February 1, 2016
Peter Solari Follow @4PeteSakeNY
Now the dust has settled on the New York Giants' search for a new coach, general manager Jerry Reese is feeling comfortable enough to make public appearances. The New York Post's Paul Schwartz caught up with the embattled executive at the Senior Bowl last week to ask him about the team's poor draft performance in recent years. Reese sounded rather defensive, while emphasizing that process of building the team, is, and always has been, a collaborative effort.
Reese told Schwartz, "Ever since I've been here with the Giants, everybody has been part of the process. We come to a consensus on we like, and ultimately if we don't pick a guy that works out it's my fault, it's the general manager's fault. But everybody is part of the process, and I'm not going to back off that. It's the truth."
Reese defended the team's process of picking players, explaining that sometimes things just don't work out the way they were envisioned. To stress this point, Reese brought up Marvin Austin, a talented defensive lineman with a questionable past. The Giants spent a second round draft pick (52nd overall) on Austin in 2011, and knew it was a gamble. Ultimately, Austin only appeared in eight games for the Giants before bouncing around the league. Today, he is out of the NFL.
Of the Austin pick, Reese said, "There's plenty of Marvin Austin's around the National Football League. I can give you an example of how we talked about him. We're kind of like, 'This guy's going to be a hit or this guy's going to be a miss.' We said, 'It's probably not going to be anything in between. We missed on him."
Fair enough. No GM is perfect and every draft pick isn't going to work out, but the key to being successful in this league, is "hitting" more often than you "miss." So while it's unfair to judge Reese solely on the Austin pick in 2011, he doesn't have a strong resume of other picks to strengthen his argument.
"Take Mario Manningham," said Reese. "We said, 'This guy is going to be a hit or miss. Nothing in between.' We hit on him."
Another fair point by Reese. Overall, Mario Manningham was good Giant, and nobody will ever forget his great catch in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLVI. However, Manningham was never more than third-best receiver on the team while with the Giants. That's not a knock on him. He did a fine job in New York, but if Reese is hanging his hat on the Manningham pick alone, then he's got a long way to go.
Great NFL teams are built through the draft. You've got to get more than a third-string receiver out of your top draft choices, if you want to be successful. Reese hasn't done that with the Giants, but he's going to have to start, if he wants to keep his job.
Owner John Mara has put the task of bringing the Giants back to prominence, squarely on Reese's shoulders. In recent years, coach Tom Coughlin carried that load. A few months ago, Coughlin paid the ultimate price for the team's failures, and lost his job. With him out the door, all eyes are now on Reese. In things around the Giants don't improve, and I mean fast, Reese won't have to worry about defending his actions for much longer.
