He’s largely credited with saving the Giants from oblivion & building the powerhouse 80’s and 90 team, but he also may‘ve made 2 of the worst mistakes in franchise history:
*Deciding Bill Belichick would never be a good HC in the NFL. Having Handley as the better option.
*Not carrying a cell phone, so when Tuna wanted to come back in ‘97 he had already left the house to hire Fassel and nobody could get in touch with him.
What are your lasting feelings of George? Savior? The most damaging figure in Giants history? Something in between?
He wasn't without his faults - he didn't adjust well to the cap at all. But I'm not entirely sold on his not wanting Belichick - especially with rumors that BB was shacking up with a secretary inside of Giants HQ. Knowing how conservative ole Welly was, it's just as likely they told him to let him walk.
Imperfect, but brought us two titles. Drafted the greatest Giant of all time. Deserves to be in the HoF.
i'M GOING WITH YOUR TAKE ! ooops caps off People want to
bash young now ? I am sure we will throw snow balls
at Santa this year .
Quote:
Ok, he had a bad stretch from 91-96 or so but he still found great players even in that phase
The interesting thing is that his '90s drafts had a penchant for finding quality players in the later rounds while whiffing completely in the first round.
1991 - Jarrod Bunch in the first (though I still classify Bunch more as an injury casualty than a bust), but Ed McCaffrey in the fourth(damn you Reeves!) and Corey Miller in the sixth
1992 - Derek Brown in the first, but Sparks in the second, Hamilton in the fourth, Widmer in the seventh
1993 - Dave Brown was effectively their first round pick, but Strahan in the second and Armstead in the eighth
1994 - Thomas Lewis in the first, but Sehorn in the second and Bratzke in the fifth
1995 - Wheatley in the first, but Gragg in the second (yeah, sucked for us but was good for SF for years) and Way in the sixth
1996 - Cedric Jones in the first, but Toomer in the second and Roman Oben in the third, plus Conrad Hamilton in the seventh was looking good before injuries wrecked his career.
1997 - finally a decent first rounder in Hilliard, plus Tiki in the second, Brad Maynard (another who wasn't great for us but succeeded elsewhere) in the third and Sam Garnes in the fifth.
This pattern with Young goes back even further. He often did better with his second rounders than first rounders:
1982 - Butch Woolfolk in first Joe Morris in second
1983 - Terry Kinard in first(good) Leonard Marshall in second (great)
1986- Eric Dorsey in first(ok) Erik Howard, Mark Collins, Pepper Johnson in second (all much better)
1988 - Eric Moore in first(ok), Jumbo Elliot second (much better)
I could be wrong, also the points about little bill becoming the HC after being the DC seem plausible.
Wellington Mara wouldn't be considered the great owner he is today if it weren't for George Young. He likely would be viewed by many as a real gentleman but no more than a Daniel Snyder level of competence as an owner. And I like Wellington because he accepted Young and honored the agreement to remove himself from football decision, not an easy thing to do for an owner that had for years called the shots. He became a great owner because of it, but GY helped give him that.
The game changed and he stubbornly refused to change enough with it but IMO that doesn't wipe out any of his accomplishments, and genius required to turn the Giants into champions.
100% should be in the HOF
I spent a few on the road pregames talking with him and buying him glasses of milk which is what he would drink. All of this in part is to show that I am biased, but I think he was the best GM the Giants ever had.
He brought the franchise back from the hell of 18 years of terrible football. He had the “cahones” to draft #1 an unknown qb from Moorehead State as the Giants qb of the future. He followed that by drafting a defensive player from No Carolina asthe #2 pick. All of that would have been enough but he withstood the abandonment of his coach to Alabama and promote another unknown named Parcells who he defended through a 3/12/1 season as HC, in spite of Parcells machinations kept him as head coach.
Did he make mistakes? Unlike most opinionated without accountability posters here he certainly did and owned up to them. Unfortunately his career and life were cut short by a horrible neurological illness.
Young deserves a spot,on the Giants HOF if he doesn’t have one yet.
The Maras and Tisch used to be very hands-off owners. With young Chris in there, perhaps this has changed. I don't think they've been a plus for the team though. Things change around them, but at heart they don't.
+1 to this. He brought us back from Football Hell to two Super Bowl wins. And he was one heckuva interview back on WFAN radio back in the day.
