Keidel: Ben McAdoo Era Is Off To An Encouraging Start
By Jason Keidel
» More Columns
Giants fans should know the name Peter Costigan.
If you've slapped an extra tab on your screen and Googled the name, then you know by now that Costigan is not a player, coach or executive. If he were, he'd be breaking every child-labor law in the archives.
That's right, Costigan isn't old enough to work, drink or vote. He's a 12-year-old boy from Pennsylvania. In fairness, few of us had heard of the young man until The New York Times published a piece on him over the weekend.
MORE: Season Review: Where Do Giants Go Following Brutal End To 2016?
Costigan's talent is impersonation. For seven bucks (for a fake mustache) and a lot of imagination, Costigan morphs into Giants head coach Ben McAdoo. Add headphones, duct tape for a microphone and an ad hoc diner menu to mimic McAdoo's absurdly large play sheet, and you've got an image so similar that dozens of tickled Giants sauntered over to the preteen to ask him why he's not on the field.
The media and the masses have doubled as fashion critics when it comes to McAdoo. His clothes never make it near a runway. His haircut rivals that of Al Davis' son as the most homely in the league. McAdoo doesn't have any inherent football pedigree. No father, brother or uncle high on the NFL totem pole. He'd never been a head coach in the pros or college before taking over the Giants.
But he is now the head coach of a football that went 11-5 and reached the playoffs. Considering the Giants were 6-10 last year, lacking any identity beyond Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr., it's a fine feat, one that makes him noteworthy in America's media vortex, and worthy of imitation from 12-year-olds. It speaks to flattery, and perhaps longevity.
MORE: Keidel: Beckham Proving To Be More About Style Than Substance
Fans don't buy jerseys of players they fear will flee the team in 12 months. They don't buy season tickets if they plan to leave in 12 months. And you don't imitate unpopular or unsuccessful coaches.
Maybe McAdoo hasn't reached the land of contract extensions, but his maiden season was a success, even if the final game on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field left a foul taste on your tongue. And if you're looking for the record of rookie coaches, or any coach's first year with Big Blue, McAdoo, and you, should be proud.
The Giants have four Super Bowl titles, but only two coaches won them. And if you combine their first years as head man of the Meadowlands, Bill Parcells (3-12-1) and Tom Coughlin (6-10) combined for a record of 9-22-1. The twin patriarchs, the heads of two mini-dynasties, the former teaching the latter how it's done in the NFL, did not burst out of the gridiron gate.
Sure, the circumstances are different. But winning in the NFL is just as hard, if not harder, today than it ever was. What with free agency, the turnstiles planted at the head coach's office and ever-swelling salary caps, the league is more transient than ever.
They even have a handle for the first Monday after the regular season -- "Black Monday" -- when the vocational guillotine chops off a few headsets every year. This season, we saw coaches fired in Buffalo, San Diego, Jacksonville, Los Angeles and San Francisco. (The Jaguars just hired Doug Marrone to fill their opening.) Even teams that made the playoffs have head coaches toiling on the hot seat, from Jim Caldwell in Detroit to Bill O'Brien in Houston.
One name you won't hear is McAdoo. Not only because the Giants are too smart to play musical chairs with their coaches, but also because McAdoo did a rather decent job. Sure, he was hired as the latest QB whisperer, for his supernatural bond with Eli Manning, while it was the defense that shined and plowed a path to the playoffs. But unless your name is Marty Schottenheimer (who once was fired after a 14-2 campaign), you won't find too many 11-5 coaches bracing for a pink slip.
No team in NFL history has ever won a Super Bowl while averaging fewer than 20 points per game during the season. The Giants averaged 19.4. So they will have to tweak the offense if they are to find themselves farther than the front step of the playoff porch. They will have to do something about Beckham as well. He's way too talented to trade and, it seems, too sensitive for harsh criticism or discipline. So they need to find the soft professional touch that moves Beckham from gridiron adolescence to dominance. His performance last week, on and off the gridiron, is unacceptable.
But just like the young man from Wayne, Pennsylvania, McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese used just enough duct tape to impersonate a playoff team. And it got them through the door, just not all the way up the stairs.
If they keep this up, the young Mr. Costigan may find a few new friends in the imitation game.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
