When Amani Toomer got to the Giants as a second-round pick out of Michigan in 1996, Dan Reeves was New York’s head coach. “And Reeves and George Young,” the Giants’ GM, “did not get along,” Toomer recalled late last week.
“So everybody would be in the locker room taking stock of who brought you here,” Toomer, 50, a Super Bowl champion and Giants Ring of Honor inductee, said on the Talkin’ Ball with Pat Leonard podcast. “There was a defensive lineman that Dan Reeves signed, gave a big signing bonus, but George Young didn’t like him. So halfway through training camp they cut him. [Then] because George Young cut one of Dan Reeves’ guys, Dan Reeves turned around and cut one of George Young’s guys.
“So it just became this thing where the main thing wasn’t the main thing,” Toomer continued. “It wasn’t about how well you performed on the field. It was about how well you fit in, who likes you, who brought you here, and it was just a total cancer. Because we knew at the end of the day, it didn’t matter how great you played. If they didn’t want you, they didn’t want you.”
That toxic dynamic ended, however, when Ernie Accorsi and Jim Fassel took over.
“They cut all of that out,” Toomer said. “I remember Fassel’s first meeting, he was like, ‘I don’t have a lot of rules because I don’t want to fine you.’ He said, ‘I just want you guys to come in and play, and if you play well, you will be here. If you don’t, you will not.’”
The Giants gradually ascended as a franchise from there, with a Super Bowl appearance in 2000. Then Tom Coughlin took over for Fassel, and performance and accountability defined a Giants standard that galvanized two Super Bowl championships.
Most memorably, Coughlin’s rule that players had to show up five minutes early to every meeting or practice constantly reinforced his Giant expectations.
“It was to let you know that if you’re not willing to do this little thing by coming early, then you probably aren’t dedicated to the team,” Toomer said. “And those kinds of little tests have to be made all the time.”
Toomer has been reminiscing candidly about the glory days the last week because he is frustrated with what he has seen from his beloved Giants the past two years. And he is far from the only one.
Giants Hall of Famer Michael Strahan startled NFL fans everywhere by waving an Eagles flag in honor of Philly running back Saquon Barkley during FOX’s Super Bowl LIX pregame show last week.
But Toomer had Strahan’s back, telling ESPN New York’s Bart & Carlin show that Strahan’s flag-waving was a “warning shot” to the Giants that their current state is unacceptable.
The reason? Toomer said former Giants players have a different perspective on their beloved organization than fans do: the franchise’s love for them as players was never “unconditional.” It was based on their performance.
So Toomer thinks the Giants organization should be held to that same standard now.
“We had to perform to remain on the Giants,” Toomer said. “We had to prove our mettle year in, year out, play in, play out. And it was very conditional. So now that I’m not a player anymore and I’m on the other side of things, I want to hold the organization to the same standard that they held us to – to where we’re not just gonna be sitting back and cheering and all this stuff.
“We’re gonna support [the team] because we love the organization,” Toomer said. “But when I see the organization kind of floundering the way it is – and then I see the organization kind of just say, ‘Oh well, let’s just do the same thing again and we’ll see if we’re getting better’ – that’s where I’m just kinda like, ‘Nah, man.’ I can understand where Strahan’s coming from. And I think a lot of people are like that: we’re just disappointed.”
Toomer has earned the right to talk like this about the Giants, with whom he played his entire 13-year NFL career. He holds the Giants’ franchise records for career receptions (668), receiving yards (9,497), touchdown catches (54) and consecutive games with a catch (98).
He also holds the Giants’ postseason records for receptions (44), yards (608) and touchdowns (seven). That included 21 catches for 280 yards and three touchdowns during the Giants’ playoff run to Super Bowl XLII to topple the undefeated New England Patriots – and team-highs of six catches and 84 receiving yards in the big game.
So this is not a hater talking. This is a player who bled Blue trying to constructively criticize something he knows to be wrong in order to help turn the franchise he loves around.
“I love Brian Daboll, and I love Joe Schoen,” Toomer said. “But at the end of the day this is not a personality contest. This is a results business, and the results just aren’t there. It’s not personal. I don’t hate these guys. I just want the results. It’s like, ‘Show me the baby.’ Show me something to be proud of.”
Toomer said it’s not just former players on the outside who are disappointed. It goes all the way to the top of the organization internally.
“There should be nobody comfortable in that building,” Toomer said. “The last two years. I know the owner’s not happy. I know that for a fact. I know that the front office isn’t happy.”
Why is co-owner John Mara running back this regime, then, if he isn’t happy?
“I really can’t answer that,” Toomer said. “I can’t answer that. That’s his decision.”
Numerous issues stand out to Toomer that must be corrected, though:
– Drafting and development: “The draft picks have not panned out. It’s sad to see that players have to go other places to let their talents show. The development of our players is just not there.”
– Attention to detail on the field: “Kicks blocked. Tackling. Being in the right position. Not blowing coverages. Catching the football. Making the extra effort to block. Not fumbling the football. Turnovers. Those are things that kill you as a football team.”
– Unforced errors: “In the NFL they say more games are lost than won, that’s the old adage. There were about nine or 10 games that were lost with no opportunity to win because of the self-inflicted wounds that the Giants had. It had nothing to do with the other team.”
– Lack of effort: “We have a corner out there who’s not – we have somebody out there, I’m not gonna say any names — who’s not putting forth effort. That is the basics of winning. How do you not play with effort in the NFL? That’s one of two things: either they’re not holding him accountable, or the team isn’t deep enough to where you have a real fear of losing your position every day of the week.” There needs to be a “pressure to perform” created by expectations and a deeper roster.
– Letting good players go: “When you get a guy like Saquon who was all the above, and just because he plays running back – and you don’t have the creativity to figure out how to make that running back, [how to] have that best player be the focal point of your offense – I have a problem with that. Because that’s not how my experience or any of the older players’ experience with the Giants was. If you can play, you’re gonna stay here.”
– Not good enough up front: “The Eagles took the Giants’ playbook. They took how we won in ’07 and ’11 and created the team around a defensive line that took one of the most elite QBs we’ve seen in years and made him look pedestrian. You need to build up the trenches. You can win in this league without an elite quarterback. You cannot win in this league without an elite offensive line.”
– Culture questions: “We let three Pro Bowlers out of our building: [Xavier] McKinney, Saquon and [Leonard] Williams. We let them just go. And I’m sure there’s more of them: Evan Engram, even [Sterling] Shepard played well. [Julian] Love. That’s a cultural problem. And you can draft whoever you want. We could have drafted Patrick Mahomes. If that culture is not there, that’s a big problem.”
How does an NFL team change a culture? Toomer knows from experience dating back to his days watching Reeves and Young transition to Accorsi and Fassel and eventually to Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese.
“You’ve got to change everything,” Toomer said. “The way you practice, everything, so there’s nothing similar from last year. Comfortability kills teams. And if they feel comfortable, raise the bar of expectations to the point where if you don’t want to become part of this team, it becomes brutally honest.”
For more Toomer analysis on topics like Malik Nabers’ next step, Eli Manning’s Hall of Fame snub, the “ridiculous” NFL MVP voting process and more, go to Pat’s YouTube channel @PLonNFL for the full Talkin’ Ball episode.