I'm probably in the minority here but I always had a hunch that it was less that the game truly passed him by than it was his disdain of the changes the NFL was making with regards to free agency and salary cap. As a result his ideals mistakenly motivating him in some sort of attempt to "prove" he could still win without having to ever fully embrace it. IMO he was too smart of a football mind to simply let so many teams pass him by, but his ideals and stubbornness cost him in the end.
Quote:
And then the game passed him by. But the '86-'90 (especially '90) Giants teams are my favorite Giants ever...I'd slam my hand in a car door to have anything like that instead of what we have today.
I'm probably in the minority here but I always had a hunch that it was less that the game truly passed him by than it was his disdain of the changes the NFL was making with regards to free agency and salary cap. As a result his ideals mistakenly motivating him in some sort of attempt to "prove" he could still win without having to ever fully embrace it. IMO he was too smart of a football mind to simply let so many teams pass him by, but his ideals and stubbornness cost him in the end.
Exactly.
I spent a few on the road pregames talking with him and buying him glasses of milk which is what he would drink. All of this in part is to show that I am biased, but I think he was the best GM the Giants ever had.
He brought the franchise back from the hell of 18 years of terrible football. He had the “cahones” to draft #1 an unknown qb from Moorehead State as the Giants qb of the future. He followed that by drafting a defensive player from No Carolina asthe #2 pick. All of that would have been enough but he withstood the abandonment of his coach to Alabama and promote another unknown named Parcells who he defended through a 3/12/1 season as HC, in spite of Parcells machinations kept him as head coach.
Did he make mistakes? Unlike most opinionated without accountability posters here he certainly did and owned up to them. Unfortunately his career and life were cut short by a horrible neurological illness.
Young deserves a spot,on the Giants HOF if he doesn’t have one yet.
That's a great story!
Quote:
through some tough health issues. He once told me he didn’t mind revealing inside giant “truths” to me because I wasn’t the media. The media and agents were combined enemy of all things good about NFL, if not USA, according to Mr Young. I agree and would extend it but this is about Mr Young.
I spent a few on the road pregames talking with him and buying him glasses of milk which is what he would drink. All of this in part is to show that I am biased, but I think he was the best GM the Giants ever had.
He brought the franchise back from the hell of 18 years of terrible football. He had the “cahones” to draft #1 an unknown qb from Moorehead State as the Giants qb of the future. He followed that by drafting a defensive player from No Carolina asthe #2 pick. All of that would have been enough but he withstood the abandonment of his coach to Alabama and promote another unknown named Parcells who he defended through a 3/12/1 season as HC, in spite of Parcells machinations kept him as head coach.
Did he make mistakes? Unlike most opinionated without accountability posters here he certainly did and owned up to them. Unfortunately his career and life were cut short by a horrible neurological illness.
Young deserves a spot,on the Giants HOF if he doesn’t have one yet.
That's a great story!
!
And others are right, he did not adapt well to FA. The question is why. The answer is that GY believed in signing your own guys first. It was a legit theory in an era when FA just started and it was unclear how to make the most of it. GY was operating under the theory that you picked and developed the talent, so don't let it get away. Then bring in outside guys. Unfortunately, that led to overpaying for some of our own guys who were no LTs or Carsons. He clung to this theory too long when others were realizing the key in the cap era was maximum value first and foremost, and that means letting your own guys go if they want more than their performance demands.
As for BB and Tuna, Tuna screwed the Giants when he left. Back then I was nostalgic for him and would have wanted him back. He was kind of the perfect NJ/NY coach, but honestly, it's better he didn't come back and tarnish his image. BB was probably not ready to be a HC in NY yet. (I would have loved to see him try it.) Not because of football stuff, but because he'd have looked like a much grumpier McAdoo in front of the press here. He needed to go to Cleveland and even there he didn't keep the job in part because of that. It's one thing to do what he does now with a lot of success behind you, and another to do it with no track record. (And, I for one thought he should have been kept in Cleveland and would have loved to see him given a shot as HC here. I'll always think of him on the sidelines with a whiteboard and red Giants jacket coaching up the guys on the sideline. In Cleveland he made the hard but correct choice to let go of home town hero Bernie Kosar. That lost him a lot of fan goodwill because they weren't ready for that. But he was starting to turn that club around when his tenure ended, and a lot of the reason he was let go is that he was not good at being the face of a franchise.)
