Five Biggest Mistakes Giants Made in Building Their Roster

The Joe Schoen-Brian Daboll regime has committed a handful of mistakes that have affected the roster and possibly their future with the New York Giants organization.

Nov 24, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants owner John Mara, left, and New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen on the field before the game between the Giants and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at MetLife Stadium. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

 In almost three seasons since taking over the keys to the organization, the Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll partnership has brought the New York Giants from some of the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in their recent history. 

That has certainly been the case in what was supposed to be the franchise's historic 100th season, one that was filled with excitement after a solid draft and offseason that appeared to address some serious holes evident in the roster from when the regime assumed it.

Unfortunately, the results haven’t played out over the last several months of the season, as the Giants have skidded to being tied for the league-worst record of 2-12 with arguably the worst roster in the entire NFL, which is battered with injuries. 

This is just two years after the team shocked everyone by winning nine games and a playoff berth in 2022, which now seems to have come way too early in the franchise’s rebuild. 

It didn’t seem so disastrous at the start of the campaign, though. Schoen and the front office felt confident in their decisions over the offseason. 

They let pricey players go who would have been hard to retain on new contracts to focus the strict cap money on premium positions, including the omnipresent offensive line issue and the young secondary.

Regardless of their intentions, very few of their decisions, the draft being one of them, have panned out. Instead, they have derailed the Giants roster and made it one of the most embarrassingly uncompetitive units in football. 

As the awful season draws close to its conclusion, all those mistakes will be compiled to present a case to ownership as to whether they should stay the course with the Schoen-Daboll regime or bring about sweeping changes. 

The latter route grows stronger as the situation becomes more intense, and the organization is being tested by the actions of a disgruntled fanbase. 

Pending everyone survives through the final whistle before the offseason reckoning; these will be the biggest miscues on the list of many that have plagued the current era of Giants football.

Former New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones / Julian Leshay Guadalupe/NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Quarterback Situation 

If and when the ink has run out on the Joe Schoen-Brian Daboll partnership, the problems they created at the quarterback position will undoubtedly be the main reason their tenures in East Rutherford failed. 

Sure, it was nearly impossible to move on from former starting quarterback Daniel Jones after the impressive season he put together in 2022 that featured over 3,200 passing yards and 22 total touchdowns and led the Giants to their first postseason berth and win in six seasons. 

Still, if they were intent on giving Jones an additional season to prove himself in their offensive system further, they could have bought into his fifth-year option, which, had it gone poorly, they could have parted ways and attacked the position in the draft or through a cheaper bridge option.

They ultimately declined the option, handing Jones a hefty four-year, $160 million deal with no poison pill until the end of the 2024 season, which he didn’t make it to. 

The Giants released Jones in the aftermath of losing to the Carolina Panthers in Week 10 to start the season at 2-8 and benching him.

The entire contract ended up being a gigantic waste, as Jones had about $80 million guaranteed in the deal. He now has to pay $11 million in base salary to not even be on the roster through the season finale and hold $22.2 million in dead money for 2025.

In total, the Giants only got a combined season in active starts and 10 passing touchdowns from their former No. 6 pick, who has now moved on to his fresh start in Minnesota.

What makes it worse is that they failed to bring in competent arms behind him, as the team has fluctuated between three different players in the last six weeks and received dismal efforts from all of them. 

Schoen tried to move up the draft board last spring to land Jones's eventual replacement in the 2024 class. His ideal target was Drake Mate, who went to New England. He passed up a couple of other prospects, Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr., to select the next best player on the board, Malik Nabers. 

Now, if he’s lucky to survive the gauntlet, the Giants will be heading back to that board in the 2025 draft, potentially looking to come away with one of two main prospects in Sheduer Sanders or Cam Ward, who will be the next heir to the toughest position in the Big Apple.

Dec 8, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley (26) runs off the field after win against the Carolina Panthers at Lincoln Financial Field. / Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

The Saquon Barkley Divorce

One of the biggest and toughest pills that the Giants have had to swallow this season is seeing former running back Saquon Barkley have the campaign of his career with the NFC East rival Philadelphia Eagles after two summers of failed contract negotiations. 

