Everything You Need to Know About Why the Giants Fired Pat Shurmur

For the second time in three seasons, the Giants will be in the market for a new head coach as the team has reportedly terminated Pat Shurmur’s contract.

The 54-year-old Shurmur, previously the Vikings offensive coordinator, was named the Giants' 18th head coach in team history on January 22, 2018, just one day after the Vikings were eliminated in the NFC title game by the Eagles, the eventual Super Bowl champions.

Shurmur, who, who brought a 9-23 record to the Giants as a head coach stemming from two seasons in Cleveland, equaled that record in as many seasons with the Giants.

Why is He Out?

While there were likely numerous reasons for his undoing, the biggest was perhaps his inability to build on the progress made in the second half of 2018.

Although they finished 4-4 in those games, the offense averaged an impressive 26.4 points and 367 yards per game, vast improvements over the 21.5 points and 356.1 yards per game they averaged in their first 11 games that year.

In 2019, the numbers went in the wrong direction. The Giants averaged 21.3 points and 338.5 yards per game on offense on their way to a 4-12 record, one game worse than their 2018 mark.

In both seasons, the Giants were saddled with underperforming defenses, though in the case of 2019, that the youth movement on the defense developed as a snail’s pace was perhaps one of the most damning indictments of Shurmur’s struggles as head coach.

Getting back to the offense, one might point to Shurmur’s decision to flip the switch on the Daniel Jones era after only two weeks and the team’s inability to field all of its primary skill-position players—running back Saquon Barkley, receivers Golden Tate and Sterling Shepard, and tight end Evan Engram—on the field at the same time.

While the rookie quarterback certainly is part of the equation, the struggles by the Giants to best utilize Barkley, to design better run-blocking schemes and the offensive line’s struggles to handle stunts when combined with Shurmur’s seemingly weekly questionable in-game management decisions were just too much to overcome.

It wasn’t all on the offense, however. Defensive coordinator James Bettcher, who was given several of his former players from his glory years in Arizona, couldn’t come close to replicating the success he had in the desert.

In 2018, the Giants allowed 25.8 points and 371.4 yards per game to opponents; this year, they gave up 28.2 points and 377.3 yards per game. Their pass defense was particularly bad, allowing 67 plays of 20 or more yards and 15 plays of 40+ yards, both figures second in the league.

Why fire him after two seasons?

The most significant factor was likely a lack of progress with the team. While it is undoubtedly true that the Giants were in a full-scale rebuild mode, something they never seemed comfortable as an organization in embracing, there was a certain degree of progress expected from Year 1 to Year 2 in terms of the systems in place.

That progress didn't happen, and in fact, the team went backward. Further, rebuild aside, it is on the coaching staff to develop players, and the feeling was that that didn't happen at a reasonable pace.

Now to Shurmur's credit, he didn't lose the locker room in the way that Ben McAdoo, his predecessor, did.

The players played hard for Shurmur right down to the final buzzer. While they didn't have the results to show for it, countless players revealed that practices were spirited and competitive and that it was a mystery as to why it wasn't transferring over to the playing field.

What this means for the Giants

The Giants will have to start all over again with finding the right head coach to lead the rebuild.

Now worth noting is the coaching contracts. It's not known how many years or what kind of money is owed to Shurmur and his assistants. Still, the way it usually works, at least for a head coach, is that if he gets another job, the previous team will pay out any different in salary owed for the remaining life of the contract.

So, for example, if Shurmur was getting $4 million per year from the Giants and he takes an offensive coordinator's job for $1 million, the Giants would owe him $3 million per year over the next three years.

If it turns out that Shurmur and his assistant coaches are owed a lot of money on their respective contracts even after they get new jobs, how much of a factor will that be in hiring the next round of assistants?

The obvious answer should be zero, but that's not how business always works. Shurmur had 21 assistant coaches filling a variety of roles, from offense to defense, to strength training to nutrition and performance.

While the length of these coaches' contracts isn't known--usually the average is two years--it wouldn't be a surprise if some of those assistants were signed for multiple years.

From a business perspective, a team doesn't want to be paying off almost two dozen employees for multiple years when they're no longer on staff.

Which begs the question as to whether the Giants might be a little more judicious when it comes to what they're willing to pay to hire a new coaching staff.

What this means for Pat Shurmur

After two failed attempts at head coaching, it wouldn't be surprising in this was Shurmur's last chance at being a head coach.

He's failed now with two different teams to turn the franchises around, so it would be surprising if another team were to come along and offer him another opportunity to salvage their franchise when it's clear that Shurmur has struggled to do this.

However, Shurmur has shown himself to be a competent offensive coordinator when that has been his sole responsibility. As such, it wouldn't be a stunning development at all if he were to land on another staff as an offensive coordinator.