It takes a little while for people to realize that what
they were trying to do
wasn't going to work. What they were trying to do was hand pick
a general manager, who would have been content, who would
have been happy,
who would have had, no problem, keeping Joe judges head coach
and I think they realize that the Universe of people
who
fell into that category of competent. GM would have kept
Joe judges head coach was shrinking not growing.
In light of what we had seen and heard from Joe judge over
the past couple of weeks. And this is a guy who was not
thriving Under Pressure
stress was not drawing the inner Vince Lombardi
out of Joe judge it got worse.
It got embarrassing.
And look look if they really want to blow it up.
If they really want to blow it up,
you're not going far enough.
If they really want to blow it up, everybody
in the organization.
That is either named John Mayer or related to him by blood or
marriage needs to step aside. Get out Chris, Mara get out.
Nephew. Whose name. I forget, get out. You're not qualified
to run a football team. You're not qualified to pick players.
You think you are, but you're not.
And that's been the Common Thread with the Giants and Sent
years. You got ownership that thinks they know what they're
doing. They don't
they don't the Cowboys Jones's, they figured it out and you
know, what to their credit, they stand out there and say
we're running the show. The mayor has
they're pulling the strings behind the scenes. They don't
know what they're doing. And the proof is in the last
decade. Oh, but we have two Super Bowls. Well, you know
what? You want those, despite your skills abilities, or lack
thereof. You don't know what you're doing. Your roster is
crap and I almost said the other word, but
that's one of the problems. Why are they turning coaches every
two years because there Esther sucks their players suck. It's
hard to be a good coach when your players suck their players
suck and the mayor's are part of the
problem. And I don't care if they get upset with me. You
want to blow it up and you want to start over. Bye-bye, leave
or sell the team.
Either way, if I'm a Giants fan,
I'm at the front of line saying, I'm done with his team
until everyone named Mara is out of the operation, or they
sell the team. I don't know why I can't see.
I'm all upset again.
What's going to happen? Is it bad basis? What's going on, man?
Because here's the thing. Here's the thing. And this is
I this is what I love and hate about the National Football
League. Okay. I love the fact that you've got and I said this
earlier day billion dollar football organizations. They're
ultimately run by monarchies.
They are run by families who just passed the equity from
generation to generation. You know, what happens when you do
that sooner or later. There's a generation. That's like,
I don't know what the hell to do with this. But what choice do?
I have? It's family business,
right? And we're making, we're making money hand over fist.
That's the other side of it really doesn't matter. If
the roster sucks, it really doesn't matter
if they don't get much better. They're still going to make
more money than they spend. It's a profitable Enterprise.
Even if your team isn't any good. That's the Dirty Little
Secret. They never want us to really talk about, but it's
the truth, but it infuriates me. Because
after 20 years of being in it, but not really in it after 20
years of learning and understanding and talking to
people and having an idea of how
things work. It drives me nuts that there are people that own
these teams have no idea how Things work. If an idiot like
me can figure out in 20 years,
how it works. How are these people who have somehow a mast
and maintained fortunes.
How are they not able to learn the same basic fundamental
rules that I have over the last 20 years because I'm not
dealing with a full deck and I figured it out.
And yes, I would love I would love nothing more than to have
10 billion dollars and buy one of these teams and run it into
the ground to prove, myself completely wrong. It's very
easy for me to say it was enough to run a team.
But the incompetence that I see
it's jarring to me
and this is the week that it's on display. This is when
the dysfunctional team step front and center Bears Dolphins,
Giants.
And they basically show us their warts there. Ask that
everything that we don't want to see. This is the week, we
get to see how bad they are and why they are who they are and
what they are,
and it just pisses me off
because it shouldn't be that way every fan base. Should at
least have a basic functioning ownership that either knows.
What to do to help
or what not to do to help
and if the answer is, get out of the way,
and get out of the way Maris
on behalf of all Giants fans,
I implore you
get out of the way.
Do I get to speak now or we? Are you good? I don't I just
don't want to start because you might I like you were going,
man. Like, I don't know. I guess it's just
I stopped for you. Okay, go. Well, great. No, no, thank you.
I mean, that was pretty
epic right there. But,
you know, one thing that I would give John Muir credit for
in that press conference, which actually they did
put up on YouTube, Once, I guess
it had been approved by, you know,
whatever it was.
So, I got to see some, I guess some of the answers have not
all of them, but he was saying that, you know, I haven't given
fans any reason to believe.
That we're going to get this right this time,
which you know, I give him a little bit of credit for that.
He really hasn't especially with these last few regimes
that just really have not been very good. But
the other thing that he talked about in, this is basically
gets to the heart of what you were saying, if you really seem
to take issue with the suggestion
that these family
himself, and the other members of the family that are really
heavily involved in the Giants, organization need to get out of
the way. It's basically as As if he was saying that, you
know, I don't believe in nepotism or like there's no,
you know, - God give me a
break. I know, Mike, but that's what he said. It's basically
what he said, you didn't say that verbatim, but that's
really what he was talking about because he didn't, I like
these
questions that kept coming up about like, well, why is Chris
Marin the room? If he's not really one of these big
decision makers and he's like, well, he's in the room because
I trust him and then he goes, cold for whatever reason you
guys just keep asking me about this, and it's a meteor
creation that we're in
the way and all of
So
that wouldn't basically be his response to what you're saying.
