Joe Schoen captured the hearts of Giants fans early in his inaugural offseason in 2022. It was on draft night to be exact. The then-rookie general manager took one of the class’s top pass rushers in Kayvon Thibodeaux at No. 5 overall before rounding out the right side of the line with No. 7 pick right tackle Evan Neal.
Less than 18 months later, things don’t look too hot.
Now both of those guys have been testy toward fans in just a matter of weeks, possibly causing “retired GM” and “culture builder” Dave Gettleman to be laughing on Cape Cod.
It was two weeks ago, following this season’s lone win over the Cardinals, when Thibodeaux told the media how “Every fan just wants to be a part of a winning team. So even early in that game our own fans are booing us and giving up on us. And as soon as we start to win, now everybody’s cheering, everybody’s excited, everybody wants to get jerseys signed.”
Yeah, a tad bit uncalled for. Especially since Thibodeaux had already endured a rough start to the year with one solo tackle through two games.
That brings us to Wednesday when Neal proceeded to take the cake for one of the bigger fanbase call-outs we’ve seen from this team in a while. Maybe Schoen’s third draft pick, receiver Wan’Dale Robinson, is next?
From NJ Advance Media:
“Why would a lion concern himself with the opinion of a sheep…The person that’s commenting on my performance, what does he do? Flip hot dogs and hamburgers somewhere?”
One thing I love is when pro athletes get upset at fans for rightfully booing them and then they assume just because those fans aren’t football players, they’re automatically fry cooks at McDonalds. Do they think there are only two professions? These fans aren’t degenerates, Evan. Season tickets are expensive. Parking at MetLife Stadium is, too. So is the food — you ever get a medium Pepsi?
Neal is young, sure. But he’s not a rookie in this market anymore. And he’s taking a rough first quarter of the season and adding to it incredibly degrading comments made toward fans who showed up Monday night despite the season essentially already being on the brink of an early end.
He has to know better.
