Big Blue View
Good morning, New York Giants fans!
How much will the continued presence of general manager Joe Schoen — who is leading this search while Mara battles cancer — impact the job’s desirability among top-end candidates? What sort of coach should the Giants hire? And this time around, how important is an established track record as a winning head coach?
Ultimately, Schoen is “going to hire someone that is not going to be a threat to his existence,” said a person familiar with NFL coaching searches. “Frankly, I’m not sure you can even blame somebody for that. Everybody has some sense of self-protectiveness who is making these kinds of decisions.”
But the housecleaning shouldn’t stop there. It’s time for the Giants to shed dead weight from their roster. It was defensible to hold onto wide receiver Jalin Hyatt, offensive lineman Evan Neal and cornerback Deonte Banks until the trade deadline. But now that the deadline has passed, no value can be recouped for that trio of draft busts.
There’s no excuse for the Giants to compromise an already weak roster by carrying players who don’t contribute (Hyatt and Neal) or continuing to play Banks, who has been a detriment.
Tight end Daniel Bellinger, who knows Kelly as well as anyone, given how they work together daily, thinks his position coach will make an excellent offensive coordinator for Kafka and the Giants.
“He brings a lot of stability,” Belliner said. “You know, he’s been in this before; he is kind of seen, been in OC before, and kind of knows the nuances of it. He brought that to our room over the last couple of years, and we’re really comfortable with how he explains things, how he kind of goes through and sees the defenses, and sees how we can run our offense. So we feel really comfortable with him, really confident in him as a coach.”
