By Jeff Moeller, The New York Extra/thenyextra.com
Don’t come after Dave Gettleman with the figurative torches and pitchforks. Or the actual ones, a thought that has crossed many a Giant’s fan’s mind.
That image to run him of the Meadowlands should be a past thought. The second-guessing, smirks, and chuckles should be on the shelf.
Gettleman deserves to continue the build. Every coach and general manager should have a minimum four-year span to spin everything through the cycle.
Gettleman has the Giants headed toward being a perennial winner in the NFC. Critics will still point to the team’s overall 15-33 record under his watch.
Sure, the embattled Giants’ general manager has made his share of mistakes over his three-year term.
In December of 2019, Gettleman appeared to be the dead man walking. He had his 2019 first-round pick DeAndre Baker arrested for armed robbery, and head coach selection Pat Shurmur was fired after 5-11 and 4-12 seasons.
Giants’ owner John Mara made that clear when he declared that Gettleman needed to improve his “batting average.”
Light the torches and gather the crowds.
Many thought Gettleman made a colossal mistake when he hired unrecognizable 38-year-old New England assistant coach Joe Judge as the next head coach. Huh?
He later had many questioning his faculties when he traded a pair of picks to the Jets for presumed bust Leonard Williams.
As it turned out, Gettleman has developed into a solid three-hundred hitter with room for improvement.
Gettleman has shown how he developed Carolina into a Super Bowl team during his stay there. It was through some shrewd shopping in the draft and free agency.
Over the past year, he has done it again.
Gettleman now has the Giants on the cusp of NFC East and playoff contenders. He has filled the obvious holes, and it has added depth to most of them.
The Giants will enter 2021 with one of the game’s dynamic players in Saquon Barkley and a stable young quarterback in Daniel Jones. Their defense is among the top 10 in the league in several categories.
Judge arguably has the largest staff in the league to check and review every football nook and cranny (did you ever wonder where that phrase came from?).
Gettleman still has roughly five million left in cap space, and he may add a veteran free agent to the offensive line, an area many still question due to the Giants’ youth.
After the draft and free agency, the Giants’ stock and expectations drastically rose. In a questionable and shaky current NFC East, the Giants already are a dark horse favorite.
In a few weeks, Gettleman and his team officially will begin the 2021 trail with their mini-camp. The reality of surpassing last year’s 6-10 mark will be in frontal view from the start.
A slow summer and/or season start will have Gettleman’s critics ready to figuratively strike the flame and raise the blade.
Whatever happens Gettleman detractors, put them away.
His own creation is ready to wreak havoc.