Amid another losing campaign in New York, Giants owner John Mara gave a vote of confidence to both head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen Wednesday night.
He declined to extend the same assurance to quarterback Daniel Jones.
Mara addressed Daboll and Schoen at a screening of a film honoring his late father and former Giants owner Wellington Mara. He said at the event that not only does he not intend to dismiss either during the season. He expects that both of their jobs will be safe through the offseason as well.
“Obviously we’re all very disappointed with where we are right now,” Mara said, per the New York Daily News. “But I’m gonna say one thing: we are not making any changes this season. And I do not anticipate making any changes in the offseason, either.”
Per NFL.com’s Judy Battista, Mara declined to discuss Jones or provide a similar vote of confidence for his quarterback.
Will Daboll, Schoen actually survive another losing season?
The Giants are off to a 2-5 start and offer little hope of improvement. They boast the league’s 28th-ranked offense and are fresh off a 28-3 loss at home the the division rival Philadelphia Eagles.
Barring an unexpected injection of talent on offense — most notably at quarterback — there’s little reason to believe that changes at head coach and general manager would do anything to alter the trajectory of this season.
That’s not to say the Giants wouldn’t be better off in the long-term with an overhaul. Daboll and Schoen are each in their third season at the helm since Schoen hired Daboll in one of his first acts as general manager in 2022. There’s a not-insignificant track record in play here.
But the Giants have been in a perpetual state of overhaul since Tom Coughlin retired following the 2015 season. Since then, they’ve hired and fired head coaches Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge. In the front office, they’ve dismissed general manager Jerry Reese and saw Dave Gettlemen retire rather than face a formal dismissal.
In that eight-year timeframe, the Giant have produced six losing seasons. They look destined for a seventh in 2024. Mara’s overseen it all. And he’s surely weary of the instability, which would speak to the votes of confidence that he provided Wednesday night.
But he’s also surely more weary of the losing. And he provided a similar vote of confidence for McAdoo in 2017 three weeks before firing him with four games left on the schedule. So take Wednesday’s comments with a grain of salt.
What about Daniel Jones?
Six seasons in to his career, there’s no reason to believe that Jones will develop into an effective NFL quarterback. The Giants made the mistake of extending his contract in 2023, and everyone’s dealing with the consequences now.
Daboll benched Jones at the end of Sunday’s loss to the Eagles. He said postgame that he was simply trying to “create a spark” and that the benching wasn’t permanent. But the writing on the wall is impossible to ignore.
Barring a stunning turnaround, it’s hard to imagine a situation in which Mara brings back Daboll, Schoen and Jones next season. And he’s made his thoughts clear regarding Daboll and Schoen.
