I was born in '78 so thankfully missed the worst stretch in Giants history. I remember watching the Giants as early as '84 and thinking Phil Simms was the best QB of all time.
I really remember starting to pay attention to the business side of football midway through the '90 season when I was in 7th grade. It was around week 12 when we played on MNF against the 49ers and lost 7-3.
It was 1992, I felt like George Young did not know what he was doing. All 14 years old of me felt that a GM who put together two championship rosters was clueless and without Parcells he could not be successful.
During the '94 draft when the Giants drafted Thomas Lewis I was convinced Young had lost it. With so many other better WR on the board such as Derreck Alexander, I was sure Young was clueless. This after the Giants were raided in the first Cap Year Free Agency losing Bob Kratch, Eric Moore, Myron Guyton, Greg Jackson, Mark Collins, and Bart Oates. Young made a terrible offseason worse when in June of '94 he cut Phil Simms.
The rest of his tenure was really tough. He had a few good picks in the 90's such as Strahan in '93, Sehorn in '94, Toomer in '96 and Barber in '97, but these were all guys that took time to really develop. Coaching really helped Strahan and Armstead (Reeves/Nolan). Sehorn took a few years as well as did Toomer.
Our 1st round picks in the 90's amounted to nothing.
'91 - Bunch
'92 - Derek Brown
'93 - Dave Brown (gave up 1st round pick in '92 Supplemental draft)
'94 - Lewis
'95 Wheatley (Despite Reeves not liking or wanting him)
'96 Cedric Jones
'97 Ike Hilliard (Solid)
On top of Young's drafting, he didn't see HC material in Belichick yet hired Ray Handley.
After Handley failed, he couldn't convince a Coughlin and "settled" for Reeves yet didn't work with Reeves after year 1.
In '97, in control move he blocked the franchise from potentially reuniting with Parcells.
As many good things that Young did in the 80's he was a disaster in the 90s.
Would Young have had success without Parcells? I think not. Parcells had success without Young. I'd argue Young had minimal success without Parcells.
That is why George Young is not a HOF and why I personally do not believe he should be.
I might be harsh, but it is my view.
and while his 1st round string of busts is inexcusable, in that time he also was responsible for players like Strahan, Tiki, Sehorn, Sparks, Way, etc. not excusing the 1st round ineptitude, just saying it wasn't all bad.
He should be in the HOF.
I feel like he's not in the HOF because most voters assume he's already in the HOF.
Nothing pisses me off more than when I recently heard that the Giants were all set to bring back Parcells in 96 but Young didn't want him back so he offered the job to Fassel. There was a poster who claimed that Parcells actually recommended Belichick and Coughlin as his potential replacements before Handley. What might have been.
George Young was immovable, and stayed way too long.
I'm sure others will have more info.
As someone who lived through those years,where it seemed each year was a variant of the season we just endured, Young, perhaps wrongly, was a Moses who led us out of the desert.
George young had his problems adjusting to free agency and the salary cap, but even with that said, by 1997 when he retired, we had a young team that was building. We had Strahan, toomer, sehorn, armstead, Hamilton, Howard Cross,
What really hurt the giants was their inability to land a franchise quarterback after they cut ties with Simms.
He won NFL executive of the Year 5 times
The impact and accomplishments he had on the ny giants and the NFL can not be undervalued.
You can go with his misses and failures, but when you look at the overall picture and his whole body of work, it's clear he is a hall of famer.
I agree but I am not discounting his work. overall his teams in the 80's didn't become successful until '84. Obviously a different Era. He deserves credit for the Super Bowls and gets it, I just think his last seven seasons, and how ill prepared he was with the salary cap and poor drafting should be acknowledged as well.
Solid executive. But not HOF IMO.
You can put that list right here:
His draft picks in the early years were good to great, but the team had so many holes to fill.
Towards the end, he seemed to lose it a little. There was a different player every year with contract squabble. The NFL went thru some major changes and GY wasn't prepared for them. He was slow to adapt to Player Free Agency.
I give him full credit for pulling the Giants out of the Dark Ages. His last few years.....not so much.
Combined with not recognizing the potential of Belichick, I adds up to a career that falls short if the Hall of Fame
I agree but I am not discounting his work. overall his teams in the 80's didn't become successful until '84. Obviously a different Era.
Solid executive. But not HOF IMO.
This tells me all I need to know. He took over a huge mess in 1979 and the fact that you want to say he didn't start to have success until 84 leaves me shaking my head. What did you expect?? That he would turn the team around in an era where there wasn't free agency in 2 to 3 years??
Young was an NFL titan. He should be in the hof for drafting LT alone.
He also left this team in good shape in 97. The team was a mess before young arrived on the scene. When he left they had two super bowl titles and a good young team built to win some more, just sans qb.
look at some of the executives in canton. Young stacks up. He should join them.
