EAST RUTHERFORD – John Mara kept Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen. He also put the Giants coach and general manager on notice. This is a one-year commitment. Nothing, without substantial improvement, is promised beyond 2025.
That’s because Mara is frustrated. He admitted he’s not sure he’s confident his team is any better than when he hired the two. If he feels this way this time next year: He’ll make wholesale changes.
Pause. Process. Proceed.
Therein lies the problem. There’s the dysfunction engulfing this once-proud franchise like a plague. Mandates breed desperation which breeds recklessness.
Meet your Giants.
“I’m just about out of patience,” Mara said.
Keeping Schoen and Daboll isn’t the worst thing the Giants could have done on Black Monday. That would have been splitting the pair. Just imagine that situation: Schoen trying to find a second coach amidst a win-now mandate. No one is signing up for that, even though sources told SNY there were feelers put out in recent weeks to gauge back-channel interest in a potential vacancy. Unity is what the Giants preached when they brought both aboard. Either fire both or keep both.
In trying to justify the latter, Mara built an argument for the former. He destroyed defensive coordinator Shane Bowen (the coaching staff’s hand-pick replacement for Wink Martindale) because he’s tired of watching the opposition march “up and down” the field. He opened the possibility of Daboll giving up play calling (after taking it back last year). He — this warrants repeating — said he’s struggling to find confidence the roster is any better than when he hired the two three years ago.
Three full free agencies. Three full drafts. Daboll reshuffling all three of his coordinators. Still no better. But Mara likes this year’s free agent and draft class, the process, how Daboll conducts practice, and admitted he’s pulled the trigger too quickly with reactionary impulses.
So, run it back.
“I understand, believe me, that this is not going to be the most popular decision in Giants land,” Mara said. “But we believe it’s the right decision for us going forward.”
OK, but here’s what’s terrifying: This regime must win now. According to NFL Network, which went harder than Mara did publicly, it’s a playoffs-or-bust mandate for 2025. The Giants are in no way, shape, or form close to accomplishing that. The only way to close the gap is to throw out the slow-and-steady, team-building approach Schoen brought with him from Buffalo.
Prepare for the following.
Free agents are free agents for a reason. The Giants will spend ridiculous, top-tier money to B-tier players desperate to fill holes. Mara told the world the team’s top priority is getting their quarterback of the future. You best believe Schoen will mortgage what he can to move up to No. 1 or 2 in the draft to select Shedeur Sanders (Colorado) or Cam Ward (Miami). Even if neither is organically worth a top-five selection. There’s an even better chance he’ll have to overpay because the Titans, picking first, also need a quarterback, and the Browns, picking second, announced Monday they have no idea when Deshaun Watson will return after suffering a setback with his Achilles.
“It better not take too long,” Mara said when asked how long it should take to improve the Giants product.
It might very well lead to a short-term boost. It happened before when the Giants signed players like Damon Harrison, Janoris Jenkins, and Olivier Vernon. Or later on with someone like Kenny Golladay.
But, as it always does, the players will age and the contracts deteriorate faster than an avocado.
Dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things. Those banners hanging inside the Giants field house feel like they’re from the Jurassic period. They have made the playoffs just twice in the last 13 years – one playoff victory. They have had just three winning seasons. They have lost double-digit games nine times. They have the worst record in the NFL since 2017 (40-91-1).
Mara is terrified of change. He’s still haunted by the past regimes he feels he gave up on, too quick. The Giants let Tom Coughlin out the door in 2015. Since then they’ve had Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur, Joe Judge and Daboll on their sidelines. Daboll is the first of the bunch to make it to his third season.
You can make an argument that, while the Giants had a quick trigger finger with those other regimes, it was justified. McAdoo, Shurmur, and Judge haven’t had other head-coaching opportunities. None, right now, is even a coordinator at the NFL level. Shurmur and Judge coach in college. There’s no reward for finishing a bad movie. You just wasted time you could have spent on a better one.
“When you make these changes, and God knows we’ve made them in the past and been inpatient in the past, when you do that, you feel like you take one step forward and two steps back,” Mara said. “I just didn’t want to fall into the cycle again.”
The Giants were 9-7-1 in Schoen and Daboll’s first year. They went 6-11 last season. They were 3-14 this year.
That’s one forward, two back already.
And it doesn’t feel like they’re done falling.
