Giant missteps: These series of events have Big Blue looking lost

The New York Giants almost never took a step without a map. This was often how decision-makers around the NFL framed co-owner John Mara. Known to be thoughtful, patient and levelheaded, he was the statesman amongst NFL billionaires, the man who brought balance to a room full of real estate magnates, retail barons, oil tycoons and all manner of 99.9 percenters. To the men who rarely listened to an outside voice, Mara’s input was universally valued.

That’s why the past 10 months in this franchise make little sense. Mara and the Giants seem to have lost their map. The Giants have fallen into an unfamiliar trench, pushed by the force of the bitter fallout with Tom Coughlin; the massive free-agent splurge; the Odell Beckham Jr. drama; and now, the definitive ugliness of the Josh Brown domestic violence allegations.

The team’s decisions and mistakes make it look like any other fallible franchise. Historically, that’s not this franchise. And it’s certainly not the Mara ownership, which has been known for staking the moral high ground, holding the line on important NFL issues and above all else, avoiding embarrassment.

Yet here we are, 10 months into a cycle that has been chipping away at a fairly pristine reputation. And drawing plenty of eyes around the league.

“Some things have happened [recently] that you’d expect from other places – but not under Mr. Mara,” said a longtime NFL executive. “I don’t like to talk about other organizations, but yeah, there have been some days where I raised an eyebrow and thought, ‘Wow. I did not expect that from [the Giants].’ … Maybe that’s a testament to Mr. Mara – that when things like this happen, it makes you sit up in your seat a little bit because it’s really not part of who they have been.”

Indeed, it’s rare that anyone has questioned who the Giants are. The team and the ownership have been on a consistent axis for decades – mostly known for being a mirror of Mara. At least, until this past 10 months, which has seen a swaying away from the centerline that was sadly punctuated by the Brown revelations. In reality, the Giants have had the NFL grapevine buzzing for a while. Until now, it was over football decisions. Now the mishandling of Brown has taken it to another level.

It started with the firing of Coughlin, the two-time winning Super Bowl coach who so resented Mara’s handling of his departure that he interviewed with and strongly considered coaching the much-hated Philadelphia Eagles. Even now, supporters of Coughlin – and there are many – blame Mara for what they perceive as using Coughlin as a scapegoat for a spate of damaging personnel mistakes by general manager Jerry Reese. And while Coughlin has denied doing a frozen flyby of Mara after his final news conference, the video of the moment will live on as a symbol of a close relationship cratering under the weight of hurt feelings.

Not long after Coughlin was fired, many in the personnel community believed Mara had zeroed in on former Atlanta Falcons head coach Mike Smith as the choice to replace Coughlin. Smith was a measured, experienced choice who had a solid reputation and proven track record of running a straight ship in Atlanta. But to the surprise of some, Mara went with offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo, who offered continuity for quarterback Eli Manning but also carried an unproven track record for managing a locker room.

It was head-scratching since the Giants are one of the crown jewel jobs in the NFL, an organization capable of landing almost any candidate when resources are mustered to full capacity. It’s an opening that carries strong league-shaping ownership, the highest-profile city in the country, a storied history, close ties to the league office and a Super Bowl-winning quarterback to boot. Yet without fully exploring all the options on the table, Mara (or someone in the building) zeroed in on McAdoo in what didn’t seem to be a particularly measured or patient process.

Instead, Mara became convinced McAdoo – who had two seasons of coordinator experience – might depart for the Eagles. So he quickly sealed McAdoo’s ascent, believing he’d retained a talent who might be the Giants’ next great assistant-turned-head-coach – a lineage that includes Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry, Sean Payton and Bill Belichick. Mara even likened the move to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ hiring of Mike Tomlin to be their head coach after he spent one year as a coordinator.

To the wider NFL coaching and personnel community, the swiftness of the move seemed hard to fathom. Largely because so many see the Giants head-coaching job as one of the best in football. To think Coughlin’s relationship with ownership could crater so quickly in favor of a quick McAdoo hiring seemed oddly reactionary.

But nothing stood out to the NFL community more than what the Giants did next. Specifically, a headfirst dive into free agency that featured a historically restrained spending structure giving way to $105 million in guaranteed money. All of that driven into three players who were for various reasons considered risky: cornerback Janoris Jenkins, defensive end Olivier Vernon and defensive tackle Damon Harrison. To those who had remained critical of the Coughlin fallout, the free-agent splurge signaled that Reese was fully in charge of all football decisions and that Mara was ditching a road map of careful diligence in favor of maximizing Manning’s remaining Super Bowl years.

To be fair, none of this was remarkable by overall NFL standards. Many NFL teams alter their approach when a Super Bowl pursuit enters the finals throes. But for the Giants, it was out of the ordinary. To some, it seemed a sign that the long-term design of how the team was running had changed.

None of this has a bearing on how the situation with Brown unfolded, except to say that the automatic assumptions about the Giants have shifted in the offseason. While the franchise and Mara long occupied the perch of diligent leadership by example, that reputation has quickly regressed into the pack. After a fairly long run of squeaky-clean decisions, the Giants look as fallible as anyone else.

The McAdoo hire? The Coughlin bitterness really doesn’t feel all that different than what went down with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who canned Lovie Smith when they thought Dirk Koetter might go elsewhere. The offseason spending? It doesn’t look that different than the approach of the Miami Dolphins in 2015, a franchise that also tried to smother bad drafts with swaths of guaranteed money. And the moral compass? Well, is it that much better than the much-criticized Dallas Cowboys, who were raked over the coals for their handling of Greg Hardy?

Giants supporters will argue the contrary but the people in the NFL who counted Mara’s franchise as a bar-setter have noticed all of these things. That there’s even a debate about what the Giants stand for means the high ground has been lost.

It’s also not over yet. This will very likely get worse, even after Brown comes off the commissioner’s exempt list and is jettisoned from the Giants roster. We’re still learning details about timelines and evidence and admissions of guilt. And it seems to make some of Mara’s past statements look even worse.

“A lot of times there is a tendency to try to make these cases black and white. They are very rarely black and white – very rarely [is there] a Ray Rice video,” Mara told the New York Post in August, framing Brown’s domestic violence suspension.

But now we know Brown made some admission about abusing his wife, although Mara says the team didn’t know the “extent.” We also know that Mara made the choice to continue employing Brown after that admission. That seems like a black-and-white decision.

Historically, the surrounding NFL always knew where the Giants ownership would come out with a decision like that. The franchise could be counted on being thoughtful and deliberate when it made the next move. You always knew where the map would take the Giants. But it’s been an unusual 10 months for this franchise. And nobody can assume where it’s going anymore.

More NFL on Yahoo Sports