NFL Insiders Offers Theory on Why Giants Stayed with Joe Schoen, Brian Daboll

A pair of NFL insiders weigh in on the Giants' decision to stay the course with its current leadership.

Aug 26, 2023; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll (right) and general manager Joe Schoen (left) talk before a game against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium. / Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

The New York Giants are set to run it back with head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen, but questions remain as to why team ownership made that decision.

Mara, one-half of the team’s ownership, tried to explain the reasons for running it back with Schoen and Daboll when he met with the media on Monday after the decision was announced. But during his 11-minute session, Mara, who claimed to have confidence in the duo still, seemed to contradict himself.  

For instance, he acknowledged that the Giants “stunk this year” but admitted that while his gut was telling him that the team was going in the right direction, “It’s hard for me to say we’re going in the right direction right now because we’ve been going backward.”

He also added that while he viewed the personnel decisions as being “better than I’ve ever seen it before,” he couldn’t say the roster was better than the one Schoen and Daboll started within 2022, saying, “I’m not sure I am all that confident that it’s that much better. How can I say that it’s better if we win three games? We need to win more games for us to be able to prove that point.”

If there was that kind of back-and-forth in Mara’s mind, then why keep both men?

“You wanna talk about flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop? And when I say “flip-flop, flip flop, flip flop, I mean, this is a team that did not wanna make any changes,” Dianna Russini of The Athletic said on a recent episode of the Scoop City podcast with co-host Chase Daniel. 

“John Mara came out in October and said it, right? We've talked about it a million times on the show: The vote of confidence/kiss of death.

"And it really turned out to be the kiss of death as the season went because how could he not take back his words and make changes after the product that he was seeing on the field?” Russini added.

Perhaps the most revealing reason offered by Mara was that he didn’t want to make another change so soon after seeing how being quick to make a change after the Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur, and Joe Judge eras all came crashing down around him and set the franchise back.

However, it should also be noted that each instance had unique circumstances that warranted a change. 

McAdoo, for instance, lost the locker room. Shurmur, who flopped as head coach in Cleveland, in retrospect, probably should have been hired as an offensive coordinator whose sole mission was to groom Daniel Jones, whom the team selected to follow Eli Manning and who had a positive first season with Shurmur in the building.  

Judge, who also didn’t achieve the desired results, arguably talked himself into being fired with his now famous 11-minute rant in which he passionately defended the job he had done despite things crumbling down around him.

Daboll, in particular, has had a few moments, thanks to his fiery temper and fierce competitive streak, in which he’s lost his cool while the television cameras were rolling. 

For example, he was caught on camera chewing out offensive lineman Jack Anderson. He was also spotted soft-tossing a tablet in close proximity to Jones in frustration after an interception. 

Those instances undoubtedly led Mara to admit to reporters during the league meetings last spring that he wished Daboll would “tone it down.”  

That being said, Russini believes that the Giants' win over the Indianapolis Colts likely eased Mara's doubts. 

“I think that game, in a way, helped Daboll,” she said. “I think that saved him because here's the one thing I'll give him credit for: Those guys still play hard for him in the locker room. They love him. He's very visible in the building. He's got good energy about him.”

And Schoen? 

“Somehow Joe Schoen has figured out a way to sell to the owner that he knows how to pick talent and make these big decisions for the New York Giants despite what we just saw,” Russini said.

“I think this is a story of an owner who just wanted to see this team have some success and they couldn't do it,” she added. 

“(Mara) wanted to continue to believe that they could be successful and that this was the right regime, and he just wanted them to go out there and show that they could do it, and then they go out and win the game that they should have lost so they could get the number one overall pick.  

While the past two seasons' results haven’t been what Mara or Giants fans in general expected, Daniel believes that if Schoen and Daboll are to survive in their respective positions beyond the 2025 season, they must accomplish one thing.

“The number one thing that Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen have to hit out of the park grand slam is they gotta find a quarterback,” Daniels said. “Quite honestly, I do not care if it's a rookie. I do not care if it's a stud that they trade for and spend $50 million a year. 

“That will be the deciding factor. I think when you look at next year, this time, if they're back or not, it'll be, ‘Yes, because we found a quarterback.’”

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