Jobs are on the line for Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen, and more “things I think” ahead of the Giants-Cowboys

If the New York Giants are embarrassed by the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday in much the same way they were embarrassed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, it’s not hard to imagine that Brian Daboll won’t be the head coach, when the Giants host the New Orleans Saints in Week 14. Maybe GM Joe Schoen would be shown the door with him.

The fact is, it’s not hard to imagine the Giants — who have made embarrassing themselves in front of national television audiences a specialty in recent years — doing just that. The Giants have mostly shown in the first 10 games that they are better than they were on Sunday. However, if that’s the best they can muster, it’s certainly not good enough.

The 2-9 Giants are a mess.

• They will likely have their third quarterback in three weeks, now perhaps forced by injury to start in Drew Lock, a player they passed over on Sunday for an undrafted free agent who may have only played because of his popularity with the team’s fan base has.
• They put on a humiliating performance, prompting players to call the performance “soft,” question teammates’ performance, take the head coach to task, and spend the week trying to explain or walk away from those comments.
• It’s clear from what Daboll and many of the players have said that since the Giants have suffered six straight losses, they don’t know how to explain what happened or how to fix the problem.
• They only looked at the quarterback they couldn’t win with or play to an acceptable standard with a 9-2 Super Bowl contender. If DeVito can’t play on Thursday, Tim Boyle will be one step away from becoming the Giants’ quarterback.
• They’ve watched two players they decided they didn’t want to pay – Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney – embarrass them with career seasons.
• The substitute left tackle, who was previously the right tackle, will not play on Thursday due to injury.
• One of the team’s best pass rushers just went on IR.

The list goes on.

I expect the Giants to play with more effort on Thursday afternoon. The players were rightly embarrassed by the performance they showed on Sunday and I expect them to play hard enough not to repeat that performance.

That could be enough to get Daboll – and therefore Schoen – a stay of execution. Would it be enough to give them a chance to stay beyond the end of this season?

I still don’t think the owners want to blow everything up and start over. Again. I firmly believe that John Mara and Steve Tisch don’t want to do anything during the season. I think they’re looking/hoping/praying for reasons not to. However, it is entirely possible that we are almost at the point where the product can no longer be justified and there is no other choice.

The Giants started the Schoen/Daboll era 7-2. Since then, they have posted a 10-25-1 record in regular season games, and the quality of the product appears to be declining.

If Daboll in particular wants to stay, the Giants will have to play hardball. You have to get the ball to Malik Nabers. They have to figure out how to score points. You have to stick together as a team. They have to give the impression that they have an idea of ​​how to play defense. They need to show some signs of improvement in the final weeks of the season.

The bottom line is that the Giants are not where they should be in the third year of a rebuild. The worse it gets, the more likely it is that Daboll and Schoen will pay for the regression – and the embarrassment – with their jobs.

Effort or execution?

When a team doesn’t give it their full effort or simply doesn’t appear to be committed or interested in putting their best product on the field, that’s a burden on a head coach. Whether it was or not, this is what Sunday looked like for the Giants against the Buccaneers.

Daboll and the players said Monday and Tuesday that the film showed no lack of effort. Rather, it showed a lack of execution. Lack of technology.

At this point, 12 weeks into a season, isn’t that just as bad for a head coach and his staff?

Shouldn’t the players know the moves and understand their tasks two-thirds of the way through the season? Shouldn’t they know who to block? What gaps should they close against the onslaught? How should certain routes be traveled? Where should they be in zone coverage? Shouldn’t they be able to use proper blocking and tackling technique?

Yes, the Giants are one of the youngest teams in the league. Therefore, some mistakes will happen. However, these are professional athletes. The best in the world at what they do. You should be able to master the basic techniques required for the pieces and plans played.

Is it because of the coaching? Is it the players? Maybe it’s a combination of both.

Jon Runyan said this week that the team had been trying to figure out how to fix the problem “for the last month and more.”

If the players aren’t learning, the Giants may not have the right coaches. Or maybe they don’t have the right players. Here’s something Runyan said that, to me, suggests that in at least some cases you need to blame the players:

“I’m not trying to challenge anyone, but for certain people there’s only so much you can do for them,” Runyan said. “There comes a point where the execution or the details are no longer there. I don’t know whether that affects the offense, defense or special teams.

“We try to look after our own house, especially on the attacking side of the ball. Leave defense to what defense is. From our perspective, there’s only so much we can do as offensive linemen. Everyone has to take responsibility for their position group and as a whole for the offensive and defensive units.”

If it’s the coaches, that’s a disgrace to Daboll and the position coaches who work for him. When it comes to the players, it’s an indictment of the GM who acquired them.

Like I said, it’s probably a little bit of both. When you’re 10-25-1 over two years, there’s a lot of blame to go around.

Decisions, decisions

As we looked at the Giants position by position during the bye week, we went into detail about most of the key decisions Schoen made during his time as GM.

I think you can argue that most of the major decisions Schoen and the Giants have made over the past two years have been based on sound, defensible considerations, data and intent. These include signing and releasing Daniel Jones, dealing with Saquon Barkley, forgoing a bidding war in free agency for Xavier McKinney, trading Leonard Williams, trading for Brian Burns and signing Malik Nabers instead of a quarterback in the first round last April.

Each of these decisions involved a high level of risk. Many of them – you know which ones – explode spectacularly at the GM. While one can argue that many of these were the right decisions, and I believe most, if not all, were, the extent to which many of them embarrassed the Giants is extraordinary.

Schoen’s mistakes in his first two drafts, particularly his inability to maximize his first-round picks, are proving costly. As wonderful a player as Nabers is, if JJ McCarthy (the likely pick at No. 6 if the Giants would have gone quarterback) turns out to be a great pro and the Giants don’t solve their quarterback problem soon, this decision won’t be made also work well.

He is a Viking

Yes, I’m talking about Daniel Jones. I love the Minnesota Vikings as a landing spot for Jones.

Louis Riddick said this in Threads. Yes, topics:

Smart move, Daniel Jones.

Kevin O’Connell is exactly what you need. He will give you answers. Well done.

I agree.

Jones has chosen a very good team with an excellent, offensive-minded head coach. If Jones benefits from being near O’Connell and looks like a better quarterback the next time he gets a chance at range, that’s another poor reflection of Daboll, a supposed quarterback whisperer.

By the way, could you imagine this scenario:

Current Vikings starter Sam Darnold signs with the Giants in free agency, Jones remains in Minnesota as the bridge quarterback for McCarthy, and Jones actually surpasses Darnold in 2025.

In some ways that would be typical of the Giants’ development in recent years.

About Shedeur

Everyone has an opinion about Shedeur Sanders and whether or not he would be the right quarterback for the Giants. When Schoen was seen at a practice in Colorado this week, everyone had something to say.

At the moment I’m not sold. I’m worried about what you’re hearing about entitlement and things like the quarterback pushing an official. However, I will keep an open mind.

Maybe the Giants need a certain attitude like Nabers is showing. I want to study Sanders. I want to talk to people who know a lot more about quarterbacks than I do and who have far more opportunities to talk to Sanders and/or people around him than I ever will.

I trust what I am told by the people I trust to evaluate/evaluate prospects.