Why Giants' General Manager Dave Gettleman is Not Yet on Hot Seat

Giants team president John Mara is very much aware of the team's won-loss record since general manager Dave Gettleman came on board.

That record--15-33--would ordinarily have been more than enough evidence to make the change that a growing number of Giants fans have been calling for every year. 

Mara has been reluctant to make that change, largely due to circumstances that included Gettleman's battle with an aggressive form of lymphoma in his first full season as general manager to his major renovation of the player personnel and scouting departments.

"We've made a lot of changes," Mara said of the improvements to football operations. "We've got an entire analytics department now. We've got more people in our personnel areas, some really talented young people. I think our football operation is definitely much improved since when he took over."

Except for the won-loss record, which at the end of the day is what matters the most. And while Mara has made no secret of the fact that he wants to see more wins sooner than later, he's not quite ready to put Gettleman on notice should the Giants fail to garner enough wins to warrant a playoff berth.  

“Let’s see what happens during the season," Mara said Tuesday in his only anticipated public comments until the end of the 2021 season. 

"I want to see us make progress and become a winning team again," Mara emphasized. "We're overdue on that and we spent a lot of money in free agency. I think we've had a couple of really productive drafts. Now it's time to prove it on the field."

Mara said at the start of last year that when the Giants season ended, he wanted to walk off the field knowing that the team was headed in the right direction. While a 6-10 record wasn't anything to write home about, Mara was encouraged by the working relationship between Gettleman and head coach Joe Judge in building the roster. 

While Mara said multiple times that he feels good about the current team's direction, but it's worth noting that he's always been the picture of optimism at the start of every year, only to have had his heartbroken with the season's outcomes.

So why not come out and state the obvious, that if the team falls short of its goals of being a playoff contender (yes, very much a goal despite Mara's insistence that he's not issuing a "playoffs or bust" mandate), that a change is likely to be made?

Because it's going to depend on what the catalyst behind any failure is. For example, can Gettleman be blamed if the offensive play calling lacks creativity or if injuries/COVD-19 begin to wipe out a large number of key players or a particular position group?

The answer is no, as these are all unforeseen circumstances that no matter how much a team plans for, it just seems like there's never enough done to prepare for the worst.

But where Gettleman can and should take the fall is if his gamble on the offensive line doesn't pay off or if some of those big-money free agents he brought in don't work out. 

These are the kinds of setbacks the Giants can't continue to have. These are the setbacks that fall squarely on the shoulders of the man in charge of putting the roster together and who must ultimately pay the price if the talent identified to help achieve Mara's goal of getting more wins fails to do.  

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