For what seems like the 100th season in a row, the NY Giants are basically finished competing for the NFC East before Halloween, as they look like a lifeless shell of a team. The Giants fell to the Philadelphia Eagles in embarrassing fashion inside MetLife Stadium, an occurrence that has become all too common for the franchise over the last decade and change.
However, there was a twist this time around, as former Giants running back Saquon Barkley ran wild, while the New York offense couldn’t even muster a single touchdown for the afternoon. It’s something that must’ve burned John Mara up inside, as one of the top players in recent memory for the franchise took them to task wearing their rival's emblem on his helmet.
With that in mind, many believe change is coming to the Giants. Whether it’s at the quarterback position, their head coach or general manager, it’s borderline asinine to continue trotting out the same garbage week after week. Some have clamored for Brian Daboll to take the fall, but there’s a myriad of reasons why he should survive a third-year campaign that can get much worse before it gets better. Here’s three of them:
3. Daniel Jones
Let's be real, Daniel Jones is responsible for the position the Giants are in at the moment. Daboll’s miraculous work with Jones forced the Giants to keep their former first-round quarterback in town, instead of beginning their planned rebuild for the team after his first season on the job. Now, the quarterback has become the very reason why Daboll might not get a chance to see his opportunity of a lifetime deal through to the end.
Daboll masterfully covered up Jones’ inefficiencies during his first season with the Giants, but they’ve all reared their ugly head in the two seasons since the team inked him to a long-term contract extension. The Giants expected Jones to develop into a Top 10 quarterback, at the least, and it simply never materialized. Daboll has done everything possible to get Jones to play at the level he did in 2022, but injuries and other limitations have forced the Giants into becoming an inept offensive team held back by their quarterback.
Jones shouldn’t be the reason Daboll is fired by the Giants. The coach’s work with the former Duke quarterback in 2022 was masterful, and what’s transpired due to injuries and regression seems to be more on the quarterback than the man calling the plays on the sidelines. Jones has already been part of two wholesale regime changes, and claiming a third would be a mistake from the team’s ownership.
Coming up next: Daboll is still an offensive genius
2. Brian Daboll has a proven offensive mind
In the NFL at the moment, an offensive genius is tough to come by. Not everyone can be Kyle Shanahan, Andy Reid or Sean McVay, and while Daboll has yet to prove that he’s among that caliber of a coach, he’s become a proven, reliable offensive mind in the NFL over the last decade.
From his work with Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, to his time with the Alabama Crimson Tide, where he molded a litany of future NFL starting quarterbacks, even counting his contributions to the success of Giants quarterbacks like Jones and undrafted free agent Tommy DeVito, a coach who can adapt and excel like Daboll is tough to come by. Just look across MetLife Stadium at the New York Jets, as they’ve been trying to find one to run their offense for — well, forever, but it’s been especially bad over the last decade.
If the Giants decided to fire Daboll, he might have to wait for his next head coaching opportunity, but he’d be the most valuable offensive coach on the market immediately. Whether it is at the college level (where he’d certainly gain head coaching interest) or in the NFL, Daboll would have a long line of suitors. He’s already proven he can win in New York, and it’s tough to pin the team’s offensive ineptitude on him, when we’ve seen other quarterbacks aside from Jones run his offense more effectively.
Coming up next: Daboll needs to mold his own signal-caller
1. Brian Daboll needs a fresh start with his own QB
When the Giants hired Daboll and Joe Schoen from the Buffalo Bills, the duo played nice with the roster Dave Gettleman constructed. It paid off in some instances, like Dexter Lawrence and Andrew Thomas, as the two figure to be cornerstones for the next couple of seasons, but it went awry in other instances, and being forced to stick with Jones has set them back.
If the Giants moved on from their incumbent quarterback after Daboll’s first season on the job, they’d likely be in a better position than where they are now. There’s no more wait-and-see with Jones, we know what he is, as he’s shown the football world over and over, but allowing Daboll to walk away from East Rutherford without truly getting to mold his own quarterback would be a grave mistake.
DeVito doesn’t count, even though it was an impressive coaching job from Daboll, but the Giants need to allow their coach to get a fresh, young quarterback prospect into the building so he can attempt to turn him into the kind of player Allen has become in Buffalo. Jones never would’ve been Daboll or Schoen’s first choice, and while they did opt to move forward with him after the 2022 season, the choice was never going to be letting him walk after winning a playoff game.
Daboll has proven to be a quarterback whisperer, and that’s part of the reason why the Giants hired him in the first place. Giving him a pink slip before ever allowing him to truly do the job he was hired for would be malpractice.