Had a good run in the 80s but did not set up the team for success in the 90s. Terrible first round picks and Dave Brown.
At least he didn’t fire Parcells after the 83 season.
My point here is that Parcells has taken credit for building the team from trash and while he was a great coach, the guys who built the team from trash were Young and Perkins. Young was a great GM and a great person in NY Giants history, I don't think he gets the credit he deserves because of his last few years.
Certainly Hall of Fame worthy.
He was more on-the-money about free agency than most people give him credit for. He believed that teams would over-spend for star players, which has become standard, and that good teams would still be built through the draft.
As for his first round selections in the 90s, Jerrod Bunch was a great pick. The guy was a beast and would have become an All-Pro but suffered a career-ending injury. Wheatley was a pretty good pick, too, but HC Dan Reeves refused to play him much. The point about Young's later round picks being pretty solid is also well-made. Reeves was the wrong choice for HC and was really the biggest problem with the GIANTS at that time.
At the end of his run the situation had changed and he didn't change with it. We all know the basics: Didn't handle free agency and salary cap well.
As said above, you can't dismiss his enormous accomplishments because he did relatively poorly at the end. Without George Young the Giants would probably be something about like the Browns or the Lions, or maybe the Jets.
Bad news: didn't let the cook shop for some of the groceries; did not want lil Bill as HC.
Since. none of the Bad news doesn't even happen without any of the good news in the first place
George Young was a savior for the Giants.
But before Tuna, remember he hired Ray Perkins and they helped turn the team around, establishing a core of players (including LT and Simms) and breaking the long playoff drought in ‘81. We then had the strike shortened ‘82 and Perkins left to be HC at Bama. Only then did Tuna come on board.
Young was a fantastic talent evaluator and great exec. He did have a bad stretch of first round picks in the 90s but some of the talent he found in later rounds was unbelievable.
As noted his biggest sin was failure to adapt to the new NFL and free agency. George was a very bright guy, former teacher I believe, but he was stubborn.
He is as much responsible for the first two Super Bowls as Bill Parcells was
He's good in my book.
You can put that list right here:
Worst was cutting Simms after a Pro Bowl season - thinking Dave Brown was the answer. He was pure shit after SB XXV
TheVette : 10:37 pm : link : reply
..are the reasons George Young is not in the HOF. Easily the worst GM during that stretch in the NFL
Easily worst GM in the NFL?? Jesus. You had the Rams, Seahawks, Jets, Colts and Cardinals with more 3 or 4 win seasons than above .500 seasons.
You had the Redskins go from contenders to much worse than us.
So many people here look in a vacuum wearing glasses that make themselves fucking blind.
He was more on-the-money about free agency than most people give him credit for. He believed that teams would over-spend for star players, which has become standard, and that good teams would still be built through the draft.
As for his first round selections in the 90s, Jerrod Bunch was a great pick. The guy was a beast and would have become an All-Pro but suffered a career-ending injury. Wheatley was a pretty good pick, too, but HC Dan Reeves refused to play him much. The point about Young's later round picks being pretty solid is also well-made. Reeves was the wrong choice for HC and was really the biggest problem with the GIANTS at that time.
Young also drafted Rodney Hampton over Darien Conner, who Parcells wanted desperately. We all know who Rodney became, and Conner ended up being a journeyman LB.
Not saying they didn't leave on their on accord but something could have been done at some point while BB goes to Clev/NE/Jets/NE and Parcells goes to TV Booth/NE/Jets/Dallas.
Young watched and let it happen...
Wouldn't normally comment on a thread like this but it irritates when so many people talk about stuff that they clearly don't know very much about. The fact is that George Young DID NOT make the draft picks when he was with the Giants. NEVER! In GY's tenure the picks were made via a collective decision by the head coach and Tom Boisture. GY only role was to break ties and he had to do that only once. In that instance in 1995 Dan Reeves wanted RB Salaam and Boisture opted for RB Wheatley. GY sided with Boisture (but actualkly said if it was up to him he'd have taken OT Korey Stringer).
Point two: We can quibble about this or that decision (and in fact my very first comment on the BBI way back then was to criticize GY for the fact that coming out of the 1990 SB the Giants had two viable QBs with rings but by three years later both were gone with nothing to show for it!) but what happened in the 1990s is what happens. The Giants had a great team in the 1980s but it got old and moved on and the Giants had to rebuild; happens to every good team eventually. And building a winner in the NFL is hard. In fact one can make the case that as many as half the teams in the league have never even got to the point where they needed to rebuild because they never womn anything in the first place.
I have one other comment on the Belicheck situation in 1990. People seem to have fantasized that if we had just kept BB we would have kept winning and would have had 10 SBs by now. truth is though that coaches don't win championships; players do. And in the 1990s the Giants just didn't have the players. The likely scenario if BB had stayed the Giants would have gone through the same roller coaster and BB would have eventually been fired somewhere along the way.
Young built the staff that made the picks.