Copyright The Ringer
Brian Daboll’s seat had been hot for a very long time. The New York Giants coach, who was fired Monday morning, the day after a bad loss in Chicago, had managed to stretch his 20-40-1 tenure well into its fourth season. After a genuinely impressive job coaching a middling roster to nine wins and a playoff berth in his first year, each subsequent campaign has been worse than the last. Almost a year ago, fans began hiring planes to fly over MetLife Stadium towing banners with messages like “FIRE EVERYONE” during Giants games. That Daboll held on this long was mostly a testament to the franchise’s general allergy toward change. Recall that, four years ago, it took a different loss in Chicago, after which New York’s then-coach Joe Judge came unglued in an 11-minute postgame rant about team culture and all the players “begging” to play for him, to convince Giants ownership to pull the plug. That firing came just weeks after team officials had leaked news that Judge was likely to keep his job. It’s genuinely hard to get fired as Giants head coach because of the premium the organization places on continuity and stability. But for at least the last year, Daboll had been coaching in a constant state of pre-firedness, to borrow a phrase from my former colleague Kevin Clark. So what finally did Daboll in? Sure, it was the blown 10-point lead in the fourth quarter against the Bears on Sunday, the third late-game meltdown by the Giants this season. But mostly, it seems like Daboll being desperate enough to push the limits with rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart’s health was the last straw. Dart left the Bears game in the fourth quarter with a concussion that he suffered on his fifth designed run of the game. Daboll’s offense had Dart running a lot; his 32 rushing attempts so far this season are tied with Justin Fields for the league lead among quarterbacks—despite Dart not starting until Week 4. It’s been an effective strategy. On Sunday, those five runs for Dart had gone for 62 yards and two touchdowns before he left the game. But it’s also been one that’s led to New York’s rookie quarterback taking a lot of hits. Sunday marked the third time in Dart’s seven starts that he’d been checked for a concussion. He’s also played through ankle and hamstring injuries. One of the other instances in which Dart went through the concussion protocol came in the Giants’ Week 6 win against the Eagles. That game seems likely to end up as the high point of New York’s season, but, in hindsight, it may also have been the moment Daboll’s coaching style became untenable. First, Daboll looked into the medical tent while Dart was being evaluated—something that is explicitly against the league’s concussion protocol. Then he began screaming at the team doctor to find out when Dart could go back in the game. Daboll is known to have a temper, and in this instance, he was ripping mad. Though the NFL said his actions had no consequence on how Dart was evaluated, Daboll was ultimately fined $100,000—and the Giants organization $200,000—for interfering with the concussion protocol. Daboll publicly apologized, said he apologized privately to the doctor, and said he would never “want a player to come back out there that wasn’t ready.” But the impression was of a coach in dire need of immediate results losing sight of the big picture. This is the problem with the Giants' reluctance to ever clean house. A coach trying to stay employed has different incentives than a franchise trying to succeed long term, particularly when a rookie quarterback is in the picture. Even if Daboll was never influenced by that conflict of interest, the appearance that he could be is destructive on its own. What must Dart, or other players, think about how injuries are being handled? Even with Dart’s early success, season-ending injuries to key players like Malik Nabers and Cam Skattebo make it fairly clear this is a lost year for the Giants, where the best outcomes for the team’s future are a high draft pick in 2026 and as much safe development for Dart as possible. Daboll did not seem equipped to coach in that situation. Whenever Dart is able to play next, it will be interesting to see how interim head coach Mike Kafka, who had been the offensive coordinator under Daboll, handles the quarterback run game. Kafka, obviously, had a hand in the game-planning that had Dart running so much, too. Even though they’d seen enough with Daboll, Giants owners John Mara and Steve Tisch still fell back on continuity in their announcements Monday by handing the reins to Kafka and by stating that general manager Joe Schoen will stay with the team and lead the hiring search for the next head coach. Schoen has been a pretty mixed bag since he was hired in 2022, a year after Daboll—his handling of the Saquon Barkley contract negotiations goes down as a major faceplant, though his drafting has actually been pretty good recently, Dart included. New York should be a decent job opening. Mostly because of those draft picks that have worked out, the Giants can offer their new head coach a solid nucleus of young talent to build around in Dart, Nabers, Skattebo, left tackle Andrew Thomas, and a lot of talent in the defensive front seven, including 2025 first-round pick Abdul Carter. It might be hard for the fan base to get excited about the prospect of a new coach, given that this team’s last four hires have been Daboll, Judge, Pat Shurmur, and Ben McAdoo, but New York has a case to make to prospective coaches. Less clear is exactly who they’d be likely to covet. Kafka will get a look over the next seven weeks. Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, and Colts defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo are a few assistant coaches who have put some shine on their résumés so far this season. Some people are going to make fools of themselves by saying a name that rhymes with Shmill Schmelichick, but you’re not going to be one of them. Whoever the next head coach ends up being, they’ll be able to feel pretty good about their young quarterback and their ability to build for the future. It would have been better for the Giants and Dart if he had been able to simply start his career with a coaching regime that could last.
