Big Blue View
Brian Daboll’s cards are all on the table. Daboll played the last card he had in his hand on Tuesday when he named rookie Jaxson Dart as the starting quarterback for the 0-3 New York Giants.
If Dart can’t save Daboll’s job as head coach of the Giants no one or nothing else can.
That, really, is the bottom line. If this doesn’t work, if a Dart/Daboll pairing doesn’t look like something that will finally bring better days to a franchise that has spent too much time being embarrassingly bad since winning the 2011 Super Bowl, Daboll will be looking for an offensive coordinator job in 2026. If not sooner.
Is it fair to put that burden on a 22-year-old kid who has yet to throw an NFL pass?
Absolutely not.
That, though, is where Daboll and the Giants are.
Is it fair that Daboll and the Giants are handing Dart the keys to the franchise long before they wanted to, in a messy situation with a season on the brink of disaster, a team riddled with issues extending far beyond quarterback and a 3-0 team coming to MetLife Stadium on Sunday?
Absolutely not.
Again, though, that is where Daboll and the Giants are.
The Giants are 9-28 since their surprising playoff of 2022, a year where Daboll was — justifiably — voted Coach of the Year. They are 3-17 since the beginning of the 2024 season. They have lost 14 of their last 15 games.
After starting 6-1 in 2022, Daboll now has an 18-35-1 record, a .343 winning percentage. Only Joe Judge (10-23, .303, Pat Shurmur (9-28, .281) and Bill Arnsparger (7-28 from 1974-76, a .200 winning percentage) have been worse.
Daboll ultimately failed with Daniel Jones, a quarterback Giants ownership loved and believed in. Russell Wilson clearly hasn’t been the answer, his limitations with less mobility than he had in his prime clearly visible against the good defenses possessed by the Washington Commanders and Kansas City Chiefs.
The roster has been overhauled and upgraded. In my view, this is the best one of the Daboll/Joe Schoen era. The coaching staff that works for Daboll has been shuffled annually. Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka called plays. Then, he didn’t. Now, he does again.
All of that and Daboll, a coach known for his prowess an an offensive mind and his work with quarterbacks, has not been able to improve an offense that was decent in 2022 but has been mostly terrible since the start of the 2023 season.
A defense widely expected to be the strength of the team has underperformed. The Giants have struggled to defend the run, cover the pass and create game-changing plays for years. Even with numerous offseason upgrades, that has yet to change.
The special teams have rarely seemed special.
Daboll’s football team is an undisciplined one that commits far too many penalties, misses too many opportunities to make game-changing plays and almost always seems to come out on the wrong end of the...