The entire fallout was exposed on Hard Knocks, where Schoen elected to let Barkley test the free agent market after agreeing not to hand him the franchise tag to preserve his talents for one more year. 

Instead, the former No. 2 overall pick ran off to the Eagles, who offered him more guaranteed money than New York, and the Giants moved forward with cheaper options in Devin Singletary and rookie fifth-round draft pick Tyrone Tracy Jr. 

While the move made sense from a cap standpoint–the Giants were in desperate need of cap space, and Schoen wanted to prioritize his assets towards more dire positions such as the offensive line and secondary–it completely underestimated Barkley's importance to the team’s offensive success. 

Not to mention, it created a gap in the locker room in terms of leadership, as Barkley was a valuable captain who kept the team together during the losing seasons, and it created a sense that the Giants franchise didn’t reward that. 

Even so, this was a guy that gave them three 1,000-yard seasons and arguably was the catalyst that powered them into the postseason in 2022. 

Now, Barkley is ranked first in the NFL in total rushing production, including a career-high 1,688 yards and 11 touchdowns that is in contention to break the league’s single-season rushing record held by legendary Rams running back Eric Dickerson. 

The Giants have earned some valiant production from Tracy, who could finish with 1,000+ scrimmage yards as a rookie, but their overall rushing efforts have dropped into the bottom third in the league, leading to the team's holding the 29th lowest total yardage in the same span. 

It has also hurt the quarterback position, as Daniel Jones and his replacements have had one less weapon to take away the attention of the opposing defense and benefit the passing game. Just one receiver, Nabers, has more than 600 yards receiving, and the aerial unit has been the 32nd ranked in the first 15 games.  

The ideal move would have been to resign Barkley to a contract, but they went with Jones instead, and it has blown up in their faces as Barkley is crushing it and John Mara’s dreams while proving that the running back position isn't as dead as many folks once thought.

New York Giants Head Coach Brian Daboll reacts after he found out New York Giants place kicker Graham Gano (9, not shown) did not hit a field goal after a call by the referee. / Kevin R. Wexler-NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Daboll Takes Over the Playcalling

When head coach Brian Daboll revoked offensive coordinator Mike Kafka's play-calling duties and then begrudgingly handed him an additional title of assistant head coach, he surely expected better results due to his successes in the same role in Buffalo. 

As this season has played out, that has been far from the case. Daboll wanted to make the change to boost the Giants offense after it fluctuated between the 2022 and 2023 seasons and finished 30th and 29th in overall production, respectively, in the latter year. The only thing that happened was that the entire product got drastically worse.

Under Daboll’s signals, the Giants have dug deeper into the offensive doldrums, standing dead last in points scored–their average of 14.9 per game is also a league-worst–and 29th in yards per contest. 

The passing element has taken the biggest hit with the switch, and it has performed worse at home. With just three touchdowns all season, the team has contributed to a 0-8 record that could become 0-9 by the end of Week 17 against the Colts. 

In addition, the Giants have been one of the worst teams at converting first downs, achieving success on just 34.7 percent of their third-down attempts, which is slightly better than the 30.2 percent that they averaged in 2023. 

They’ve done better on fourth-down gambles due to the frequency of tries, but Daboll's decisions on the field have rarely resulted in points, and there has been no rhyme or reason to them. 

Line up the head coach’s play-calling resume from the first 15 games, and his predecessor has the numbers to back up the better job. It might not have blown anybody out of the water last fall, but in 2022, the Giants held the 15th and 18th-best huddle in the NFL. 

No player benefited from it more than Daniel Jones who posted his best statline as a Giant en route to his first postseason run. 

To make matters worse for Daboll, he started the season with an improved offensive line, one that was in the top third of the league in pass protection before injuries started taking their toll, and an excellent playmaker in Malik Nabers to offer the offense a true No. 1 receiving threat. He only managed to notch two wins in the first several games before it all started spiraling out of control. 

