Colin Cowherd Rips Giants Over Latest Decisions
The New York Giants are one of the most storied franchises in the National Football League's history and one of the most talked-about franchises. But they've also been a franchise that has fallen on hard times as far as the on-field product is concerned, conjuring up memories of the "Wilderness Years," the 15-year span from 1964-1978 in which the franchise devolved into a laughing stock.
As far as FOX Sports' Colin Cowherd is concerned, the Giants are still a laughing stock given their failed attempts at fixing the on-field product that hasn't been good since the early 2010s. In a recent broadcast on his Show, The Herd, Cowherd took aim at the Giants.
“If you had an optimism meter in the NFL, the bottom of it has to be Carolina and the Giants if they lose Saquon Barkley,” he said before narrowing his aim over the team's loyalty to quarterback Daniel Jones over running back Saquon Barkley.
“Daniel Jones in games that Saquon doesn’t play is 8-14," he said. "When I look at the Giants, when I was back there years ago, I felt like it was this great successful accounting firm. They feel like Blockbuster Video. They have not pivoted. Not very good upstairs. In 12 seasons since winning the Super Bowl, they have had one double-digit winning season. And that is in the weaker NFC."
Cowherd even suggested that Giants ownership has forced Jones on general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll.
“You have an owner that wants a quarterback that the GM and the coach privately don’t want," Cowherd said. "With Saquon Barkley, it is a BB gun offense. Without him, it’s a cracked water pistol. It’s bad, it is bad.”
Cowherd's allegations seem a little over the top. While it's fair to question how the Giants have supported Jones since drafting him sixth overall in 2019--Jones hasn't benefited from a solid offensive line and hasn't had a legitimate No. 1 receiver--it was Schoen and Daboll who agreed to retain the quarterback whose option year they declined, by the way, after Jones looked more like the quarterback the franchise thought they were getting when they drafted him.
Cowherd also doesn't consider the other circumstances behind the team's decision to sign Jones to his four-year, $160 million deal. Specifically, the Giants were coming off a successful season and were drafting in the bottom third of the order in a year that saw the quarterbacks class not nearly as robust as the upcoming one.
Rather than start from scratch, the Giants' brass decided to stick with Jones in the hopes that Year 2 in the current offensive system would yield more fruit. Instead, a rash of injuries ripped apart any plans to take the offense to the next level.
This isn't to say Jones is blameless. His play regressed in the six games where he saw action before tearing his ACL. But still, it could be argued that Schoen and Daboll likely had reservations about Jones given how the organization structured Jones's contract to include the escape hatch after the second year, a year in which the quarterbacks class is as deep as it's been in quite some time.
As for Cowherd's argument about Barkley, while he's been a productive player for the team when healthy, he's also been injury-prone. Further, the Giants are 25-48-1 with Barkley in the lineup, proving that it takes more than one player to turn an offense into a BB gun.
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