The New York Giants’ ship was not just sinking under head coach Brian Daboll; it was completely rotten by the time the organization finally made the call to can him last week following their Week 10 loss to the Chicago Bears.
The bad news is that the former head coach’s ineptitude was just the tip of the iceberg, and that Big Blue’s dysfunction extends all the way to the top, which should come as no surprise to anyone.
John Mara and Steve Tisch’s team is a punching bag. After a 3-14 season last year, which was one of their worst in their 100-year history, the Giants are 2-9 with little suggestion that they’ll figure it out.
One NFL executive told Mike Sando of The Athletic last month that the Giants should slow down on the idea of firing Daboll because “they have shown they do not have a good process hiring head coaches anyway.”
Perhaps that’s why Mara and Tisch are holding on to general manager Joe Schoen, the man responsible for building last year’s debacle, allowing Saquon Barkley to walk, and not doing enough to surround quarterback Daniel Jones with any semblance of talent during his final years with the organization. He is now starring with the Indianapolis Colts.
But the issues run significantly deeper. Schoen and Daboll created a culture lacking accountability, and it had become so bad that people within the organization were singing about the organization’s issues.
Someone in the Giants building reportedly went to ESPN’s Adam Schefter last week and blamed rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart’s aggressive style of play, particularly with his legs, for his concussion suffered in Week 10 in Chicago. It was a clear deflection tactic rather than looking to the coaching staff, which has so far ineffectively taught the 22-year-old to balance taking a risk for a few extra yards with self-preservation.
Eyebrows were further raised on the Giants’ opening defensive series against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday at MetLife Stadium when star rookie edge rusher Abdul Carter sat out the first six plays. Multiple reports later revealed that it was to punish Carter for sleeping through the team’s walkthrough last week.
Carter denied sleeping through the meeting, saying in a social media post that he was “doing recovery,” but added that “nonetheless, that’s on me.”
Being late to meetings has been nothing new for Carter during his rookie season, which has lacked the big-time numbers many expected when the Giants drafted him No. 3 overall out of Penn State in the spring. But Daboll would let those transgressions slide without any action.
Perhaps that was a byproduct of the desperation to keep his job, which ultimately pushed him to replace Russell Wilson with Dart after an 0-3 start to the season.
It didn’t matter. He is out of a job, and interim head coach Mike Kafka is now left to provide a bit more rigidity to the rules. That’s quite a significant undertaking to shoulder while also trying to prove that the interim tag should be dropped next year.
