In 2023, when this Joe Schoen-Brian Daboll Giants regime confirmed its true colours, Daboll’s worst high quality was his fingerpointing.
He blamed offensive coordinator Mike Kafka for the group’s weekly issues scoring factors. He complained about Wink Martindale’s protection, which tied for the NFL lead in takeaways, regardless of Daboll’s Thirtieth-ranked offense floundering.
Daboll didn’t lead. He deflected. It’s why so many coaches ran for the hills.
And that’s what his Sunday postgame press convention complaints seemed like. They seemed like Daboll once more pinning the Giants’ fixed dropping on another person.
This time, quarterback Drew Lock was the one who caught the strays.
Lock posted a jaw-dropping 309 passing yards, 5 touchdowns and a 155.3 QB score. However Daboll handled it extra as proof of the absence of fine quarterback play on the Giants than as a foundation for real reward.
“Drew played… This was his fourth game he started. Obviously, he had three starts that weren’t great,” Daboll stated. “But did a good job during the week of being focused … He played well today.”
Daboll reiterated “you need good quarterback play,” as if he weren’t the one employed to generate it.
He stated it was “pretty impressive” that rookies Malik Nabers and Tyrone Tracy Jr. every reached 1,000 yards as rookies “in a season like this with a variety of quarterbacks.”
Sorry, wasn’t Daboll right here within the 2023 offseason when the Giants re-signed Daniel Jones to a four-year, $160 million contract extension, whereas a reclamation challenge named Baker Mayfield signed a small, one-year take care of the Buccaneers?
Wasn’t Daboll the coach of the Giants within the 2023 offseason when groups had been eligible to barter with the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson on the non-exclusive franchise tag?
Wasn’t Daboll operating the group through the 2023 season when the Giants saved Tommy DeVito in because the beginning quarterback forward of a cleared Tyrod Taylor, which led to Taylor signing with the Jets within the offseason?
Wasn’t Daboll bullish about taking Nabers within the Giants’ 2024 draft room final spring whereas passing on Bo Nix, Michael Penix Jr. and J.J. McCarthy?
Wasn’t Daboll a part of the choice to leapfrog Lock for DeVito after chopping Jones this season, solely to confess it was the incorrect name and return to Lock?
You can provide Daboll this: Schoen has led or been get together to all of those errors, too. So it’s not simply the coach. The Giants’ GM runs the present.
And possibly Daboll is alluding to info not but confirmed concerning the Giants’ mismanagement of that place.
Perhaps Daboll badly needed Russell Wilson, for instance, however was overruled by Schoen and possession when the now-Steelers quarterback sought a assure that he would play. Perhaps Lock wasn’t Daboll’s desire. These particulars aren’t recognized.
Daboll, in equity, was the one who adeptly operated a run-based offense led by Jones and Saquon Barkley in 2022 to enhance Martindale’s spectacular protection for a playoff berth and a Coach of the Yr award.
Getting into that first season, Schoen and Daboll inherited their Giants’ jobs initially planning to show over the quarterback place. They didn’t anticipate having the type of success that may cause them to reinvest in Jones.
Right here’s the factor, although: They did. They each did. They dedicated themselves to Jones.
Schoen stated himself in November that the Giants modified course after 2022 and believed they had been nearer to contending than they really had been. They misevaluated the quarterback, the group and themselves.
“You come off a winning season, some of the issues were maybe masked or you’re blinded a little bit by it because of the success,” Schoen stated on the bye week. “Then once we extended Daniel, you try to accelerate it because the way that contract was structured.”
And Daboll desires to complain concerning the quarterbacks in his room now?
If he’s attempting to say that his offense can be productive if he had somebody like Josh Allen, effectively that’s no stretch. That’s the one top-ranked offense Daboll has ever run. That might even be true for each different coach within the league.
How’s this for a rhetorical query: If Sam Darnold had signed with the Giants this previous offseason as an alternative of the Vikings, who believes Darnold would have resurrected his profession with Daboll’s Giants in New York the way in which he has performed with Kevin O’Connell in Minnesota?
Everybody is aware of the reply to that. Even with Nabers on the group, he wouldn’t have.
So nobody desires to listen to it. It sounds petty and ridiculous.
Similar to Daboll’s resolution on Sunday to “give Shea Tierney a ton of credit” for Lock’s enchancment whereas not mentioning Kafka in any respect.
Give it some thought: the Giants’ quarterback had a profession recreation. Daboll praised the quarterbacks coach, a good friend he introduced from Buffalo, however not his offensive coordinator and assistant head coach and former NFL quarterback for the job effectively performed.
This one 12 months after Daboll and the Giants gave Tierney and Kafka promotions and shinier new titles off an traditionally dangerous offensive season to attempt to enhance the optics across the crumbling workers.
That is what occurs, although, when strain builds on folks and jobs are on the road: they present you who they are surely.
