The Blame Lies With Mara, Tisch And Gettleman

There is, in every coach’s demise, at least one definitive moment telling you that a change must be made.

- Kevin Gleason

Sometimes it’s a subtle development, on other occasions an alarming mistake that leaves a large chunk of the fan base covering their faces in frustration.

For Pat Shurmur, the soon to be former Giants coach, it was a couple of blunders so big, so glaring, so embarrassing, that nobody would have blamed ownership a bit had Shurmur been unemployed by the time he pulled into his parking space at team headquarters Tuesday morning.

These were minor-league flubs by a head coach and a coaching staff ill-equipped to take the Giants to the next level, which, sadly enough these days, constitutes a .500 football season.

Shurmur’s freefall began weeks, maybe months, earlier when the source of sideline confusion and on-field breakdowns — as much a product of lacking in preparation as inexperience — could be clearly traced to one man. He had dropped nuggets of incompetence all across this football season, and yet, as we approached the final month, the more forgiving portion of the Big Blue fan base searched for a morsel of hope that Shurmur could grow into becoming a solid head coach.

He can’t, at least not in New York, and probably not anywhere else, Shurmur’s second failed attempt likely signaling a lifetime sentence to the safer and more anonymous setting in coordinator-Ville.

The final pieces of evidence were equal parts glaring and embarrassing as the Giants stood a couple of minutes and just a couple yards from victory or overtime on Monday Night Football in Philadelphia. The Giants needed to make a defensive stand, a rare feat indeed, and yet even a portion of the most negative segment of the fan base were tempted by the possibility.