SI NFL analyst: Giants would be ‘bonkers’ to move on from Brian Daboll

Some NFL analysts and New York Giants fans think Brian Daboll is, or at least should be, on the hot seat entering his third season as the team’s head coach. Sports Illustrated NFL writer Conor Orr is not one of them. Orr told the ‘Valentine’s Views’ podcast the Giants would be “bonkers” to fire Daboll.

“I would say Daboll’s no doubt their best head coach since [Tom] Coughlin,” Orr said. “I don’t think there’s any question about that.

“You need somebody who’s steeped in the modern offensive system, someone who’s amoebic, who’s adjustable, and who can coach the quarterback position. The Tommy DeVito thing was not like, ‘Oh, look at this great player we found.’ That was good coaching. Daniel Jones having that great year, that was good coaching.”

Orr understands the questions about Daboll’s temperament after the Wink Martindale fiasco and the significant turnover on the team’s coaching staff.

“Nobody’s perfect, but I think that the things that we don’t like about Daboll are easily spun as positives elsewhere,” Orr said. “Whether it’s that fieriness, you could say there’s a little bit of a staff turnover issue in certain spots, but I would say this is the smoothest I’ve seen the ship since Coughlin, and I think [John] Mara knows that.

“To me, it would be bonkers to go and fire another head coach before the duration of his contract. That would make it what, that would make it four in a row that didn’t get a second contract? I don’t think he’s [Mara] trying to do that, I really don’t. That’s just me talking, but I think he knows he has the right guy here.”

In a 100 bold predictions for the 2024 NFL season piece written for SI last month, Orr had Daboll finishing second to Jim Harbaugh of the Los Angeles Chargers in Coach of the Year balloting.

‘Sneaky second-place team’

Orr is also higher on the Giants’ 2024 prospects than many analysts, calling them “a sneaky second-place team in the NFC East” in his bold predictions post.

Orr told ‘Valentine’s Views’ that he felt the “happy accident” of the Giants making the playoffs — and winning a playoff game in 2022 — muddied the expectations of fans and the planned roster build.

“This team should not have made the playoffs. They should not have made the playoffs,” Orr said. “I think that probably by their own internal metrics they probably thought that was miraculous — and to win a playoff game.

“I think we enter into last season where my guess is they were probably expecting to have like a top 10 pick, they were probably expecting to be able to chip away at the roster and have this be the season of contention but now everything’s kind of looped around a little bit, right? You had to add some veteran pieces last year in case you got back to the playoffs, you had to do some things out of order.”

Orr thinks the Giants are in a “good spot” entering 2024.

“They have a dynamic playmaker [Malik Nabers]. They have two good edge rushers. They have maybe the best interior defensive lineman in the NFL now that Aaron Donald’s gone, or at least one of the two or three best, and I think you’re going to be a little bit more responsible as a defense. You probably take fewer chances. And I think that you’re probably better suited overall at the quarterback position, so I don’t see why not.”

About the quarterback position

In his predictions post, Orr posited that Drew Lock would end up starting more games than Daniel Jones. In our discussion, Orr walked that back. Kind of.

“It’s funny because uh after I put that out I was talking to some people and they were just like you realize that Daniel Jones is like a man on a mission this year,” Orr said. “Just this laser focus mentality. People have never seen him like this before, so I’m happy to be wrong because I think that Daniel’s a good quarterback and I think he belongs in the NFL.”

Orr did, though, add the caveat that “there’s probably something that you can design for him [Lock] easier than something you can design for Daniel Jones where he’s consistently getting rid of the ball quick, he’s getting the ball to Malik Nabers or [Jalin] Hyatt or any of your other playmakers.”

There is a lot more to my chat with Orr — including a discussion of the quality of food offered to media by the Giants and the New York Jets. Give the full show a listen/watch below.