This is pretty much the deal.
Like it or not.
“Your boss wasn’t happy with your performance or what you’ve been doing, so somebody else got to do the job,’’ Dexter Lawrence said. “It’s like any other job in this world, the same will happen, so it’s the business.’’
Business has been brutally bad for the Giants for far too long, and it eventually caught up with the player at the position most vulnerable to getting benched at times like this.
No one can honestly claim removing Daniel Jones from the starting lineup was an injustice.
Even he did not make that case during an emotional and classy farewell statement two days after he learned he was basically fired from his job.
His lack of production this season warranted a move to someone else.
Still, the fingerprints of many of Jones’ teammates can be found on the carcass of a 2-8 season that grinds Sunday against the Buccaneers at MetLife Stadium.
“Yeah, it’s a team effort,’’ said Lawrence, the best player on the roster. “Yeah, of course. We’re losing, and he’s a quarterback. I think that’s just how the business goes and the nature of it. He’s done a good job to help us win games, and the defense hasn’t helped him.
“I mean, I don’t know how it usually works, but I know if we don’t play well, then things change. So that’s what happens.’’
That’s what happened.
Jones is out and gone — he asked to be released Friday and the team honored that request — and Tommy DeVito is in, as head coach Brian Daboll bypassed backup Drew Lock to go with the No. 3 quarterback on the roster.
DeVito went 3-3 last season as an undrafted rookie, and with seven games remaining, the Cedar Grove, N.J., native gets a shot at helping his case for a roster spot in 2025 as he attempts to provide some sort of spark for the NFL’s lowest-scoring offense.
The Giants are 0-5 playing at home this season.
Perhaps DeVito gets the understandably frustrated paying customers who show up amped up a bit.
Any energy he creates is sure to dissipate if the results are the same old, same old.
“For sure, you’re here to win a football game, I mean you don’t go out on the field without trying to win,’’ DeVito said. “We feed off of the crowd tremendously, when the crowd is into it, it helps keep us going, especially if something negative happens, the more they cheer for us, the more people are there, the excitement, the environment makes all the difference in the outcome of the game.’’
Figure the Giants will have to generate much of their own energy.
They return from their bye week on a five-game losing streak.
The Buccaneers after a 4-2 start have lost four straight.
If the Giants show some fight and win a few games down the stretch, it will help justify ownership’s desire to bring back Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen in 2025.
The quarterback change was not exactly handled adroitly.
Seeing Jones walk away, never to return, had to be jarring for many of his now-former teammates.
There are reasons to doubt so much of what the Giants are about.
“It’s kind of the narrative trying to be pushed right now that we’re all imploding,’’ receiver Darius Slayton said. “It’s not imploding. We got seven weeks of football to be played.’’
Is that a promise or a threat?
How long can this team keep it together?
“I haven’t seen a flinch, or I haven’t seen any discouragement,’’ Lawrence said. “I haven’t seen guys fall apart — and that starts to happen first. So, I haven’t seen it.’’
Not yet, anyway.
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