But, how many 5 time exec of the year winners are there? How many guys pulled a franchise out of almost 2 decades of futility? He should absolutely be in the HOF.
Quote:
And then the game passed him by. But the '86-'90 (especially '90) Giants teams are my favorite Giants ever...I'd slam my hand in a car door to have anything like that instead of what we have today.
I'm probably in the minority here but I always had a hunch that it was less that the game truly passed him by than it was his disdain of the changes the NFL was making with regards to free agency and salary cap. As a result his ideals mistakenly motivating him in some sort of attempt to "prove" he could still win without having to ever fully embrace it. IMO he was too smart of a football mind to simply let so many teams pass him by, but his ideals and stubbornness cost him in the end.
I don't think so, steve - I think people just underestimate how difficult it is to be good for a prolonged period of time in a highly competitive field, especially when you're in one organization.
So many things work against you - competitors gaining ground, the industry changing, organizational inertia. I don't think Young was just stubborn, I think he legitimately couldn't evolve and adapt to the changing landscape quickly enough, and it burnt him.
I've seen it happen with other senior leaders - where longer periods of success actually hamper innovation because they become so secure in their ways that they can't adapt when they struggle. Young was brilliant but at the end of the day was still human.
Also loved him. He had perspective (football at the end, is a game) and he sound be in the HOF.
So, the saints pick Rogers and LT falls in our lap. It was a no brainer pick that only the saints could screw up. It is not as if George found LT under a rock. He was one of the top prospects coming out of college that year.
George was essentially getting ready to fire Parcells too. That could have been another bad decision on his part.
The play of Lawrence Taylor basically brought the success to the team during the 80's and early 90's. Once LT retired, that was it. They were only truly competitive when LT was playing.
So... not to diminish the selection of Banks, Collins, Meggett and others but yes it is possible that ONE Draft pick
Clearly wasn't built for the game changing with free agency but that should not at all take away what he accomplished with this franchise.
Fabulous job...
As for Young, who does deserve to be the HOF, his contributions cannot be under estimated. He overhauled the roster but not in Gettlemen "get rid of everyone" style. Young evaluated the players and stuck with guys like George Martin, Van Pelt, Jennings and Carson who although associated with the abject failures of prior years, he thought could play. He then drafted Simms and started turning the franchise around.
Also, everyone forgets some of the deals he engineered such as getting Oates, Landetta and Godfrey from the wreckage of the USFL and picking up Carpenter, who led us to the playoffs for the first time in 17 years, and OJ Anderson. He also kept a steady supply of o-linemen and linebackers coming for a team that liked to run the ball and play a 3-4.
On the LT draft, you guys all act like it was forgone conclusion, but that was a great draft (3 of the top 10 picks are in the HOF) and no one would have been critical if the Giants had taken EJ Junior or Kenny Easley or Ronnie Lott in that draft.
Quote:
Ok, he had a bad stretch from 91-96 or so but he still found great players even in that phase
The interesting thing is that his '90s drafts had a penchant for finding quality players in the later rounds while whiffing completely in the first round.
1991 - Jarrod Bunch in the first (though I still classify Bunch more as an injury casualty than a bust), but Ed McCaffrey in the fourth(damn you Reeves!) and Corey Miller in the sixth
1992 - Derek Brown in the first, but Sparks in the second, Hamilton in the fourth, Widmer in the seventh
1993 - Dave Brown was effectively their first round pick, but Strahan in the second and Armstead in the eighth
1994 - Thomas Lewis in the first, but Sehorn in the second and Bratzke in the fifth
1995 - Wheatley in the first, but Gragg in the second (yeah, sucked for us but was good for SF for years) and Way in the sixth
1996 - Cedric Jones in the first, but Toomer in the second and Roman Oben in the third, plus Conrad Hamilton in the seventh was looking good before injuries wrecked his career.
1997 - finally a decent first rounder in Hilliard, plus Tiki in the second, Brad Maynard (another who wasn't great for us but succeeded elsewhere) in the third and Sam Garnes in the fifth.
Yup. His first round whiffs were brutal during that stretch. Remember Thomas Lewis tripping over the grass... Derek Brown never really making it out of his first training camp and intro to LT...
Loved the Wheatley pick at the time. Like, really loved it. Yikes.
At that time, free agency was different. Today, you would not keep Andy Headen on the team as a luxury backup for LT when the guy could start for any other team in the league.