Why the Giants Retained General Manager Dave Gettleman Despite Record

The Giants whiffed in 2018 as an organization with many of their personnel decisions, but team COO John Mara said things began to turnaround in 2019 and 2020, which led to the decision to retain Dave Gettleman.

When the Giants brought back Dave Gettleman to the organization in 2018, they were hoping to get on the right track immediately.

Gettleman, who believed the team could compete while rebuilding, ended up sorely mistaken. That belief led to a series of personnel calculations—among them, trading for linebacker Alec Ogletree, signing running back Jonathan Stewart to a big contract, and sticking with veteran quarterback Eli Manning with no clear cut plan in place for his succession—that compromised any progress.

In three seasons with Gettleman at the helm, the Giants have a 15-33 record and have yet to hit .500.

“There's no defending the record. No defending that at all,” Mara said. “We haven't won enough games. We made some, some miscalculations in 2018 with some of our personnel decisions.”

So why, after throwing away a season, did the Giants decide to retain Gettleman as their general manager despite the team recording two additional losing seasons?

“I think the last two years, especially this past year we've seen significant improvement,” Mara said, adding, “and I just felt like to break that up now and to bring in somebody new from the outside is not going to be beneficial. 

"Dave and (head coach Joe Judge) worked very well together. Our personnel decisions are very sound, and I have every reason to think that that will be the case going forward.”

Mara, who admitted that he’d like to see the franchise win more games—they haven’t won more than six in any seasons since Gettleman was hired—added that he feels better about the roster, noting that Gettleman and Judge have built something that can have sustained success.

Gettleman agreed with Mara’s take on the rebuild moving forward, noting that things started to turn around in 2019 with the addition of quarterback Daniel Jones and defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence. Gettleman also was bullish on the offensive line’s future.

“We've got some really nice young pieces,” Gettleman said, citing center Nick Gates, guards Will Hernandez, Shane Lemieux, and Kevin Zeitler and tackle Andrew Thomas.

“I think this offensive line is gonna compete,” Gettleman said. “You can cherry pick here, cherry pick there in terms of which game you want to pick and how the offensive line played. They're big, they're young, they're strong and they're tough, and they're smart. So this whole line’s got a chance to be pretty good.”