It wasn't long ago that New York Giants VP of player evaluation Marc Ross was a hot name on the potential GM circuit. He interviewed with the Jets a couple of years ago before they settled on John Idzik, and he was a candidate for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' GM job last year before the Bucs hired Jason Licht. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, especially after former Giants GM Ernie Accorsi was brought on in Chicago as a consultant, there was some buzz about the Bears possibly calling Ross to talk about their GM opening.

But the Bears never called the Giants to ask permission to interview Ross or anyone else in the front office. In fact, no NFL team has expressed interest in any member of the Giants' front office or coaching staff for any vacant GM or head coach opening this offseason.

How unusual is that? There are only seven teams who haven't had anyone call about any of their people for an NFL head coach or GM opening this offseason:

Giants

Washington

Falcons

Bears

Rams

Steelers

Raiders

There's only one playoff team on that list, and combined winning percentage of that group in the 2014 regular season was .366. You can make it a nine-team list, if you'd like, by adding the Packers and Jaguars, whose only requests for interviews have been by the Eagles for their pseudo-GM job. But other than the Packers and Steelers, these are not teams whose company you want to keep on any kind of NFL list right now.

This tells that perception and reputation can be fleeting in this what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league. Ross isn't a worse executive than he was last year or two years ago. It's just that the state of the Giants' program right now is such that teams aren't thinking about them when they're looking for help. They won the Super Bowl three years ago, sure. But they haven't finished above .500 or made the playoffs since.

And while their 2014 draft, headlined by likely Offensive Rookie of the Year Odell Beckham Jr., looks as though it could turn out to be a good one, the reason for the Giants' problems the past few years is that they're coming off a long string of terribly unproductive drafts that sapped the roster of depth and quality across the board. Once that starts to sink in around the league, it's not the kind of thing that helps your scouting director get GM interviews.

As for the coaching staff, it would be unfair not to point out that offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo was a red-hot offensive coordinator candidate who even got a head coach interview with the Browns last year before the Giants hired him. But the lack of on-field success in East Rutherford is going to keep NFL teams from looking to the Giants' coaching staff for help when they're making decisions about who should lead them.

It only takes one good year to get back on teams' radar screens. If the Giants turn things around, g0 11-5 and win the NFC East next year, it's entirely possible that Ross and a couple of their coaches and executives start to generate interest again. The lack of interest around the league obviously isn't personal. It's just a reflection of how poorly things are going for the Giants at this particular time in their history.