Big Blue View
As the New York Giants struggled through the past couple of years, fans wondered if GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll were a package deal. Could Giants’ ownership fire one and keep the other?
That question was clearly answered on Monday when the Giants fired Daboll and announced that Schoen, who hired Daboll in 2022, would lead the search for the next head coach.
“We feel like Joe has assembled a good young nucleus of talent, and we look forward to its development,” said co-owner John Mara in a statement released by the team. “Unfortunately, the results over the past three years have not been what any of us want. We take full responsibility for those results and look forward to the kind of success our fans expect.”
That would lead one to believe that Schoen will not only finish out this season but will return and be in charge of roster construction under the next head coach.
But, wait. Ian O’Connor of The Athletic has now charged head-long into the discussion with a report that is sure to stoke the debate over whether or not the GM who hired the deposed coach and has overseen a 20-40-1 (.336 winning percentage) team over three-plus seasons actually deserves to stick around.
O’Connor reported, via ‘X’:
Let’s dive into O’Connor’s post, and some pros and cons regarding Schoen keeping his job.
I absolutely will agree with O’Connor that ownership will make the final call on who the next coach will be. Schoen will pare down a list of potential candidates that will almost certainly be shared with ownership before anyone is even interviewed.
Schoen will not make the decision. He will not hire the coach. That will be John Mara and Steve Tisch.
I also absolutely believe that Mara’s battle with cancer is a big reason why the Giants announced quickly that Schoen would lead the search for a successor to Daboll. Mara may simply not be physically up to the task of doing all of the initial groundwork to find out who might, and might not, be interested in the job.
Do I also believe that the Giants could end up with their own version of the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Trent Baalke situation? These are the Giants. After everything that has happened with this franchise since they silenced the New England Patriots for the second time in the 2011 Super Bowl, I will believe that just about anything is possible.
Remember that after firing then-head coach Doug Pederson at the end of last season that Jaguars owner Shad Kahn had insisted that Baalke, a somewhat controversial figure, would remain as the GM.
That was the case until Ben Johnson, who landed with the Chicago Bears, avoided Jacksonville and Liam Coen, who eventually got the Jaguars’ job, refused to take an in-person interview while Baalke was the GM.
Could something like that happen with Schoen and the Giants? Sure it could.
In my view, the Giants job will be an attractive...
