Wednesday Morning QB (Week 12)
Things are not alright in New York as the Giants are a team that began the season with so much hope but have turned in one of the worst records this year.
They are among San Francisco and Cleveland as the worst teams in the league with only two wins all year.
It is safe to say that a team that had just built up their offence to be one of the few teams that many believed could truly challenge for a Super Bowl is now not even going to make the playoffs.
They are going to head into the next few weeks of the season focusing more on their off-season scouting as they will end up with one of the top picks in the draft.
Everything went so wrong so fast for the Giants as they were simply not up to the task at the start of the season.
They never seemed to figure things out and they struggled all season but things have only been getting stranger as the weeks move on.
The season was almost doomed from the start when second-year head coach, Ben McAdoo immediately laid blame on the quarterback.
McAdoo was named the head coach in part to work directly with Manning and take the offence to another level.
In only his second season McAdoo has clearly given up on Manning throwing him under the bus to start the season and saying they needed better play at QB.
That move from McAdoo was the first step in what quickly became a lost season as the comments he made did him no favours in the locker room.
Reports quickly surfaced that he had lost the locker room and that the players were not playing for him.
A great way to do that to a team is to criticize their leader, whether he was a vocal leader or not.
Manning has been a staple in New York sports since he was drafted by the Giants in 2004 and became the new starter of a storied franchise.
He has consistently been at the heart of the debate about elite quarterbacks as he has never really been the QB to put up the best stats.
Yet at the same time, he took the Giants to two Super Bowls and gained a reputation as the Patriot killer when he beat New England twice for the title.
He may not have been having the best season but Manning has solidified himself as a starting QB in the NFL.
The talent is there and more often than not when a talented player is struggling a team will do something to help that player.
Instead, the Giants decided to move on as McAdoo and the Giant brass chose to bench Manning for the remainder of the season.
They will go with Geno Smith for most of the games and will also look to rookie Davis Webb to put in some time.
Smith has not had a lot of success in the NFL after struggling for years as the quarterback of the Jets.
There aren’t many that think that Smith will do much for the team as he is not the most convincing quarterback in the league.
Meanwhile, Webb is a quarterback that has been considered a potential future starter but is not the most polished prospect.
The idea was clearly to sit behind Manning for a few years and develop into his replacement when Manning eventually left.
Webb isn’t ready and Smith isn’t up to par making this decision much stranger than sitting a two-time Super Bowl champion.
It’s not that it has never happened before but the thought is that Manning was not really the problem on the field.
Nothing is working for the Giants and sitting their leader on the field is not going to change that this season is finished for the Giants.
It certainly won’t help McAdoo either, as he will take the fall for the decision and seems to be a coach on his way out.
His players are clearly not behind him and sitting Manning isn’t going to get them on his side.
If they continue to lose the drama will have been for nothing and Manning will be that much closer to leaving the team as soon as he can.
If it comes down to a decision between McAdoo and Manning it will likely be McAdoo packing his bags after a disastrous season that is just getting stranger as the weeks move on.
Fifth Quarter
Justifying the Purchase
In more quarterback news the San Francisco 49ers are looking to show everyone that they made the right move at the trade deadline. That is when they traded for Jimmy Garoppolo in an attempt to get a young promising quarterback that they have been missing for years. He was the heir apparent to Tom Brady but was never going to get a chance in New England. Now he will start his first game for San Francisco as their season is done but how Garoppolo performs will determine the future of the team.
Fight in the Secondary
Aqib Talib and Michael Crabtree got into last season when they faced off head to head and Talib stole Crabtree’s chain. In fact, Talib snatched the chain yanking it right off of the neck of Crabtree after they had been fighting all year. This year that history spilt over into Week 12 when both faced off again and got into a fight in the middle of the game. Both players received a two-game suspension after throwing punches and doing nothing but fighting while that suspension was reduced to one game apiece.
Concussion Issues in Seattle
The Seattle Seahawks are now facing an investigation from the NFL after Russell Wilson seemed to skirt the concussion protocol last Thursday. After taking a big hit in the third quarter Wilson left the game escorted by an official. He went into the medical tent but left pretty quickly afterwards and only missed one play in the game. He clearly never went through concussion protocol despite the indication that he had suffered a concussion. The league will determine whether or not he did skip the process in place to assist in player safety which could lead to some sanction for the team.
The Sport Addiction 