The New York Giants sit at 2-7 and are on the cusp of another losing season, which seems certain now that they are out of experienced quarterbacks for at least the next month.
But they may have deeper issues than that, it seems, after a frustrated Xavier McKinney revealed that the coaches and players may have a communications issue.
“Honestly, it sucks. But, I don’t know, man. I don’t really have many words. I think that from a leadership standpoint, I don’t think they’ve done a great job of letting the leaders lead, and listening to the leaders and the captains,” McKinney said, via ESPN. “But obviously it sucks losing.”
McKinney would not get specific about who ‘they’ are or exactly what the issues are but when another captain, left tackle Andrew Thomas, was pressed for his comments, the sentiment wasn’t shared.
“I would say you have to ask Xavier that. I don’t know exactly where he’s coming from or where he’s feeling that, but for me personally, I think we do a good job just being able to communicate with the staff. Anything we need or any of our frustrations or whatever, any questions we have, I feel like they are pretty open,” Thomas said on Monday.
From a thousand feet up the issue looks fairly simple. Thomas got paid this year (he signed a five-year, $117 million extension in July) and McKinney did not.
Thomas is now a loyal soldier, especially after missing seven straight games with a hamstring injury, and is here for the long haul while McKinney may not be in the team’s long-term plans.
The Giants have chosen to let McKinney ‘sing for his supper’ — or further establish himself — this season, before they make a decision to keep him in the fold with an extension.
McKinney, a second-round pick out of Alabama back in 2020, will be a free agent come March unless the Giants do something between now and then. It appeared during the offseason the team may still be wary of McKinney’s maturity level after an off-field hand injury caused him to miss two months of the season last year.
Plus, McKinney was a Dave Gettleman draft pick so we don’t know where he stands in the Joe Schoen/Brian Daboll world even though he was named a team captain before the season.
On Monday, Daboll was asked for his take on McKinney’s postgame comments.
“We do the same thing every week since we’ve gotten here. We have good communication,” said Daboll.
“We meet every week. Good talks, go through situations, things around the building. So, very comfortable with the leadership that we have, how we communicate with them and how they communicate with us. . . I’d say the meetings we have every week, which we have every Friday, the captains’ meetings, are good, productive meetings.”
With eight games remaining, we’ll see if these ‘cracks’ reveal themselves further. In any case, everyone in the building will be playing, coaching and/or working for their collective and individual Giants careers for the next two months.
