'Everything Was Personal' How Brian Daboll's Giants Tenure Unraveled
Toxic Culture, and a Quarterback in Peril: The End of the Brian Daboll Era
The Brian Daboll era in New York ended Monday, arguably 10 games too late, closing the book on a coach who went from Coach of the Year to locker-room pariah in less than three seasons.
“It got very bad,” an agent who represents multiple Giants players tells Between The Hashmarks. “It seemed like everything was personal with Daboll.”
Whether it be among staff to his relationship with his players, Daboll’s downfall sounds as results-oriented as it does the result of a coach trying to tighten his grip on all aspects of the franchise but failing to deliver the kind of wins to merit it.
Daboll’s fall from Coach of the Year to unemployment is the byproduct of a toxic culture colliding with a talent-starved depth chart, inside an organization that hasn’t figured out how to build a modern winner in 15 years.
Since guiding the Giants’ second postseason return since winning the Super Bowl in 2011, behind Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley, and the league’s 25th-ranked defense, in 2022, Daboll has won just 11 games.
“The past few seasons have been nothing short of disappointing, and we have not met our expectations for this franchise,” Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch said Monday in a statement released by the team. “We understand the frustrations of our fans, and we will work to deliver a significantly improved product.”
Fans have become so miffed, so enraged, so apathetic that some have paid small fortunes to fly planes above MetLife Stadium calling for Daboll’s firing, while so many others sold their tickets to so many San Francisco 49ers fans that first-round rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart told reporters last week that he felt like he was playing a road game, in East Rutherford.
That’s precisely the kind of embarrassment that gets an owner like Mara to pull the plug.
The product simply hasn’t gotten better, save for Daboll’s run to the postseason in his first year in the Garden State, underscoring systemic issues with how the Giants have operated with just three winning seasons dating back to 2012.
Under Daboll’s watch, even after an infusion of some elite talent; Malik Nabers, Brian Burns, and first-round rookie Abdul Carter, and Dart, joining All-Pros Dexter Lawrence and Andrew Thomas anchoring critical positions, the Giants managed to win just two of their first 10 games for the third straight season.
With Nabers and rookie running back Cam Skattebo both lost to season-ending injuries, there was little hope in sight.
While Dart was seemingly Daboll’s quarterback of choice in this past spring’s NFL Draft, whom the Giants traded up to select No. 25 overall, and the former Ole Miss standout has already looked to have all the tools of a rising franchise quarterback, even adding a centerpiece for general manager Joe Schoen to build around wasn’t nearly enough to save the embattled head coach.
Since making his first career start, back in Week 4, Dart has already been evaluated four times for concussions and was knocked into the concussion protocol when he was knocked from Sunday’s loss to the Chicago Bears, Daboll’s final on the Giants’ sideline.
On top of whatever simmering conflicts have been brewing just beneath or had bubbled over onto the surface in recent years, Daboll's repeatedly calling running plays late in games for Dart, exposing the young quarterback to additional hits while failing to convince him to slide or otherwise protect himself in the pocket, proved to be Daboll’s ultimate downfall.
The NFL fined Daboll $100,000, and the Giants another $200,000, after the head coach infamously stuck his head into the blue medical tent as Jaxson Dart was being evaluated for an injury. Mara publicly reprimanded him in a statement afterward.
Since inserting Dart into the lineup for Russell Wilson, Daboll appeared to be viewing and treating the upstart quarterback as his own personal job security ticket rather than the most vital piece of the Giants’ rebuild.
Roughly 22 hours before the Giants relieved Daboll of his duties, Dart hobbled back to the Soldier Field locker room and into the concussion protocol as New York surrendered its third fourth-quarter lead of the season in a 24-20 loss to the Bears, setting a new franchise record for 11 consecutive road defeats.
Unsurprisingly, when the wins failed to meet the injuries his quarterback began piling, Daboll was shown the exit from 1925 Giants Drive.
But, Daboll’s issues have been brewing long before he mishandled Dart’s well-being and turned late leads into stunning losses.
According to a report from ESPN’s Jordan Raanan, Giants general manager Joe Schoen even took the extreme measure of monitoring the coaching headsets to evaluate how Daboll communicated with his staff.
Along the way, Daboll and former defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale’s relationship deteriorated rapidly, leading to a heated exchange ahead of Martindale’s resignation last season.
Daboll’s sideline meltdowns became internet memes bordering on NFL cultural icons, which is no way for a head coach to garner the respect of his players, or his staff when the results never change. And, they didn’t.
If Dart develops into the quarterback the Giants hope, the next coach will owe Daboll at least some gratitude for finding him.
Dart now makes the Giants one of the more attractive coaching vacancies this hiring cycle, but Mara, Schoen, and New York will need to find a coach who fits some very specific criteria if this heritage franchise is going to have any chance at returning from floundering cellar-dweller to respectability.
After the chaos of the past three seasons, New York’s next leader may spend more time repairing scars than drawing up plays.
He’ll also need to either mask the organization’s systemic flaws, or be the kind of culture-driver capable of overcoming them.
The Giants haven’t had a coach like that since Tom Coughlin walked off the podium, stage right, back in 2016.
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