No. But it’s more complicated than that.

After the Thursday night debacle I started seeing the hot take that Ben McAdoo was right. First off, get outta here with that shit. Ben McAdoo sucked. The team that went to the playoffs was a pretender that squeaked by a few close wins and made the wildcard only to get exposed for the frauds they were.

He also benched Eli for Geno Smith. Not the rookie who would actually be the future, but the stopgap space filler they picked up for health insurance. He handled it in the worst way possible, by not even discussing the plan with Eli before dropping the news on everyone. He lost the locker room incredibly fast once things started going poorly last year. He looked like the greasiest meatball. His game plans sucked. His adjustments sucked. His offensive strategy was “give it to Beckham”, which worked sometimes due to pure talent. Benny McPoo was not a good coach and just because The Giants probably should have moved on last year from Eli doesn’t mean he was right. Although…he always may have been the fall guy for Mara, so that’s a possibility.

Eli is broken. I think after the Eagles game even his staunchest defenders are starting to understand the Giants need to move on. He isn’t broken like Peyton was, his is a mental break. I think he still has all the physical tools (The Panthers game looked like fairly classic Eli) to make the throws he needs. Maybe he’s lost a little zip, but that’s it. Something in his brain is broken.

Eli used to have excellent pocket presence. He was never mobile, but he knew how to step up and move around to buy that extra second like all good QBs. He used to be fearless and chuck it wherever he could to make a play. His 6-sack game against the 49ers  in the NFCCG should be one of his signature games. That’s the dude we used to have. Frequently that quiet fearlessness got him into trouble because he wasn’t the brainiac Peyton was, he was honestly more like Favre in the sense that he always tried to make stuff happen.

That element of him is gone. Maybe it’s the years of being stuck behind a line he couldn’t trust. Maybe it’s learning new systems in the past few years and the unsteady coaching issues. Maybe he’s actually been hit enough times to rattle his brain or make him skittish. But that fearless Eli is gone. He still shows up occasionally, but it’s less and less and he tends to never show up if a team gets to him early. I don’t know what caused it, but after several years of this dude instead of old Eli, it’s clear he’s probably beyond fixing.

The Giants season is over and if they want to bench him for Kyle Lauletta that might show us something. Eli is done with NY and it is going to be sad as hell when they finally take him out back and shoot him, but the time is clearly coming. There are still lots wrong with the Giants, but Eli is actively contributing to it.