Division Links: BtB and BLG prep for playoffs while BBV preps for franchise reboot

Big Blue View

Giants GM search: Questions Giants GM candidates better be prepared to answer

With interviews for Dave Gettleman’s replacement starting Wednesday, let’s look at questions that might be asked

[H]ere are some questions candidates need to have answers for as Mara and Steve Tisch conduct the first round of virtual interviews,

Who is on your head-coaching list?

The Joe Judge problem has been removed from the search for a Dave Gettleman replacement. Ralph Vacchiano of SNY reported that several potential GM candidates had asked ownership if Judge was going to be forced on them before agreeing to an interview. Under the circumstances, that was to be expected.

So, Mr. GM candidate, who are your guys? Do they carry warranties that last longer than two years?

What is your quarterback plan?

Mostly, this is about how the GM candidate feels about Daniel Jones.

What do you plan to do with the fifth-year option, Mr. GM candidate? If you want to pick it up, why?

It also won’t hurt a GM candidate to say something like “here’s a list of backup quarterback candidates I would like to pursue who are better than Mike Glennon or Jake Fromm.”

What about Saquon?

By now, I think we have established that drafting a running back No. 2 overall to win in the short term with an aging quarterback rather than drafting a quarterback or trading down to acquire assets and jump-start a rebuild was a bad idea.

How will you fix the offensive line?

The fact that this is the fifth item on our list is a pretty good indication of how big the job is that the next GM faces. Gettleman walked in the Giants’ door proclaiming that the offensive line had to get fixed and that big ol’ “hog mollies” helped you compete. Well, he never found the right hog mollies, and the offensive line never got fixed.

What about the salary cap?

So, Mr. GM candidate, your predecessor left you with a mess in this department. OverTheCap lists the Giants as $367,568 OVER the expected $208.2 million cap for 2022. That’s with 42 players signed. The projected number rises to more than $19 million once you get to 51 contracts.

Whatcha gonna do about it? And, how are you gonna do it without gutting the roster of virtually every good veteran player and making the 2022 product even worse than the 2021 product that got you hired in the first place?

Answer that, Mr. Big Shot GM candidate.

Final question

I’d ask if you wanted a Pepsi, but this ain’t some clown show. We’re like a TV network, too, where stuff gets canceled all the time. So, hotshot, how long is it going to take you to fix this mess? Because, as we talked about earlier, things seem to begin expiring around here after two years.

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Blogging the Boys

State of the NFC East: Dallas vs. San Francisco, Eagles at Buccaneers, Giants fire Joe Judge

Washington Football Team (7-10)

There isn’t much to say about the Football Team other than that their season is over. What a shame.

We are so far removed from plenty of people picking WFT to win the division. To be fair they kept themselves in the mix for a bit, but they managed to embarrass themselves over and over and over again throughout the month of December (and plenty of times before that).

Like any NFL franchise the Football Team (who will have a new name on February 2nd by the way!) needs a quarterback in order to be legitimate. It seems they are focusing on that this offseason.

Do you, Washington. Do you.

(Apologies for the lack of correct punctuation at the end there — that’s the way it was published on Blogging the Boys).

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Bleeding Green Nation

Weapon X Mailbag: How much credit does Nick Sirianni get for the Eagles’ turnaround?

How often do NFL coaches remain stubborn, stuck in their own ways and refuse to budge given their own ego? The Eagles’ organizational mandate is predicated on being one of the most pass-heavy offenses in the NFL. Less than 10 games into his first ever head coaching gig, he Nick Sirianni able to swallow his pride, realize what he was doing wasn’t working and completely shift the offense from a system that was philosophically driven to one that’s personnel driven. Sirianni had to throw out the grand plans he likely had for what the 2021 Eagles offense would look like and go use JSTOR to find excerpts from Knute Rockne’s 1929 Notre Dame playbook.

Even if you want to lessen the credit given to Sirianni for a switch that was obvious to Eagles fans, how can you not give him his flowers (pun intended) for creating a juggernaut rushing attack? The Eagles led the league in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. They were second in rushing attempts and fourth in yards per attempt. They’re third in Rush DVOA. They barely ran the ball the first seven games of the season and they ended up smashing franchise rushing records! They had the seventh-most rushing yards (2,715) for a team in a single season this century! Do you think Sirianni was spending all offseason scheming up runs? He made this facet of the Eagles’ offense prolific!

It’s a must to praise offensive line coach and run game coordinator Jeff Stoutland for maximizing the play of this beastly o-line and to help Sirianni put his new offensive vision into practice, but Sirianni deserves the praise he’s getting. He was a joke in this city! Fans were crushing him. I was crushing him. That criticism was deserved. It’s only fair to give him props now for this unparalleled turnaround and offensive change.

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Big Blue View

John Mara explains Chris Mara’s front office role, more takeaways

Mara testy about questions regarding family roles, but remorseful about past mistakes

New York Giants co-owner John Mara strongly rebutted charges of nepotism and his family having too heavy of a hand in the inner workings of the front office during a virtual news conference on Tuesday.

Mara was alternately testy about questions regarding the role of family members, particularly Chris Mara in the front office and remorseful about the poor decision-making of the past few years.

Chris Mara, John Mara’s brother is the team’s senior vice president of player personnel. Tim McDonnell, John Mara’s nephew, is the team’s co-director of player personnel. Mara grew angry when asked about the roles of family members in the front office and denied that the family exerts “undue influence” over personnel decisions.

“That perception has been created by you [the media] and others and the reality is that in terms of my brother, my brother spends most of his time doing evaluation of college players. His grades go into our system and he participates in the draft,” Mara said.

“All personnel decisions in this building, and this has always been the case, have been made by the general manager and the head coach.

There is, of course, a perception that family members would hold more sway over decisions than non-family members. Mara does not believe that is reality.

”I do not think it [opinions of family members] holds any more sway. That has not been my experience,” Mara said. “I listen to them. There are many voices in this building, but the only two voices at the end of the day that matter are the head coach and the general manager. They make the final determination.

“They [family members] do not have undo influence on the final decisions that are made here. They absolutely do not.”

Eyebrows were raised, of course, when it was learned that Chris Mara, along with John Mara and Steve Tisch, was taking part in the process of interviewing GM candidates — a GM who would theoretically be higher on the organizational chart than Chris Mara once hired.