Heading into his fourth season as the head coach of the New York Giants, Brian Daboll has received mixed feelings about whether he should still be the coach heading into the 2025 season.
Daboll’s tenure as the Giants' head coach has been a bit of a roller coaster ride, as it started with a playoff season and one that earned him the NFL Coach of the Year Award. Since then, Daboll has gone 9-25, and many think he could be on the hot seat if the team fails to deliver a decent season or even show progress.
Many were calling for Daboll’s head after last year’s 3-14 campaign, but despite the poor results, Daboll was brought back for his fourth season.
That's likely what led Pro Football Network to list Daboll so low in their new head coach rankings for the upcoming season, as he was the last returning coach from the 2024 season on the list.
Brian Daboll has a lot of pressure to bring the Giants back to relevancy in 2025 or be forced to look for a job elsewhere
Given the mostly underwhelming seasons the Giants have had during Daboll's tenure, aside from the one playoff push they made in 2023, the temperature of his hot seat continues to rise, with the boiling point likely to come from the result of this upcoming season.
It's a big reason the analysts at PFN have him ranked so low, becoming the latest example of just how much the seasoned head coach has to prove this year to save his job.
”Brian Daboll’s head coaching tenure with the New York Giants has been a tale of diminishing returns. Following an impressive 9-7-1 debut in 2022, which included a playoff win, expectations skyrocketed. But since then, Daboll has gone just 9-25 over the past two seasons. New York’s offense has ranked in the bottom three in scoring in each of the last two seasons, and the defense ranked 31st in PFSN’s Defense+ metric in 2024. Though Daboll’s tenure with the Giants hasn’t been long, it’s beginning to seem like his brief early success was more of an outlier than the foundation for something special.
Considering how the Giants have regressed across the board, it’s a bit surprising that Daboll made it through another offseason unscathed. We’ve seen other coaches get canned for less. However, the front office appears to be holding onto hopes that he can find the magic again. It’s fair to question whether or not Daboll should return to a coordinator role, where he thrived in Buffalo.“
Some think that the Giants owed it to Daboll to allow him to have his own quarterback after inheriting Daniel Jones during his first three seasons. Daboll got his quarterback of his choice when the Giants traded back into the end of the first round, where they got Jaxson Dart with the No. 25 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Others also think Daboll is in a win-now stage, considering he has had two straight losing seasons, and the team made drastic changes to the quarterback room when they signed both Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston well before drafting Dart back in April. So Daboll might not be as much on the hot seat as some think, given he might get the chance to stay past the 2025 season and develop his own quarterback.
On the flip side of this, does Daboll deserve such a low rating on the list of current coaches? Some of the coaches ranked ahead of him are Brian Callahan of the Tennessee Titans, Dave Canales of the Carolina Panthers, Shane Steichen of the Indianapolis Colts, Jonathan Gannon of the Arizona Cardinals, and Mike Macdonald of the Seattle Seahawks.
Most of those coaches are in the early stages of their careers and have yet to reach the playoffs, much less win a playoff game, unlike Daboll. If anything, Daboll probably deserves to be ranked higher on the list and above those guys. But because he’s had two straight losing seasons, he gets knocked down the list.
For Daboll’s sake, and along with the Giants, Daboll can win some games that'll help his ranking, and he’ll return to being higher on the lists, as he was after the 2022 season. The Giants aim to break the trend of replacing coaches after a short period, which they’ve done since Tom Coughlin's departure. Daboll has lasted the longest as the Giants' head coach since Coughlin's departure after the 2015 season, but Daboll would likely want to stay longer if he had any say in the matter.
Winning can significantly alter the perspectives and perceptions of many people. Winning could help Daboll regain some of the respect he had when he first took the Giants' head coaching job and led the Team to a playoff season and victory.