton is hopeful to return to action this week.
Slayton has been sidelined since Week 4 with a hamstring injury, and the Giants could use his presence on offense after losing Kenny Golladay (knee) and Kadarius Toney (ankle).
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Giants Legends Rip New York’s ‘Sad’ Team Culture