It's tempting to believe the New York Giants washed their hands of every problem the minute former head coach Brian Daboll was let go. A clean break always feels like a reboot. A new coach, a new voice, a new direction.
The issue is that the rest of the league doesn't exactly see it that way. Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic spoke with execs who have been inside these hiring cycles, and their message was not subtle. The dysfunction doesn't just leave that quickly. When a team fires a coach but keeps everything else intact, it opens the door for bigger questions.
Related: Giants’ head coaching vacancy is sparking major interest despite instability
The G-Men find themselves right in the middle of that conversation. Rodrigue and ESPN's Jordan Raanan gave everyone an unfiltered look at what potential candidates will see when they peel back the curtain on this job, and the picture is nowhere near as clean as anyone would've hoped.
Giants' organizational failures run much deeper than Brian Daboll
Rodrigue’s piece made that clear. She spoke with a senior executive who laid out the concern without holding back:
“(A) red flag, to me, when an organization just fires a coach is that they’re not being introspective enough about the shortcomings around the coach. That would be my red flag. It’s not necessarily on the GM, it’s on the owner, president, everyone. ‘Oh, if we just change the coach everything will be better’.
No, there’s always stuff to change in your organization. A head coaching change is a symptom that something is wrong in your organization. It’s rarely just the coach.”
It's never great when the red flags start making the rounds. But that's what this team is right now: a walking red flag. NY's record since the start of 2023 is 11-34. The roster inconsistencies are obvious. The swings and misses in the draft are concerning. The gap in talent between New York and the rest of the league hasn't closed at the rate ownership hoped.
None of that magically goes away with one firing.
Raanan’s reporting added another spicy layer. He wrote, “Multiple league sources who have spoken to the Giants believe he is likely to remain unless there is a strong head coaching candidate who wants to bring in his own general manager. Though, that seems unlikely considering Schoen is leading the search and compiling the list of candidates.”
That tells fans everything they need to know about the intricacies surrounding the next hire. General manager Joe Schoen is likely safe unless a coach with serious pull demands something different. It's not a crazy scenario — just look at what the Jacksonville Jaguars did last offseason, when they parted ways with GM Trent Baalke to hire Liam Coen as their new HC.
Big Blue's ownership likes the young core. Jaxson Dart, Malik Nabers, Andrew Thomas, Cam Skattebo, Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux, and Abdul Carter provide real pieces for a new coach. The job is still considered attractive across the league. That part is not up for debate.
The concern is what Rodrigue spelled out: Candidates will look at how the Giants function as a whole organization, not in a vacuum.
They'll study how Schoen has handled player negotiations, how he's handled the roster build, how in-sync he's been with ownership, and whether the environment gives them a fighting chance.
The G-Men made one very loud move when they fired Dabs. The harder work is finally addressing the issues that allowed everything to fall apart in the first place. If the Giants want this hire to be the one that finally stabilizes everything, they cannot pretend the dysfunction left with the last head coach.