The mentor to New York Giants general manager Jerry Reese thinks the team is heading in the right direction as Ernie Accorsi spoke to the media on Tuesday about his upcoming Ring of Honor induction.
Accorsi, who helped piece together the building blocks for the Giants 2007 Super Bowl team, though he wasn’t the general manager of the team at that time, gave a positive review of the current state of the team. The Giants are 5-3, winners of three straight and are coming off an offseason where they spent over $200 million in free agency to upgrade their team, primarily on defense.
Now it remains to be seen if Reese, whose team hasn’t made the playoffs since 2011, has perhaps saved his job with his team’s start to the year. If the Giants don’t make the playoffs, it’d be hard to see Reese returning for another year as general manager.
“I think they have a lot of young, exciting players. I think they’re really in good shape right now. They came through a period with some close games and clutch wins. I like the team and I think they have a chance to be really an explosive offense and obviously, the defense is much better,” Accorsi said on the conference call.
“I think with what they did on Sunday, the defense in particular, those are the kind of things that happen that take you to another level. To stop a team that kind of had gotten hot the second half and a quarterback that threw for a lot of yards, they just shut them down. There wasn’t even a play, they didn’t get close. I think they’re going to be good, I like them. I don’t know Ben McAdoo really well. I got to know him a little bit last week. I sat down with him for a while and I really like him.”
Accorsi joined the Giants in 1994 as assistant general manager, eventually taking the helm of the team in 1998. After leaving the Giants he did consulting work with several teams around the league.
