Did ya’ll watch Hard Knocks this year? Excuse me.

This year, the New York Giants have been the subject of relentless ridicule and viral memes all year. For good reason, folks! It seems they made an all-time idiotic move in choosing to pay Daniel Jones instead of Saquon Barkley. They disrespected a franchise legend to save a few dollars, then still couldn’t holler at the playoffs (6-11 season). They conducted poor business, aggravating a good-natured player to the point where he felt justified in saying something like this on camera. He was still a good soldier, putting his faith in the front office and playing nice for his team. Barkley signed the franchise tag and played for New York two years ago.

You see, they bought into the league-wide trend that running backs are mostly replaceable and not great as high-value investments past their rookie contracts. The downfall of the running back position has been well documented. The ironic thing is that the Giants had one of the very few specimens in the league capable of challenging this idea. An additional ironic thing is, they paid a quarterback that not many would’ve said they had blind faith in… he looked to be leaning closer to ‘bust’ status than ‘superstar’ status. Big Blue decision-makers just didn’t have the gumption to get rid of a passer and face Big Apple public criticism… they had to show people he was the problem.

The leadership team for the New York Football Giants convinced ownership that removing Saquon from the equation would finally make a true evaluation on Daniel Jones possible. We honestly saw that dynamic play out in Philly as well… people were criticizing Jalen Hurts all year for not having passing production. You don’t have to if you have the dynamo that is Barkley in your backfield! He powers the offense all by himself, easing the QB’s job tremendously. GM, Joe Schoen even made a comment about how their investment at QB necessitated the reallocation of resources to support the signal caller. This has to be what happened, right? Otherwise, the public embarrassment from such an epically poor business decision would surely get the acting party fired on sight!

I can’t argue with the logic behind the idea, since I would’ve agreed that Daniel Jones did not look like a difference-maker, but you shafted one of your all-time greats. Execution was putrid my guys. And to top it all the way off, you did it while finally getting your 15 minutes of fame on Hard Knocks and ended up looking like fools in front of a national audience. The optics are bad for New York… the owner said he couldn’t sleep at night if S.B. Went to the Eagles, and that’s exactly what happened. Not only that, Philly looked rejuvenated, snagging the #2 seed in the NFC playoff picture and riding a deep playoff run all the way to a Super Bowl title.

I mean, can you think of a worse display of aptitude at the job of general manager of an NFL team? We could all see, plain as day, that Joe Schoen got taken for a ride and looked behind the NFL curve. Saquon tore it up, resetting vibe around the league (along with Derick Henry) of how valuable a bell cow back can be to an offense. Barkley was running roughshod over the league until KC made a concerted effort to shut him down at all costs on the game’s biggest stage. What happened then? Hurts reminded everyone that he is in fact not Daniel Jones, taking the reins of the offense back and delivering a Super Bowl MVP performance.

How embarrassing to see your franchise icon go to a rival, post a video about how his daughter knows he’s going to win now, and then see that come to fruition in the ultimate form of a Lombardi trophy… GM’s have been fired for much, much less (Jon Robinson after he traded away A.J. Brown, anyone?).

Somehow Giants brass did not get fired after this entire mess! But how? HOW SWAY?!

The only way this is really going down, is if they framed the removal of Barkley as a tool and a path to true change of a stagnant offense. It was their way of being able to get rid of Daniel Jones with no backlash. The only way it makes sense now, is if they go and get their franchise QB. John Mara is allowing the string to play out because he believes in Brian Daboll as a coach and believes in the vision (or believes in allowing the vision to play out) the way that Daboll and Schoen laid out. The plan heavily involves young bucks like Malik Nabers, Tyrone Tracy Jr. and Wan’Dale Robinson.

(Book)Mark my words: The New York Giants will draft a quarterback! Bet that, even if they sign A-A-Ron. (editors note: I originally said that they’d trade UP to get one… but the return of Myles Garrett to Cleveland, Kirk Cousins visiting Ohio and NY signing two vet QB’s changes things. They still have all of the leverage and motivation to take one somewhere early, though). That was the plan (Plan B, if they could not become a contender around Danny Dimes) two years ago. Will it work? Beats the hell out of me! One thing is for certain: you don’t do everything you did just to play around and rely on maybe Sam Darnold in free agency…