Giants 28th in MMQB Power Ranking

Feeling bullish about Big Blue?

Eh, not so fast, at least not in the opinion of the esteemed MMQB team who, based on their post-draft power ranking voting, landed the Giants in 28th place.

The Giants’ 28 place ranking was precisely where they stood after the Super Bowl and despite the SI team giving the Giants a solid B for their 2020 draft haul. Their biggest concern? “Goodbye, Eli. Hello, Joe Judge and the newest branch of the Bill Belichick coaching tree.”

(Side note: Now you hopefully see why I am not a fan of power rankings given their subjective nature.)

On the one hand, it’s understandable to have reservations about the Giants given that they have a new—as in never before held the position—head coach, the logic behind the ranking is flawed.

First, the Giants have proven that they can win with a first-time head coach—they did so in 2016 with Ben McAdoo, who took the team back to the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Similarly, they went nowhere twice with Pat Shurmur, who came into the picture after having tried his head coaching hand once before, with the Cleveland Browns.

Coaching is everything, no question. But the advantage that Judge has given himself that it’s probably fair to say that both McAdoo and Shurmur did not is that Judge has surrounded himself with a solid staff of teachers whose resumes aren’t lacking. Every assistant has been productive throughout his career and hence hasn’t seen his employment uninterrupted.

Taking that a step further, Judge has four former head coaches on his staff. They include two from the NFL level (Jason Garrett, who took the Cowboys to the playoffs three times during his tenure, and Freddie Kitchens, who was a one-and-done proposition with the Browns), and two from the college level (Bret Bielema, who coached on a three Big-Ten championship at Wisconsin, and Derek Dooley, the son of legendary Georgia coach Vince Dooley and a man who in 2003, was part of the BCS national championship LSU Tigers for whom he was the assistant head coach).

As for the Eli Manning factor? The Giants weren’t very successful in recent years with him in the lineup, though to be fair, that wasn’t all his fault. Had the team focused more on building the offensive line the right way all along, as it finally did this year, who’s to say that the passing game and the running game wouldn’t have been more efficient?

This isn’t to say the Giants should be in the top 10—heck in the top half—of the power ranking. But to suddenly jump Tampa Bay (sorry but I refuse to degrade the city’s long-time name with the nickname its new quarterback has playfully suggested) seven spots in the rankings all because it has assembled what appears to be a dream team led by that future Hall of Famer (whom the Giants beat twice in the Super Bowl, remember), and after a 7-9 grade doesn’t make sense.

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