Why Talk of Giants Brian Daboll, Joe Schoen Being on the Hot Seat Needs to Cool Down

Why Talk of Giants Brian Daboll, Joe Schoen Being on the Hot Seat Needs to Cool Down

When things are going wrong, it’s far too easy to look at the existing leadership and demand that they be replaced. But often, snap decisions to do so can make things far worse than they were before.

Such is where the New York Giants, or more specifically, the leadership duo of general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll, currently find themselves. With the losses piling up, the cries to clean house get louder.

The Daboll-Schoen era, as it is now known, set a high and unexpected baseline in its first season (2022) by notching a winning record of 9-7-1, its first postseason berth since 2016, and its first postseason win since 2011. 

Daboll was voted “Coach of the Year.” And Schoen’s name was tossed around for “Executive of the Year,” given how he navigated his first season as the team’s general manager with a messy salary cap situation and having to fly by the seat of his pants as Daboll filled out his coaching staff well into February, Schoen and his scouting staff left scrambling trying to find hidden gems that fit what the new coaches wanted.

The successful season led to hope and optimism that disappeared after that 2016 campaign. Still, the duo’s second season saw everything that could go wrong, thanks to injuries involving four different kickers, three different quarterbacks, and at least seven different offensive line combinations, just to name a few.

Year 3, the current season, has taken on a new look in that it could be argued that had the Giants had a healthy kicker in Week 2, they could have won that game, and had they not dropped passes at the worst possible time in Week 4 or been screwed by two bad calls by the officials, maybe they would have won that game as well and had a 3-1 record at this point.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda, didn’t. 

The Giants are 1-3, and questions about leadership are back at the forefront. Some are hoping for Schoen and Daboll’s dismissal.

But here’s the thing. Neither man, as of right now, given how the season has unfolded, is in danger of losing his job. It would take a major catastrophe for that to happen, such as Daboll completely losing the locker room or Schoen starting to make crazy, illogical decisions that end up hurting the team beyond repair.

Like the Giants fan base, team co-owner John Mara has witnessed the fading of the team’s lost glory years that began after the 2011 Super Bowl championship season. No one seems to take a loss harder than Mara–just ask any of the innocent trash cans or chairs that have incurred his wrath after a loss.

But it’s important that Mara and his business partner Steve Tisch try to stay patient with this current regime, not so much because of any equity they built up in 2022 as because they inherited a broken football program. Just as that program deteriorated over the years, to expect it to be fixed in one or two offseasons was asking for a miracle.  

Schoen and Daboll have begun rebuilding the franchise’s foundation, which includes left tackle Andrew Thomas, defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence, receiver Malik Nabers, outside linebackers Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux, and cornerbacks Deonte Banks and Dru Phillips. 

There is still quite a bit more work to do. Despite what anyone in the organization wants us to believe, Daniel Jones is a bridge quarterback. For proof of that, look no further than what was revealed during Hard Knocks, when the front office was all set to try to trade up in the draft to get a new quarterback. The plan was for Jones to play out this year and perhaps put some good tape together so that they could trade him during the ensuing offseason.

Except for Thomas and center John Michael Schmitz, the long-term offensive line issue was temporarily fixed by plugging in three veterans–Jon Runyan, Jr., Greg Van Roten, and Jermaine Eluemunor–to give new offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo a chance to work with fixing what ails the younger talent like Evan Neal and Joshua Ezeudu,

The Giants desperately need a second outside cornerback who is a legitimate No. 1 shutdown type, and yes, they could use some additional firepower on the defensive line and running back.

The pieces are falling into place–yes, a bit slowly for some, but it’s happening. To push the reset button after this season would mean starting from scratch, as a new general manager-head coach duo will almost certainly want their people in place and their way implemented, a process that would likely take additional years to accomplish.

So, while there is always pressure on the Giants’ brass to produce results, this was never going to be a quick turnaround given how bad the franchise was when Schoen and Daboll inherited it, which is why the heat under their respective seats needs to be turned down to cool for the time being.