Paul Schwartz

Paul Schwartz

NFL

Don’t expect Giants owner to fire Coughlin or Reese

This was 16 months ago, the Giants were the defending Super Bowl champions and their co-owner, John Mara, was discussing how stability in his organization is cherished and valued above all else.

“That’s one thing I’ve learned in this business having been around it all my life,” Mara said four months after watching Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning hoist yet another Lombardi Trophy. “The worst thing you can do is be impatient and make quick decisions based on pressure from the media or pressure from the fans.

“You have to have a conviction that you have the right people working for you and then you have to give them a chance to do their job. You’ve got to be able to stay with them when things aren’t going quite so well. Fortunately, we’ve been able to do that.”

It is safe to say things “aren’t going quite so well’’ with the Giants in 2013, and the glory and cheering have been replaced by ignominy and jeering. Mara’s Giants are 0-6 and got to sit back this weekend and watch teams winning and losing and rising and falling, all the while knowing they are no better than any of them and actually, at the moment, perhaps the worst of all.

If, as Mara has said, this comes down to “a conviction that you have the right people working for you,’’ the changes forthcoming to the Giants will be personnel-based and not a front-office purge. There is no conceivable way Mara or co-owner Steve Tisch will pin this on general manager Jerry Reese because he didn’t suddenly get dumb. And anyone who has watched from the inside how Tom Coughlin has poured himself into this bust of a season, trying to correct and nurture, realizes — as Mara surely does — the theory Coughlin, at 67 years old, has lost his touch is nothing more than a talking point.

Chatting with Mara prior to the latest loss, 27-21 in Chicago, was pleasant enough, given the strain visible on his face. The last time the Giants fired a coach during the season was 1976, when Bill Arnsparger at 0-7 was replaced by John McVay. Mara, at the time in his first year of law school at Fordham University, recalled not-so-fondly classmates would tease him about the plight of his family’s team. Mara restrained himself then, just as he does now, in the face of a return to the bad-old times for this franchise.

Mara has yet to make any public comments about this sudden fall from contention and Reese has been steadfast he won’t be saying anything until after Week 8, which corresponds to the bye week for the Giants. Will they be 0-8 by then or will they find a way to beat the Vikings and/or the Eagles?

This is the way Reese operates, in good times and bad. Once a season starts, he does not hold press conferences, preferring the head coach and the players — those “in the arena’’ — do the talking. So to those who insist he must stand up and speak, to those who accuse Reese of hiding as his head coach, Coughlin, faces the daily inquisition, give it a rest.

Where is Reese’s culpability in this unforeseen drop out of contention? Injuries have been part of the story, but not enough for 0-6. At the start of training camp, Reese came out with an agenda, noting his displeasure with not making the playoffs in three of the previous four years, which led him to proclaim “everyone is on notice.’’ He will not fire himself and ownership, smartly, will not fire him, but Reese needs to step up his performance, as he has a hand in this shocking demise.

Reese still has scouting in his blood, but he’s put a huge strain on the roster by failing to fill it with solid draft picks from the second, third and fourth rounds — the building blocks for any team. Since 2009, just look at these misses from those rounds: Clint Sintim, Travis Beckum, Ramses Barden, Phillip Dillard, James Brewer, Jerrel Jernigan, Marvin Austin. It looks as if Brandon Mosley, Adrien Robinson and Jayron Hosley are headed in that direction.

This season will test the patience and philosophical beliefs of a franchise that prides itself on stability and continuity but, based on the track record, the restraint Mara showed back in law school will likely surface again, 37 years later.