The New York Giants ended their search for a head coach when they hired Brian Daboll, who previously worked for the Buffalo Bills as their offensive coordinator.
Daboll gets his first opportunity as a head coach, and the Giants have the most promising coaching prospect since they last won the Super Bowl in the 2011 season under Tom Coughlin.
“My immediate goal is to assemble a coaching staff, said Daboll. “A strong staff that emphasizes teaching and collaboration and making sure our players are put in the position to be their best and, ultimately, to win games. That’s why all of us do this. To teach, to be successful, to develop talent, and to win. I have a pretty good idea where our fan base’s feelings are right now, and I get it.”
In the last decade, the Giants posted just two winning seasons. They haven’t won a playoff game since the 2011 team won the Super Bowl. They qualified for the playoffs only once in the last decade with zero postseason wins.
The Giants are one of the long shots on the look-ahead futures board at +6500 odds to win Super Bowl 57 next season.
Giants raiding the Bills
Once the Giants hired Joe Schoen as their new general manager, it was only a matter of time before they installed Daboll as their new head coach. Schoen spent several seasons as the assistant GM with the Buffalo Bills, so it wasn’t a surprise that he tapped Daboll to join him in New Jersey.
“Over the last four years, I have observed first-hand Brian’s strengths as a leader,” said Schoen. “He is an excellent communicator, intelligent, innovative, and hard working,. Brian’s genuine and engaging personality is refreshing. He fosters relationships with the players and coaches around him. He is progressive in his vision and values collaboration, two of the attributes we think are essential.”
Buffalo’s quarterback coach Ken Dorsey now has a choice. He’s rumored to take over for Daboll as the Bills’ next offensive coordinator, or he could join Daboll’s staff with the Giants.
Both Schoen and Daboll inherit a disappointing quarterback in Daniel Jones. Schoen said he’s sticking with Jones for the 2022 season, but it’s his final year of his rookie contract with the team holding the option for a fifth year. The writing on the wall is that Jones must conjure up a miraculous season to stick around the Giants for more than 2022.
Ghosts of Parcells and Coughlin
Daboll hopes he can avoid the two-year curse because the last three head coaches never had a chance to coach a third season.
Ben McAdoo went 11-5 in his first season in 2016, but was fired before the end of the 2017 season after a disastrous 2-10 stint, including the benching of Eli Manning, which ruined his streak of 210 consecutive starts.
Pat Shurmur struggled with a 9-23 record in his two-year stint in 2018-19.
Joe Judge came into the Meadowlands highly recommended by Bill Belichick, but the former special teams coach with the New England Patriots never found his footing. He went 6-10 in 2020 during the pandemic, and went 4-13 in 2021. He was promptly fired days after the season ended.
Bill Parcells is such a huge legend within the Giants organization that he’s the ultimate measuring stick that every subsequent coach is measured against — even Tom Coughlin. Parcells won two Super Bowls with the Giants in 1986 and 1990, but it’s easy to forget that the “Tuna” only spent eight seasons roaming the sidelines at old Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands.
In 12 seasons with the Giants, Coughlin won two Super Bowls. His success was mostly in part to the heroics of Eli Manning, who led the Giants to upset victories over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 42 and Super Bowl 44.
Sandwiched in between Parcells and Coughlin were two unmemorable seasons with Ray Handley in the early 1990s, followed by a disappointing and somewhat boring four-year stint with Dan Reeves. Jim Fassel took the 2000 Giants to the Super Bowl, where they lost to the Baltimore Ravens. That was as good as it got during his seven-year tenure, which preceded the Coughlin reign.