It now adds to a resume of poor offensive success in Daboll’s coaching career, as just three of his seasons as play caller have resulted in the unit posting top-20 seasons. Otherwise, it’s been in the gutters, and there may need to be a change should he stick around for the 2025 campaign.

Oct 20, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence II (97) celebrates after a sack during the first half against the Philadelphia Eagles at MetLife Stadium. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Lack of Depth in Key Positions

The Giants tried to redistribute the funds saved from Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney’s free agent exits to fortify other key positions across the roster that needed depth, but their efforts weren’t enough. 

Although the group started the season strong and was powering the Giants to an elite pass-rushing outlook behind the leadership of Dexter Lawrence, the defensive interior was the biggest sign of their failures. Lawrence injured his elbow in the Giants’ loss to the Cowboys on Thanksgiving, and since then, a couple of other big hogs have followed suit. 

This has left the interior extremely barren, and the Giants have paid the price. After compiling 36 total sacks in the first half of the season, they’ve only managed five in the past few games. They’ve also let opponents go carte blanche in the run game, allowing an average of 143.7 yards, 14 touchdowns, and an average of nearly five yards per carry in their recent contests. 

However, it hasn’t just been the front portion of the defense that has suffered injuries; the deep secondary has also suffered. The Giants focused most of their secondary work on the draft, and it has paid off with the selections of Dru Phillips and Tyler Nubin, who both have upside. 

Behind them, the depth has been slim to none, especially after the relentless ailments. The Giants parted ways with Nick McCloud for refusing to take a pay cut. The one free agent signing they made was Adoree Jackson, the veteran they brought back out of desperation, and even his efforts have been mediocre at best. 

As the offseason hits, the Giants have some promising pieces in certain position groups, but the need for depth needs to be quenched. They didn’t put enough into a team that would rely on their defense for success, and it has taken the season down an even darker path.

Jul 24, 2024; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants defensive coordinator Shane Bowen looks on during training camp at Quest Diagnostics Training Facility. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The Defensive Coordinator

The change went wrong on the offensive end, and the same was true for the Giants defense, which hasn’t entirely improved under current defensive coordinator Shane Bowen. 

In the offseason, the Giants parted ways with former defensive mind Wink Martindle who is now holding the same position at the University of Michigan. 

The divorce was believed to have been fueled by a disagreement-filled relationship between Martindale and Brian Daboll that grew during the 2023 season before splitting at the end of a 6-11 campaign. 

Martindale’s defensive system certainly wasn’t perfect, but it did a solid job of creating exotic pressures and generating turnovers from opponents. Under his watch, the Giants tallied 34 sacks and held their enemies to the 10th-fewest touchdowns while forcing the highest turnovers in the NFL, including the third-best interception total. 

The Giants changed to Bowen, who had been the defensive signal caller for the Tennessee Titans, to replace Martindale. Bowen would bring a much more tame approach to blitzes that would benefit all three levels of the defense and improve the answers against the run and in the red zone. 

Since then, Bowen’s system has failed to achieve what it was supposed to do. The prevalence of injuries could partly justify the struggles, but the Giants have still sunk to the bottom three teams in opposing rushing yards (2,012) and average yards per carry (4.9) allowed. 

In that same span, 11 teams notch over 100 yards on the ground, which is just three games shy of the 14 that Martindale’s group had a season earlier. 

The Giants’ red zone defense has also continued to crumble down the stretch of the year, succumbing to points on 53.7 percent of their opponent’s trips inside the 20-yard line, which ranks 15th with three games to go. It’s not a terrible stat, but one that has looked worse in light of New York’s recent blowout losses to Tampa Bay and Baltimore at home. 

Add in issues with discipline that have arisen with the constant penalties and the missed tackles, which were supposed to improve, and the Shane Bowen experiment hasn’t worked out. 

The Giants might not have had a choice, given that Martindale left the position open, but their current man might be the first domino to fall once the final game has been played.

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