Regardless of Who Leads Giants, These Mistakes Cannot Be Repeated Moving Forward
The 2024 New York Giants are bad.
As in historically bad.
Look no further than the team’s 2-13 record, franchise record-setting 10-game losing streak, outscored by 147 points this season (362-215), and bottom-dwelling ranking in most of the major offensive statistical categories if you need indisputable proof.
This has led to a justifiably angry group of fans who have lost interest in the games or taken to flying airplanes overhead MetLife Stadium, urging team ownership to “Fire everyone!”
But on a larger scale, it’s led to ownership coming to a sort of crossroads regarding the team's direction once this miserable season ends.
Currently sitting with the first overall pick in next year’s draft, the Giants need to decide who will make that pick (and the ones that follow) and who will coach him.
According to the sentiments of a fast-growing number of fans who invest their time and hard-earned money in a product that has been unacceptable to watch for much of the last decade-plus, but especially this season, the Giants ownership duo of John Mara and Steve Tisch need only follow the advice of the last plane that circled over MetLife Stadium and fire everyone.
It sounds simple enough, but for both men, it’s not necessarily one they’ll make based on the growing frustration or emotion that has been building up with each embarrassing loss.
This isn’t to ignore the mounting evidence of something not being quite right within the walls of 1925 Giants Drive. And this isn’t to say what team ownership will do because only Mara and Tisch know what they’re thinking.
Rather, this is to look at the mounting evidence of the continued mistakes made by this current duo of general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll–their “processes” that clearly have caused this franchise’s rebuild to regress.
Let’s start with Schoen and the number of draft picks–the draft being an organization’s bloodline– that have developed into true impact players worthy of Pro Bowl/All-Pro Status or who, at the very least, warrant the undivided attention of the opponent in a game.
Hint: It’s the same number as the number of wins the Giants have in the division and the number of wins the team currently has at home this season.
Sure, Malik Nabers is a candidate for further Pro Bowl status and is even a guy who needs a little extra attention from opposing defensive coordinators. However, despite his rookie-record-setting ways, he still has a way to go.
By our count, only 10 of the 24 draft picks–less than 50%--have developed into starters for this team, again not the best hit rate if one believes the draft is the blood that runs through an organization’s veins.
Maybe in the future, instead of letting guys on expiring contracts simply hit free agency and run the risk of not getting a comp pick in return since, you know, that’s not a guaranteed thing, realize that getting something is better than running the risk of getting nothing–even if that something isn’t what you think you should be getting in return.
If Schoen is retained, maybe he will start incorporating more of an individual approach in his roster evaluation by assessing a player’s overall value to the franchise rather than being driven by what it would cost money-wise to have the player in the building.
Daboll? I don’t think it’s unfair to say that he’s on very shaky ground and that the ground underneath him gets even less secure with each mounting loss.
Daboll keeps referring to “processes” and “staying the course,” but let’s be realistic. The processes aren’t working, and why would anyone stay on a course that keeps yielding the same undesired results week after week?
If he’s retained–and I think the odds of that happening have vastly decreased–some of those processes that are part of the course must be changed.
He can start with his aversion to playing guys in the preseason as if two straight Week 1 openers in which the Giants looked like they were playing their first football in months instead of weeks haven’t proven the point; then I’m not sure what will.
I understand there’s a concern about injuries, but guess what? Injuries are going to happen. We’ve seen several guys end up getting injured on the grass field, no less during the week of practice.
If you’re going to take the occasional chance in games, and if those chances work out, they make you look like a genius, then why would you disperse playing time in preseason games? Preseason games are important to preparing a team and evaluating potential rosters in real-time.
Daboll must also reconsider whether taking over the play-calling was a good idea. While the concept made sense if the Giants were going to ride it out with Daniel Jones at quarterback for the future and if current offensive coordinator and former play-caller Mike Kafka were going to move on after this season, as is expected, the results ended up being worse.
Daboll might also want to stop relying on analytics and start using basic common coaching sense. Analytics have never and will never consider people, the environment, and other human and natural factors that can affect football decisions. To place any value on analytics in making critical in-game decisions is playing with fire.
The Giants have also sloppily played their last four games, three of which have seen them record double-digit penalties. In fact, 41 of their 99 season penalties have come over the last four weeks, an average of 10.25 penalties per game.
Lastly, Daboll, along with Schoen if both are retained, needs to stop doubling down on personnel mistakes that have crippled this team (see the offensive line follies).
That includes handing jobs to certain players who have not shown themselves to be Pro Bowl or All-Pro caliber, like defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence and left tackle Andrew Thomas. If coaches believe in competition, as they claim, hold a competition and let the best man win.
These suggested changes aren’t exclusive to Schoen and Daboll but are linked to the mistakes that have sabotaged this team for most of the last decade.
Given the growing outcry from its paying customers, it will be difficult for ownership to ignore what has happened over the last two seasons. If a change is made–and it would not be a shock if that happened–can they get someone better into the chairs, or is it strictly a matter of having those already in the chairs change how they do things to fix what ails the franchise?
About this “Tanking” Talk
Every day, I hear from people who insist the Giants are tanking for the first overall pick in the 2025 draft.
I'm sorry, folks, but I have never believed that to be the case, and I still don’t (and yes, my eyes are wide open).
Tanking teams do not continue to put their best players (Malik Nabers, Brian Burns, Micah McFadden) out there on the field week after week despite each man dealing with injuries that justifiably could have caused them to say, “Okay, that’s it. See you next season!”)
Why expose your most valuable players to a potential late-season injury that could affect their readiness for the following season? It makes zero sense.
This isn’t to say teams don’t “tank.” The best and most recent example of a tanking situation was in 2021 when the Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson benched starting quarterback Jalen Hurts in the middle of a competitive game against the Washington Commanders so he could “see” what veteran backup Nate Sudefeld brought to the table, despite having film on Sudfeld.
The move was viewed by many as an attempt to stick it to the Giants, who would have been in a postseason berth had the Eagles won that game. It was as clear of a tank job as you’ll find.
The Giants? Their lopsided losses–six of them this season and three within the last five weeks, including back-to-back losses in which the Giants were outscored 69-21 in their last two games–are the result of a roster that just isn’t as good as perhaps the key decision makers thought it was.
And if it results in the Giants, who currently have the first overall pick in the 2025 draft, finishing in the driver’s seat? Even better.