Giants Make Surprising Headway in Latest MMQB Power Rankings

The New York Giants fall to 2-6 after their loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Oct 28, 2024; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Alex Highsmith (56) tackles New York Giants running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. (29) during the second quarter at Acrisure Stadium. / Barry Reeger-Imagn Images

The New York Giants had a chance to win their Monday night game at Pittsburgh, but thanks to their own mistakes, that didn’t happen. Yet despite their bumbling to a 26-18 loss, the Giants rose two spots in the latest MMQB power ranking poll.

For what it’s worth, the Jets, who had ranked ahead of the Giants for most of the season, finally dropped below the Giants, as did the Cleveland Browns and New Orleans Saints, so the Giants’ rise could be likely due to those teams pushing them up the board. But we digress.

Conor Orr, the compiler of the weekly rankings, wrote about Giants co-owner Jon Mara’s public vote of confidence for head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen, fully endorsing his decision to retain both (at least for now) while also taking a subtle verbal swipe at the Jets, who fired head coach Robert Saleh five games into the season.

“I have always admired John Mara for coming out as he does in the middle of difficult seasons and declaring his coaches safe,” Orr noted. 

“I think this is good for stability, and it’s a nice lightning rod maneuver that many owners feel they are too wealthy and important for. An owner in this market taking pressure off a coach instead of firing him five games into the season and blowing up his franchise. Imagine that.”

This isn’t the first time that Mara has publicly backed the head coach only to change his mind at the end of the season. Both Ben McAdoo and Joe Judge got similar assurances, only to be fired–and McAdoo didn’t make it through his second season.

Then again, both of them pretty much did themselves in. In McAdoo’s case, his whole handling of the quarterback situation in which he benched Eli Manning while claiming to want to see what the team had in their younger guys (assumed to be Davis Webb at the time) only to turn to Geno Smith, on whom there was four years of film, created such an uproar that the experiment lasted for one losing effort before Manning was reinstated as the starter after McAdoo was fired.

Judge did himself in with a lengthy soliloquy as his second season fell apart, a speech that sounded more like a public plea to ownership than anything. Between that and his giving up on the team when he called consecutive quarterback sneaks, it was clear that Judge had no clue how to handle the adversity he was facing.

At least so far, Daboll has shown no signs of having lost the locker room or having no clue as to how to handle adversity, so he has that going for him. As for Schoen, Mara realizes he needs to be patient as the general manager continues to build up a solid foundation, which right now lacks two solid cornerbacks and a franchise quarterback to help take it to the next level. 

That said, winning is the bottom line, and as Orr notes, all the good will and promise mean nothing if the team doesn’t start showing results.

“The one challenge for Brian Daboll now is to win enough games to keep that faith from wavering,” he concluded.  

It genuinely appears that Mara does not want to have to make another change after three seasons of the Schoen-DAboll regime. Every time a change is made, the team ends up starting from scratch, and that’s not the way to get on track.

But Mara has admitted to being impatient in the past, and with each loss piling on, it has to be tough for him to resist blowing the whole thing up again.

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