Is It "Do or Die" Time for New York Giants' Brass?

The Giants can’t look like turkeys against a weak Dallas team.

New York Giants co-owner John Mara (left) and New York Giants General Manager Joe Schoen speak with New York Giants Head Coach Brian Daboll at MetLife Stadium. / Kevin R. Wexler / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The NFL regular season is 17 games long, and each of those games is technically a “must-win.”

But in some cases, some games are “absolutely, positively, cannot lose or else” games for teams, and the New York Giants face one such game today against the Dallas Cowboys, a team that they have surprisingly been “fighting” for last place in the NFC East.

To put it plainly, the Giants need to win this fight and beat Dallas. They cannot afford another instance in which they serve as a “get right” opponent for a team looking for a little glimmer of hope or a spark to make its fans forget about the misery of their season.

There’s a lot on the line here for the Giants to roll into Dallas besides snapping the Cowboys’ seven-game winning streak against them and breaking a six-game losing streak that began shortly after the Giants’ last win on October 6 against the Seattle Seahawks.

The jobs of head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen likely depend on the outcome. For the Giants, who have had their share of embarrassments this season, the most recent one coming last week when the Bucs, in a 30-7 win on the Giants' home turf, dominated the game so much that by halftime with the score 23-0, it was, for all intents and purposes, over.

If the Giants continue to come out flat, show they don’t belong on the same field as the opponent, and continue to look like an unorganized mess, how does team ownership justify continuing with the status quo?

It doesn’t. Co-owner John Mara is known to crave stability in the family’s business. Well, one losing season after another is far from what anyone would call a stable situation.

So what happens if the 2-9 Giants fall to 2-10 in front of a nationally televised audience?

Does Schoen get shown the door? 

Probably not, especially after delivering a solid-looking 2024 draft class and making some strategic moves via trade. Sure, he whiffed on the chance to move Azeez Ojulari, who is back on IR for a third straight season, when he had the chance after digging his heels in and not budding off wanting a reported fourth-rounder for the 25-year-old.

Some will also say he botched the situation with Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney, two players who are sure to be Pro Bowlers this year and who are also in the discussion for MVP honors.

Schoen has made mistakes–some will point to the contract he gave to former quarterback Daniel Jones, who, in retrospect, really received the equivalent of two years' worth of franchise tag money plus a little extra. 

And yes, you can include his first two drafts, which haven’t produced impact players like Dexter Lawrence and Andrew Thomas, who were draft picks by the previous regime.

But he’s been building a decent-looking foundation that, admittedly, was delayed thanks to their 2022 playoff run, which misled many people in the organization regarding where this team was in its rebuild.

Having a productive offseason in 2025 is imperative and will go a long way toward determining if Schoen survives in this role beyond 2025.

What about Daboll? 

First, the notion that Schoen and Daboll are joined at the hip, so if one stays, the other will as well, is false. Granted, it’s ideal if they stay together, given how well they work together and agree on most decisions affecting the organization.

And certainly, a case can be made that Daboll, considered a quarterback whisperer and an offensive guru, fell short in delivering on both ends because he inherited a quarterback he may or may not have personally been on board with selecting had he been here for the 2019 draft. The quarterback situation has hamstrung an otherwise talented offense much better than the production has shown.

On the other hand, Daboll keeps talking about “trusting the process,” a process that, given the team’s record, just doesn’t seem to be working. After every loss, it seems he has no concrete solutions to the problems that consistently pop up in every game, problems that presumably the “process” he’s urging everyone to trust should fix.

And how about this constant party line about execution not being what it needs to be? That excuse flies for maybe the first week or two in the season, but at this point, shouldn’t everyone know their assignments and be able to execute accordingly?

That said, if the Giants get their doors blown off by the Cowboys, someone will have to pay the price.

The most likely candidate could be defensive coordinator Shane Bowen, whose defense can’t stop the run, who has been allowing far too many big (and back-breaking) bit plays, and whose system, in retrospect, has not been the best fit for the Giants' core personnel (see Deonte Banks and Bobby Okereke, just to name a couple).  

But make no mistake about it. Daboll and Schoen, who probably envisioned becoming this generation’s George Young-Bill Parcells tandem as far as football operations are concerned, have a lot of work to do if they return in 2025 if they’re to restore faith among the paying customers who are starting to turn their attention to doing other things on Sundays in the fall. 

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