Giants' Brian Daboll Listed on CBS Sports' "Coaching Hot-Seat" List

But should he be?

East Rutherford, NJ -- June 11, 2024 -- Head coach Brian Daboll at the NY Giants Mandatory Minicamp at their practice facility in East Rutherford, NJ. / Chris Pedota, NorthJersey.com / USA

Last season, the New York Giants limped to the finish line with a 6-11 record that earned them a Top-10 draft selection and raised plenty of question marks heading into the 2024 season.

Of all the questions raised, high among the list has been the scrutiny regarding third-year head coach Brian Daboll and his ability to pull the team out of a decades-plus-long drought that has seen the team return to the playoffs just twice since its last Super Bowl in the 2011 postseason.

As such, Daboll landed on CBS Sports Cody Benjamin’s list of hot-seat candidates to watch this season.

"Few current coaches have seen their stock rise and fall in such a short period of time," Benjamin wrote. 

"Appropriately crowned ‘Coach of the Year’ for rejuvenating Daniel Jones and running back Saquon Barkley en route to a surprise playoff win in 2022, Daboll was far more mercurial as a leader and situational play-caller amid his roster's rash of injuries in 2023. 

“After exiling strong-willed defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, he'll be charged with reviving Jones once more and securing commitment from a club that hasn't kept a coach for more than two years since Tom Coughlin."

(Side note: Daboll didn’t “exile” Martindale, as Benjamin said. The defensive coordinator resigned his post after an ugly verbal fallout with Daboll.)

While others have questioned whether Daboll is the long-term answer for the Giants, there is enough to question whether he truly belongs on the hot list along with the other head coaches whose seats are arguably hotter.

After two seasons, Daboll's record is 15-18-1. His first season saw the Giants earn a playoff berth and win their first postseason game since 2011. 

Despite last season coming apart at the seams, Daboll kept the locker room together and even managed to keep them in the playoff hunt (albeit by a hair) as late as Week 15–this without Jones, who by this point was on injured reserve with a torn ACL– when a crushing loss to the New Orleans Saints ensured the Giants would definitely be home watching the postseason.

This season, he'll have a healthy offensive line, an exciting new weapon in first-round wide receiver Malik Nabers, and a defense that added edge rusher and Top 100 player Brian Burns to pair with rising star Kayvon Thibodeaux. 

The front seven should be really good. It also includes interior defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence, arguably now one of, if not the best, interior defensive linemen in the league following Aaron Donald's retirement, and a top yet underrated inside linebacker in Bobby Okereke.

In new defensive coordinator Shane Bowen, the Giants get a man who’s a bit more flexible with his scheme and whose teaching style and philosophies are noticeably different than his predecessor. 

Meanwhile, all signs are pointing toward Daboll taking over the play-calling from offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, a role the Daboll did so well for the Bills. 

Daboll called the plays throughout the spring and seemed a lot calmer and dialed into things than in the first two years when he was a bit more all over the place and quicker to have an outburst over a mistake.   

Does Daboll belong on the list of the ten hottest head coaching seats? We’d say it’s premature at this point and that he should get at least another season, given all the staff changes and roster upgrades made so far this year. 

Daboll is the best coach the Giants have had since Coughlin. He took a quarterback well on his way to being a bust and got him to play above the Xs and Os during the 2022 playoff run. He kept the locker room together during adversity, and he has shown no signs of panicking or not knowing what to do when things have gone wrong.

It’s now up to Daboll to make his upcoming third season look more like the 2022 campaign. If he can do that, all this talk of him being on the hot seat will be something Giants fans can look back upon and laugh.  

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