Dec 302019
 
Pat Shurmur, New York Giants (December 29, 2019)

Pat Shurmur – © USA TODAY Sports

[contentblock id=1 img=html.png]

NEW YORK GIANTS FIRE PAT SHURMUR, RETAIN DAVE GETTLEMAN…
The New York Giants have fired Head Coach Pat Shurmur after his team finished the 2019 NFL season with a 4-12 record. Combined with his inaugural season with the Giants in which he finished 5-11, Shurmur was 9-23 (.281 winning percentage) with the franchise. Ironically, Shurmur was also 9-23 in his two years as head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 2011 and 2012.

At the same time, the New York Giants have also announced that they are retaining General Manager Dave Gettleman despite him shepherding the franchise through the same 9-23 disaster the past two years. The Giants hired Gettleman as the team’s new general manager in late December 2017. Gettleman hired Pat Shumur as the team’s new head coach one month later in late January 2018.

“(Team Chairman and Executive Vice President) Steve (Tisch) and I have had many extensive discussions about the state of the Giants,” said team President and Chief Executive Officer John Mara in a prepared statement. “This morning, we made the very difficult decision that it would be in the best interest of the franchise that we relieve Pat of his duties. The last three seasons have been extremely disappointing for the organization and our fans. Pat has been a successful and highly-respected NFL coach for 21 years and he is not solely responsible for our record. But we came to the conclusion it is best to have a fresh start with the coaching staff. We very much appreciate how much Pat has done for this franchise. He is a man of character and integrity and the team has conducted itself with pride and professionalism.

“As owners, we take full responsibility for our recent poor record. It is our goal to consistently deliver high-quality football and we will do everything in our power to see that there is a rapid and substantial turnaround.”

“The last two seasons have been a continuation of what has been a very difficult and disappointing period for our franchise,” said Tisch. “It is never easy to part with someone the caliber of Pat. But John and I came to the conclusion that we need a new voice in the coach’s office and made the decision to bring in new leadership.

“We understand how frustrated our fans are. They expect more from us and we expect more from ourselves. Our focus now is on developing and improving our football team so that our fans can enjoy the winning team they expect and deserve.”

“Dave Gettleman is our general manager in 2020 and hopefully for many years after that,” Mara said. “We believe he is the right person to lead us going forward. Dave has a long record of success. We think he’s capable of putting a great team together and he’s going to get that opportunity. To the extent we need to make changes in personnel or the way we do things, we’re going to discuss that.”

“Although our record didn’t reflect it this season, we believe Dave has assembled a strong nucleus of young players that will help us compete for championships in the future,” Tisch said.

Mara and Tisch said they will immediately begin their search for a new coach.

“The search will be extensive,” Mara said. “We understand this a very big decision for our franchise. We’ve had three losing years in a row and, quite frankly, we have lost some standing as an organization. When you have three losing years in a row as we have, you face a lot of criticism. A lot of it is deserved. It’s up to us now to turn that around and get back to where I think we should be.”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Eric Kennedy

Eric Kennedy is Editor-in-Chief of BigBlueInteractive.com, a publication of Big Blue Interactive, LLC. Follow @BigBlueInteract on Twitter.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.