I rarely walk out of a press conference feeling like I understand things less than when I entered the room, but in fairness, Dave Gettleman rarely gives press conferences.
This was his first one in five months, and even that was a contentious topic. The general manager said he felt badly that head coach Pat Shurmur had absorb the body blows from the media, day after day, as the team matched the longest losing streak in the franchise’s 94-year history. He did not feel badly enough to walk down a set of stairs at team headquarters and, you know, do something about that.
That was just one head scratcher from his 28-minute session -- much of which was spent trying to decipher his thinking on a single trade. Gettleman shipped two draft picks to the Jets for defensive tackle Leonard Williams in late October, even though Williams will be a free agent at the end of the season.
This might have made sense if the Giants felt like they needed Williams as the final piece on a championship team. But on one barreling toward a 4-12 record when every single draft asset is essential to the rebuilding process? How does that possibly make sense?
“Because now we know. Now we know what we have," Gettleman said. He was pressed on the point, several times, and finally admitted that he gave up what is potentially a third- and fourth-round pick for what amounts to an eight-game tryout. “We were willing to do that. We felt we needed him. Again, we felt good about it, and we feel -- he’s proven he’s disruptive in there.”
I’m no GM, but wasn’t it also possible to evaluate Williams’ effectiveness by watching him play for the other team that uses your stadium?
Williams could go onto become an All-Pro and I still won’t get that trade, just like I won’t understand drafting a running back second overall no matter how good Saquon Barkley becomes. Gettleman tried to clarify his now famous mocking of the analytics when he defended that decision -- you know, when he pretended to type on a keyboard -- explaining that the media couldn’t take a joke.
But the joke was never the problem. The thought process that went into the decision was the issue. He wants people to believe that the Giants are all-in on analytics, but when he talks about hiring “four computer folks” to redo the scouting department, it’s hard not to envisioning him walking into a Staples and hitting the big red button.
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It isn’t a lot to give you confidence if you’re a paying customer -- or, more pressing, a head coaching candidate with options. Gettleman did get one thing right, though, even if it’s hard to see it after nine victories to show for his two seasons.
He can still fix this team.
Typing even one confident sentence about Gettleman usually leads to an inbox filled with vitriol, so let me clear: I’m not saying he will. I thought co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch should have hit the reset button on the entire operation, Gettleman included. They did not.
That leaves the GM in a position, with the No. 4 overall pick and a mountain of salary-cap space, to have a franchise-altering offseason.
Gettleman gets something that Shurmur isn’t getting, something that few figures in professional sports ever get. A mulligan. He can’t make fans forget the past two seasons of awful football, but if he builds a successful team around Daniel Jones -- if he’s right on the young quarterback and the nucleus around him - he’ll change his personal narrative, too.
“I’m going to learn from my mistakes,” Gettleman said. “I never stop asking myself the question, ‘What could we have done differently? What could we have done better?’ That question never stops getting asked. I always ask that question. We evaluate, we re-evaluate, we go backwards and forwards with it. And that’s what I’ve got to do.”
And, really, Giants fans have no choice but to hope that journey of personal discovery leads to immediate results on the field. A big turnaround isn’t unprecedented, or even unusual. The San Francisco 49ers were 5-11, 2-14, 6-10 and 4-12 in the previous four seasons before, like a lightning bolt, they went 13-3 this year and might have the best shot to win it all.
There is always hope in the darkness for NFL teams. Except the Jets. (C’mon! I’m kidding!)
The problem is, Gettleman hasn’t done enough during his first two seasons to make anyone think this team will end up flipping its unsightly record in the new year -- and, based on what his boss said a day earlier, he might not get more than one year to prove that his detractors were wrong all along.
Reasons for optimism, or even just some clarity, certainly weren’t on display during his much-awaited press conference on Tuesday. I walked into the room armed with a bushelful of questions and, somehow, walked out with even more.
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Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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