Ben McAdoo shows reeling Giants horror movie of loss to 49ers

Ben McAdoo had a surprise waiting for the Giants when they showed up Wednesday morning. It was not a pleasant one.

Instead of separating to digest the tape of Sunday’s loss to the 49ers as they usually do — as offensive and defensive units, and even smaller sometimes as position groups — McAdoo decided to show a number of clips from the disappointing performance to the team as a whole.

All 53 players. All coaches. All of the practice squad. Everyone who had a hand in the 31-21 loss in one way or another.

“We had a long, hard, honest meeting,” McAdoo said. “We had some open conversations, some hard talk, some plain talk, some simple talk. We played some film and we were brutally honest with each other.”

It was, the players said, the first time they have done that as a team.

“It was needed just because it makes everybody be accountable,” linebacker Devon Kennard said. “Every man on this team gets to see what was going on, plays that were or weren’t made and things that should or shouldn’t have been done, in front of the whole team. Everybody knows what’s going on on both sides of the ball, and I think it’s a good step to start holding us personally and as teammates accountable to one another.”

The theme of the clips McAdoo chose to show was easy to guess. They were all about effort, either lacking or impressive. It was, of course, the ones where that effort was not evident that stood out the most.

“The only thing I can say that’s disappointing is the lack of want-to, just after all that we’ve been through,” cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie said after watching the mash-up. “I’ll take a loss playing hard, flying around, but how we’re losing . . . I can’t explain it. I can’t speak for nobody else.”

Said defensive tackle Jay Bromley: “Effort is between you and you and that continues to need to get better. It’s something you don’t coach. You can’t coach effort. That just comes from high school and Pop Warner to college. It’s deciding to do something. It’s not everybody and it’s not throwing anybody under the bus that they don’t have a great effort most of the time. It’s just that we need it all of the time. We have to play desperate.”

The meeting may have been a bit of desperation, too. McAdoo received a temporary stay of execution from ownership this week, but it’s clear he’ll be judged at the end of this season not so much on the number of wins but by the optics of the games. If he can get the Giants to play for him, he can make a case to management that he should remain as coach. If he can’t, and the remaining month and a half looks like Sunday’s loss did, it’ll likely be curtains for him.

Which begs the question: Why did it take so long for McAdoo to address this issue in this way?

Rodgers-Cromartie, who has been one of the more vocal critics of the Giants’ effort, said it “definitely” should have happened sooner. “It would’ve put guys who have a different attention span on alert back then because nobody wants to be called out,” he said. “It could have helped if it was done earlier, but at least it got done.”

Besides the quasi-public humiliation of the film session, McAdoo also said there is a “possibility there will be some changes” in playing time based on what he’s seen in recent weeks.

“I want us to play better,” he said. “Our desire to finish has to improve and we need to see that.”

“He was keeping it real, man,” Bromley said. “Being honest. The truth hurts, but it’s a good hurt. It’s a hurt you can learn from. A wise man takes rebuke and uses it to his advantage.

“I hope everybody takes it to heart.”

Will it work? Nothing much has this season. A week ago, McAdoo tried to implore the team with positivity, telling them they had a run in them and asking them to remain optimistic. This week was more about identifying and trying to exorcise the negatives. McAdoo said he isn’t sure this latest attempt to connect with the players will be successful.

“Until we get to Sunday,” he said, “we won’t know.”

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.