Is that everybody who is in the family, that is also in
the organization has worked their way up. All right, so
whether that's true whether you know, they can be trusted down
evaluators. That's maybe not for me to decide. I mean,
I think the proof is in the pudding right now that
the giant not been a very good organization,
you know, and not been really good at winning football games
in a while. So back I guess is the proof right there.
The here's the reality
now and I think this is one of the reasons why nepotism is so
rampant in coaching in the NFL. And there are various reasons
for it and killing killer of Defector had a great item about
it recently that I've been
flagging and wanting to write about it PFT. There's a chapter
about it. By the way, in Playmakers a an advance copy of
which miles has and I'm sure he's read the nepotism chapter
but one of the reasons for nepotism is
dads are absentees. When they're
their kids are growing up.
And they're never around. So when kid grows up and decides
to get into coaching. It's a great way to make up for lost
time because you saw all of a sudden, you're spending 20
hours a day together, but one of the other reasons, I think
nepotism happens among coaches.
It necessarily happens among ownership, but it's okay if it
happens among ownership as it relates to owning the team
because somebody in the family's got to run the thing,
somebody in the family's got to run, it
is a business that has been created purchased Whatever
by one person in the family.
And that person is eventually going to die
and it's going to stay in.
Family, somebody else has to step up, but there's a line.
You don't want to cross. When you start throwing out titles
that aren't warranted and
he sent John Mayer is going to say. We don't have undue
influence over Personnel. His brother. Chris has title is
senior vice president comma
Player personnel.
How can you say that? You don't have undue influence over
player Personnel. When your brother
is the senior vice president of player personnel, and your
nephew. Tim McDonald is the co director of player Personnel
along with Marc cohn's, who's been doing this forever, and is
a real football person.
Not somebody who just happened to be born
into the right family, at the right time
and grew up and realized. Hey, we on a football team. It's
kind of cool. I kind of like it. It's more fun than working
for a living.
I play Madden. I think I can figure this out. So what he,
it's infuriating, but you've creating work their way up.
I know. And it is infuriating but like that the response to what
you just said, and that was really a skin that presser
was those guys, all work their way up and they don't have
undue influence even though as Loni's think like I know
I know, but I'm just telling you what he said in response to it,
you know, just I know I'm not I'm not saying you're lying to
me. I'm not saying you're lying to me.
I like you're just, you know,
on one about the whole situation today.
So I don't know. I just it's
it is what it is. But like, as you're saying, you know,
these billionaires, they come into these teams and some of
them figure out. They don't want to do it like with
the Browns and Randy Lerner. He was so incompetent and yet, he kept
that team for so
long, right? Until he sold it to Jimmy Haslam home filled
with prayer and competent. Until I finally kind of got it
right here. It seems like least in terms of competence and
football knowledge with Andrew burying, Kevin's to fan.
Ski, but like it just I think to your point. It's just that
you know, like somebody's got to run this thing, but it
depends on. Can you be the kind of person who runs it.
But also understands that football people
have to actually be decision-makers
and have the most influence on what the football decisions are
because they know what they're doing and you probably don't
Here's the best example, I can think of and it's not very
good, but I'm going to use it anyway, because it popped into
my head or tail
owning a football team or you know, operating a TV show you
have a lot of leeway, have a lot of discretion. There's
a lot of stuff you can do. For example,
if you reach a certain amount of financial
wealth, you can go buy a Ferrari
and it's your Ferrari
and you can do whatever the hell. You please
to that Ferrari. You can run it on a track. You can take it.
On Rocky terrain, you can run it into the ground. You can put
cheap gasoline in it. You can not replace the windshield
wipers when they need to be replaced. You can,
you can screw up the clutch. If you want to ensure its your
car, you can do whatever the hell you want to. It. It's your
prerogative.
And a football team is like a Ferrari,
but the difference is
the Ferrari, that is the football. Team
is the pride,
and is the rallying point for thousands. If not tens of
thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. If not millions of
people in your community and Beyond it carries the name of
the community.
So to me, there is a much more sacred Bond
and responsibility
than to say. Hey, you know what? I own this thing.
I'm going to do whatever the
I want to do to it. No,
no, and that's what upsets me because I believe every fan
base in the National Football League deserves to have owners
who will not treat the team,
like the Ferrari, that they've decided to run into the ground
because they can, they need to understand, they've got
a greater obligation to their fans,
to their communities,
to not run the team like a bunch of morons to not do
the things. They're not capable of doing just because they can.
Why are you doing it because
As you can't. Hey, you know, what if Chris Mara
is such a good Personnel evaluator,
why aren't the Bears calling and asking
for permission to interview him to be the general manager of
the team? Seriously, why aren't other teams hiring these folks?
If they're so good at what they do?
Because there's only one team that will give them
the opportunity, the team that they own, that's what upsets me.
Whether it's Stephen Ross, treating the Dolphins,
just like a trophy that he that he keeps next to his superyacht
if he has one and I assume he does.
And this I just think that the Obligation is so much greater
that because because Mi this gets back to the point. I made
a little while ago.
It's a profitable business, no matter what you do.
You have to try, it's Brewster's Millions another
great movie from the 80s and I'm sure Mi hasn't seen you
after try to not make money with an NFL team and you still
are going to make money even if you try not to make money.
So it's just at this is what pisses me off because every
team, every fan of every team should have a real chance every
year
and what we see at the end of the season
on display are the Laws in the owners who either
choose to drive the Ferrari into the ground,
have no idea how to drive the Ferrari. We're going to do it
anyway, or just otherwise are going to screw everything up
and
and the folks who pay for the ones who care deeply about
their teams. So that's what bugs me if you can't tell.