Why the Giants Will Retain Head Coach Brian Daboll, Why They Won’t, and a Prediction

Editor’s Note: Normally, I do a weekly game prediction in which I look at both sides of the coin and then predict what will happen. At this point, however, if I am reading the room correctly—and I think I am—most of you are done with this disappointing Giants season and could care less about the outcome of the remaining games.

Instead, I will adapt my weekly “Why the Giants Will, Why They Won’t, and a Prediction” feature to look at some pressing issues this team faces once this dismal season ends.

We’ll start with head coach Brian Daboll–why he will be back, why he won’t, and making a prediction.

New York Giants co-owner John Mara desperately craves stability in his family-owned business and passion, stability the franchise has not had since the day Tom Coughlin walked out the door after the 2015 season.

What has ensued is anything but stable. With two exceptions (2016 and 2022), the Giants haven’t had a winning record, haven’t sniffed the playoffs, and have been mostly regulars in the Top 10 Club every year during the draft.

That’s not stability. That’s a vicious cycle that the Giants can’t figure out how to break.

Part of that vicious cycle has been the hiring and firing of four different head coaches (Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur, Joe Judge, and Daboll). With those coaches have come six different offensive play callers, five different defensive coordinators, and two different general managers.

That’s not stability; that’s madness.

The failure to find the right head coach and general manager is on ownership and is the biggest problem this franchise has faced in the last decade-plus.

Starting from scratch not only means at least a two to three-year turnaround time so that the coach can get all the players and processes he feels will work in place, it also leads to the core personnel getting older and more beat up while a new rebuild continues.

It’s also a big reason the Giants have posted a 50-92-1 regular season record since 2016, of which Daboll currently owns a 17-28-1 record.

So why retain Daboll, the 2022 Coach of the Year winner? One could point to his keeping the locker room together through adverse times, particularly the last two seasons in which the Giants are 8-28.

Another potential argument in his favor could be that the franchise has yet to give Daboll the quarterback he feels he can develop to fit his offense. In this week’s mailbag, I was asked about my confidence level in Daboll having a say in picking the next quarterback.

I pointed to the Hard Knocks episode, where he appeared to gush over Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels, two rookies enjoying strong seasons. So yes, Daboll does know talent.

And then there is this factor. Most teams who succeed in the league these days have a head coach and franchise quarterback combination that the head coach had a direct say in selecting. Shouldn’t Daboll at least have that opportunity to see if he can’t turn things around?

Nov 3, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll reacts to an offensive pass interference call negating a Giants touchdown during the second half against the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Why the Giants Won’t Retain Brian Daboll

The same reason Daboll was hired in the first place—his success with developing quarterbacks and as an offensive play caller—could also count as a strike against him.

Let’s throw out the 2023 season because of injuries beyond anyone’s control. In 2024, it was hoped that Daboll, in taking over the play calling, would be able to work his magic and get the Giants offense out of the bottom half of the league.

It was also hoped that he could unlock more of Daniel Jones or, at the very least, get him back to being the quarterback he was in 2022.

Neither has happened. The offense is worse than when Daboll's first-time play-caller Mike Kafka made the in-game decisions.

Jones continued to look like a fish out of water, so much so that he was benched after one inconsistent performance after another, despite the upgrade of talent on the offensive line.

The Giants' inability to get Jones back to the 2022 version of himself reflects on Daboll, the quarterback and offensive-minded guru who hasn’t replicated his success in Buffalo with Josh Allen.

It’s fair to wonder what Daboll really thought of Jones as a quarterback. As we saw in the Hard Knocks series, Daboll seemed smitten with Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels, two rookie quarterbacks who have had promising starts to their respective NFL careers.

Did Daboll feel Jones was salvageable, or was he given no choice but to stay with him because of the quarterback’s contract?

Another reason–albeit one that can be fixed–is Daboll’s choice for defensive coordinator. Shane Bowen might very well be a quality NFL defensive coordinator. Still, his system is the polar opposite of what the team previously ran under Wink Martindale, so hiring him was, in retrospect, akin to starting from scratch.

Why? Because most of the talent already on the team was better suited for different things than they were asked to do in Bowen’s system. The two biggest examples that come to mind are cornerback Deonte Banks and linebacker Bobby Okereke, two players whose 2024 seasons have been disappointing.

Banks was touted as a press-man coverage specialist whose play in zone coverage wasn’t a strength. So what has he been asked to do in this offense? Play zone.

Okerke was more of an attacking linebacker in the previous defense, but his responsibilities have been more mixed in this one. The results have not necessarily continued last year’s strong campaign.

It was long and exhaustive if you think back to the hiring process after Martindale resigned. Some of Daboll’s reported top choices went elsewhere, leaving one to wonder if he settled at the end of the day.

There is one more argument against retaining Daboll and, again, one that is correctable: how he structures the preseason to prepare the team. For two years now, the Giants have come out of the gate on the opening weekend looking flat, and after taking that punch in the mouth, they have never recovered.

That can be traced back to a lack of quality preseason snaps for the starters. Daboll seems more concerned with keeping guys healthy rather than exposing them to injuries, which is understandable.

But his thinking has been flawed. First, as we have seen this season, players have gotten injured in practice on the grass field, underscoring that injuries can happen at any time, anywhere, and under any circumstance.

Second, using joint practices as an excuse not to play the starters is short-sighted given the controlled atmosphere of a joint practice in which a quarterback doesn’t have to worry about being hit (and thus can have his timing messed up), and tackling to the ground is strongly discouraged.

Simply put, the philosophy is like knowing that you’ll be playing in the rain on game day but failing to use a wet ball in practice to get players acclimated to the feel of the ball.

East Rutherford, NJ -- November 24, 2024 -- Giants head coach Brian Daboll walks off the field at the end of the game as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came to MetLife Stadium and defeated the New York Giants 30-7. | Chris Pedota, NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Prediction

Despite the miserable results this season–and no, I don’t think it gets any better–I think the chance of Daboll returning for another season is strong, though not a slam dunk.

If, as noted above, he was hired because of his ability to develop quarterbacks, there is an argument to be made to give him that chance, especially as the Giants look all but certain to be in a position to have a premium draft pick to select a quarterback.

That said, Daboll has to change some of his processes, starting with the preseason play time allocation. This team isn’t a juggernaut to where it can afford to hold guys out of getting valuable game reps to get into a groove. While the injury concern is real (as it seems to be every year), one can’t be hesitant in getting the team ready.

As for ownership, it’s easy to want to pull the plug, especially after embarrassing loss after embarrassing loss piles up.

But ownership (which, by the way, is not going anywhere despite the cries of some fans urging the sale of the team) needs to be patient with the process, which has been sabotaged by injuries and a lack of quality quarterback play despite having improved a historically bad offensive line and brought in a No. 1 receiver (Malik Nabers).

Why the Giants Will Retain Head Coach Brian Daboll, Why They Won’t, and a Prediction

Why the Giants Won’t Retain Brian Daboll

Prediction

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