Brian Daboll Thrives When Evaluating Quarterback Prospects

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll still enjoys evaluating quarterbacks, perhaps more so than any other position regarding the draft.

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll must have been smiling ear to ear when he learned that team co-owner John Mara said he would not stand in the way of Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen drafting a quarterback if they “fall in love with a quarterback and believe that it’s worth pick number six and we’re moving up.”

“I love evaluating quarterbacks,” Daboll told reporters Tuesday at the league meeting. “I love meeting with the quarterbacks. It’s an awesome position to work with and a really fun position to evaluate.”

It’s also a lot of work, Dabolll admitted.

“It’s a premium position. It takes a long time to evaluate. You have to put a lot of work into it. You just don’t watch a cut-up of – it’s an all-encompassing process. I’ve done that every year…I’ve coached quarterbacks, been a coordinator, been a head coach. This will be no different, but it is time-consuming. I love doing it because, again, two years from now or three years from now, whenever it may be, who knows if those quarterbacks are going to be out there. In the last few years, it seems like a bunch of them.”

Every year, the Giants do due diligence on all the positions, but this year in particular, in which there is a historically deep and rich talent pool at quarterback, Daboll has no doubt been spending extra time on the position. Although the franchise is publicly backing incumbent Daniel Jones, who is making timely progress in his rehab from a torn ACL, what the franchise isn’t admitting to is concern over Jones’s injury, and in particular, his two neck issues suffered over three years.

That factor likely means the Giants will not want to leave themselves exposed at the most important position on the team, even though they signed Drew Lock as a veteran backup in case Jones isn’t medically cleared to return by Week 1.

True to form, the Giants have reportedly done a lot of work on quarterback prospects that appear to be a fit for their offense, including LSU’s Jayden Daniels, North Carolina’s Drake Maye, Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, and Oregon’s Bo Nix.

Daboll understandably didn’t want to tip the team’s hand regarding taking a quarterback in the first round, not with at least three of the five teams drafting ahead of the Giants—Chicago, Washington, and New England—needing quarterbacks as well.

“We’re going to try to draft the best player that we can draft at six or higher or lower,” Daboll said. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. With that draft process, I think Joe handles that process excellent. It’s a collaboration, and there are position coaches going out to see workouts and coordinators going out. There’s a lot of give-and-take. I have all the confidence in the world in Joe and his staff and the decision we make, we all lock arms. Whoever that guy is, that’s our guy.”

Even if the Giants do draft a quarterback, the odds are that the player will sit for the first year while he acclimates to the NFL. That of course would mean the team will run it back with Jones, once healthy, who is in the second year of his four year contract signed last off-season.

“I think it just depends where you are at and who you have,” Daboll said when asked if it’s best for a young quarterback to sit a year. “If you can have two quarterbacks or three quarterbacks in 30 years or whatever it is, it certainly seems ideal to me. You have (Green Bay Packers) Brett (Favre), and you have Aaron (Rodgers). Sign me up for that if you can have three quarterbacks in 30 years.”

Daboll didn’t sound bothered about having Jones, who although under a fair amount of durress last season also didn't look close to being the quarterback he was in 2022 in the six games played last season, leading the offense.

“None of us did well enough last year, and that starts with me, and I said this last year, too – one year has nothing to do with the next year. One year, we went to the playoffs, and the next year, we didn’t. That has nothing to do with the next year, either. It's all about starting over and having an entire new team, new coaching staff, new team, new support staff, and getting ready and building a foundation for the 2024 season.”

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