If you thought witnessing the Hindenburg disaster was bad, then you clearly didn’t suffer through the 2017 New York Giants season. A year filled with terrible decisions, horrifying injuries, and colossal mismanagement, the 2017 season was nothing short of a train wreck, and Eli Manning was the conductor. The story took place in the bustling arenas of New York, under the glaring lights of the NFL. And it wasn’t pretty. Let’s go over the key reasons why this year was a cornucopia of chaos.
First on the chopping block, the laughably mismanaged offense. Under head coach Ben McAdoo, with his slippery-smooth hair and seemingly endless collection of laminated play sheets, the team didn’t exactly set the NFL on fire. With an abysmal record of 3-13, this was obviously a team held together by duct tape and wishful thinking. The offensive line functioned more like a red-carpet invitation for blitzes. Often considered the heart of any competitive football team, ours was about as effective as a Jenga tower in an earthquake. It's hard to win games when you're spending the whole time picking up your quarterback off the ground.
Eli Manning, our forlorn protagonist, deserves his own spotlight here. The two-time Super Bowl MVP was left to navigate through this lemon of a season. Eli's benching against the Oakland Raiders was controversial enough to make any rational football fan shake their head. Not exactly a smart move when you have a proven winner who knows how to win big games. But hey, McAdoo thought pulling the plug on a guy who’s been with the franchise forever would fix everything. Spoiler: it didn’t.
Then came the injuries, raining down like locusts in a biblical plague. First-string receivers Odell Beckham Jr. and Brandon Marshall both went down, leaving the team like an innovative Broadway play with all the understudies performing. Throw in injuries to Sterling Shepard and Dwayne Harris, and you've got yourself a team that couldn't field a complete power play if they were playing with a man advantage. Try building a winning season with more players on the sidelines than on the field – it’s a guaranteed recipe for disaster.
Defensively, hopes were no higher. The Giants defense was the athletic equivalent of a snore fest, going from one of the best in 2016 to allowing 373 points and ranking 31st against the run. There were locker-room tensions that rivaled the most dramatic of soap operas. Cornerback Eli Apple was suspended for "conduct detrimental to the team," which loosely translates to being a disruptive force among his own teammates. It's easy to see how any half-hearted attempt at team camaraderie went right out the window.
Let’s not ignore the management blunders that made this shambles even worse. Sure, the Giants eventually got rid of McAdoo and Jerry Reese, but not before they turned the franchise into a joke.* The franchise needed a resurrection miracle to bounce back. It's hard to fly like a Giant when you're run like a chicken caught in a foxhole.
The cherry on top? The lack of accountability across the board. The owners, usually the bastions of hope and stability, were asleep at the wheel. They allowed this travesty to unfold for far too long, only stepping in when the entire mess reached a tipping point. Oversight was out to lunch, leaving fans scratching their heads or outright abandoning their faith.
For some, this disastrous season was the epitome of liberal ideals gone wrong; a promise of hope and change quickly diminishing into a grim reality filled with bad choices and lost opportunities. Mismanagement, lack of direction, and a skill of ignoring reality combine to serve up a year Giants fans wish they could erase from memory.
So, what do we take away from the disaster of the 2017 New York Giants? Learn from the mistakes, fortify the offensive line like the true guardians of New York, and find key players who embody resilience, not soap opera tendencies. Football is a rough and tumble sport meant to lift your spirits, not serve as a masterclass in poor management. Let's hope brighter days and smarter plays are on the horizon.