Giants co-owner John Mara confirmed that Dave Gettleman would be returning as general manager in 2021 for his fourth season: “He’s coming back.”
The biggest reason: Gettleman’s positive collaboration with Giants coach Joe Judge, who just completed his first season on the job.
“I think the way Dave and Joe worked together and I thought our personnel decisions were really sound this year,” Mara said on Wednesday. “I feel better about our roster. The two of them working together have built something that can have sustained success. I didn’t think making a change at this point in time would be beneficial.”
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Mara said he didn’t actually contemplate firing Gettleman even though the Giants finished with a 6-10 record and missed the playoffs for the eighth time in nine seasons. He did admit that it “didn’t feel good” when the Giants started 1-7, but once the team went on a four-game winning streak it felt like things were trending in the right direction.
“There’s no defending the record,” Mara said. “We haven’t won enough games. We made some miscalculations in 2018 with our personnel decisions. But the last two years we’ve seen significant improvement. to break that up now and bring someone in from the outside was not going to be beneficial.”
Later, Mara reiterated again that the Giants “didn’t win enough games but I think we made enough progress to warrant staying the course with the people we have in the building.”
Gettleman has accumulated a 15-33 record in his three seasons as Giants general manager. The Giants contended for an NFC East title this year up until the very end of the season, getting eliminated when Washington beat the Eagles in Week 17. Though, the Giants only had a 6-10 record, started the year 1-7 and had one of the worst offenses in the NFL.
The Giants averaged 17.5 points per game. Only the Jets scored less.
Mara admitted that the offense “needs to be better” and that fixing it will be a focus of free agency and the NFL Draft. He attributed the offense’s struggles, at least in part, to the shortened offseason, lack of preseason and having an offensive line with multiple new starters.
After a couple of rough offseasons to start his tenure, Gettleman appeared to right the ship in Year 3. His big-ticket free agent signings — cornerback James Bradberry, linebacker Blake Martinez, safety Logan Ryan — all paid off, and the Giants got contributions from the majority of their 10-person draft class. Plus, Leonard Williams — who Gettleman controversially traded for in 2019 — finished with a career-high 11.5 sacks in a dominant season.
It seems all of that was enough to offset the mistakes Gettleman made in 2018 and 2019, striking out on big-money free agents like Nate Solder and Golden Tate, and making ill-advised moves like trading for Alec Ogletree and trading up to draft cornerback DeAndre Baker in 2019. Neither player is still with the organization.
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