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Ben McAdoo McAdon’t Have a Job Anymore

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

If this move is surprising it’s only because New York Giants co-owner John Mara said he wouldn’t fire him during the season. He obviously changed his mind and Monday the Giants loaded up head coach Ben McAdoo into the catapult, and fired him over the wall and into oblivion.

After he cleared the horizon, they strapped in general manager Jerry Reese and sent him rocketing out into the ether as well, slipping the surly bonds of earth to the untrespassed sanctity of space to touch the face of God.

They will not be missed.

McAdoo’s last ditch effort to save his job is actually what likely prompted Mara to go ahead and pull the trigger. Last week he benched two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback and first ballot Hall of Famer Eli Manning for Geno Smith. Ironically, the results weren’t predictable. Yes, Smith made his usual, drive-killing mistakes with a couple of sack fumbles, but the Giants were in the game with the Oakland Raiders right until the end, losing 24-17. It’s almost as if you could argue that if Eli Manning had started the game, New York would have won. Hmm. Interesting.

McAdoo and Reese’s plan was to start Geno and work in rookie David Webb, but that didn’t happen. Since the Giants weren’t getting plowed in the 4th quarter, Webb never got to put away his Microsoft Surface tablet and take the field. He did get to Level 32 on Candy Crush and catch a couple of new Pokemon, so at least there’s that.

Smith finished the game 21 of 34 for 212 yards, one touchdown, no picks (and hey, that’s something), but the two sack fumbles were killers. One of them set up a Raiders field goal. The other kept the Giants from scoring in the red zone right before halftime. New York could have at least tied the game 10-10 if Smith had managed to not dribble the ball away.

Reese’s firing is a little more of a shock. Sure, he signed off on firing Tom Coughlin and elevating then offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo to head coach, but he also has a couple of Super Bowl rings and helped re-work a roster last year that made the playoffs. Under Reese’s management, the Giants were 98-84 with an 8-2 postseason mark and a couple of Lombardis. He’ll probably be on any other team’s shortlist that has a GM opening this season. Hell, he could be the best thing that ever happened to the Cleveland Browns.

Stepping in for McAdoo as interim head coach will be defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. Spags is a solid coordinator, but a complete disaster in his three seasons as head coach of the St. Louis Rams. He went 10-38 and was fired himself before the end of the 2011 season. He now takes over the top spot as the scientifically worst head coach in the league with a .208 winning percentage, edging out Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Mularkey (.412).

Reese’s office keys ended up with assistant GM Kevin Abrams. Abrams has been the assistant GM for the last 16 seasons. Before that he was a salary cap analyst and played corner for the Detroit Lions from 1997-2000. Both Abrams and Spagnuolo will be auditioning to turn their “interim” jobs into permanent spots and I wouldn’t count either of them out.

What’s next for McAdoo?

That’s an interesting question. He had his shot as a head coach and blew it, but if Mularkey’s continued employment proves anything, sometimes just hanging around the league like a cold sore is enough to land you another job. Considering how awful the Giants have been on offense in his tenure as head coach, it’s unlikely he’ll get hired as an offensive coordinator. He was a tight ends and then quarterbacks coach for the Green Bay Packers from 2006-2013 and will probably find a job at one of those positions. Hell, Mike McCarthy sucks so hard he might bring McAdoo back to balance it out.

McAdoo’s head coaching career wraps up with a 13-16 record and 0-1 mark in the playoffs.

With McAdoo and Reese gone, the news out of New York is that Eli Manning has already been tossed back into the starting quarterback role. In his press conference Monday, Mara said he could have vetoed the move to bench Manning, but didn’t. The demotion went over like a turd in a church pew across the NFL and there were even rumors that Manning had asked for his outright release.

He talked about the entire situation, including the end of his 210 start streak, after the loss Sunday night.

“I don’t blame anybody for the way it was handled,” Manning told reporters. “I think Coach McAdoo tried to do something right by me, by saying they were going to let me play. But just knowing that I was going to come out of the game, I just couldn’t play it that way.  You know, I appreciated it. He was trying to do me a favor, but it’s just not the way I could go into a game, knowing I’m going to be pulled out. I appreciated them giving me that option, but I think he understood when I said I can’t do it that way.”

Eli, of course, wasn’t the problem with the Giants, not by a long shot. He wasn’t “elite” this season, but he was still good. His numbers through his 11 starts were 62.5 percent completions, 2,411 yards, 14 touchdowns and seven picks. All of that came without his best offensive weapons and one of the worst offensive playcallers in the league.

The offensive line was bad. Manning had already been sacked 26 times and was on pace to eat shit 37 times. It would have been the second highest sack total of his career. And Eli is notoriously hard to sack. He has a knack of just firing the ball into the ground at his receivers’ feet when it looks like he’s about to be mauled.

After the benching, Manning playing for another team like the Jacksonville Jaguars or Denver Broncos next season seemed like a foregone conclusion. Now, I’m not so sure. Mara acting so decisively and placing Manning back at QB could have healed some fresh wounds. If he makes the right moves in the off-season, No. 10 may return to New York after all.

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Written by Adam Greene

Adam Greene is a writer and photographer based out of East Tennessee. His work has appeared on Cracked.com, in USA Today, the Associated Press, the Chicago Cubs Vineline Magazine, AskMen.com and many other publications.

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