The next 10 games have to be Brian Daboll’s final audition for whether or not he is the right head coach to maximize the Jaxson Dart Era.
Dart has only started four NFL games, but it certainly looks like
the Giants have found the quarterback they can build around for the foreseeable future.
Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio certainly thinks so.
“The teams that need quarterbacks that bypassed him, they’re gonna regret that,‘ Fangio said this week.
Daboll was, of course, a major part of the decision to select Dart. He was, in fact, probably the strongest voice in the room that convinced GM Joe Schoen to trade up from No. 34 in Round 2 to No. 25 in Round 1 to select the player they hope will be their answer at quarterback for the next decade or more.
Daboll is considered an outstanding judge of quarterback talent and an excellent mentor for young quarterbacks. Say that Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills has improved since Daboll was hired away from the Bills by the Giants if you want. You would be right. Daboll, though, still has to receive credit for getting a quarterback with accuracy and decision-making issues off to a good NFL start.
Having tried and failed to build on the success Daboll and the Giants had with Daniel Jones in 2022, one of the rationalizations for keeping Daboll as head coach was that he deserved the chance to find and develop his own quarterback from scratch.
It has been clear all along that Daboll believes in Dart. On the flip side, the young quarterback feels a connection to the head coach
“Me and Dabs just have a special relationship,” Dart said after the Giants defeated the Los Angeles Chargers in Dart’s first NFL start. “He’s the guy that believed in me from day one … I know that when you have a coach who you know has your back, I’m going to go out there and do everything I can for him to win.”
Dianna Russini of The Athletic wrote recently that people around the league keep telling her “Daboll finally has his guy.”
Having the right coach/quarterback combination is critical to long-term success for an NFL team. Daboll and Dart clearly form a good partnership.
Thing is, Daboll isn’t the quarterback coach. He isn’t the offensive coordinator. He is the face and the voice of the organization, and the leader of the entire football team.
Coaches tell us all the time that professional sports in a performance business. The performance tells us that the body of work has not been good enough:
- Daboll is 20-37-1 (.353) in 3+ seasons.
- The Giants are 11-30 (.268) since the beginning of the 2023 season
- Since a 6-1 start in 2022, the Giants are 14-36 (.280).
Beyond the raw numbers, you can argue that the Giants too often play with a lack of discipline. They too often have game day roster management decisions come back to bite them. They have too often looked unprepared. They have too often lost games they should have won.
If you are excited about the Giants’ future, you are right to be. The quarterback appears to be in place. There is an improving overall roster that features a number of exciting players still on their first contracts.
And yet …
If your excitement is tinged by a feeling of disappointment that the 2025 Giants are just 2-5, you would also be right to feel that way.
There is an alternate reality — an all-too-realistic alternate reality — in which the Giants could/should/would be 5-2.
- They should have beaten the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2. Fourteen accepted penalties and questionable handling of the end of regulation prevented that.
- They are clearly better than the New Orleans Saints. Yet, they turned a 14-0 lead into an inexplicable 26-14 loss with turnovers on five straight possessions.
- Against the Denver Broncos, they became the first NFL team in 1,603 games to lose while holding an 18-point lead with less than six minutes to play.
That’s three losses that should have been victories. If they had been, today’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles would be about more than the curiosity of how the Giants bounce back from the Debacle in Denver or whether they can actually beat the Eagles twice in three weeks.
This would be a midseason heavyweight fight between two 5-2 teams looking for the upper hand in a battle for the NFC East title.
To whatever degree you want to blame the head coach for those losses, Daboll clearly takes a hit for the fact that the 2025 Giants have not won as many football games this season as they should have.
As exciting as the beginning of the Dart Era has been, there have been plenty of things that have happened over the past 2½ seasons that make you question whether or not the Giants have the right leadership on the sidelines to maximize what clearly looks like an exciting future.
I believe ownership desperately wants Daboll to remain as head coach. They don’t want to put Dart through the spin cycle Daniel Jones went through, beginning with the firing of Pat Shurmur after Jones’ rookie year. They will avoid that, if they possibly can.
Beginning Sunday in Philadelphia, what we learn about Dart the rest of the season is secondary. What we learn about whether or not they can go forward with Daboll, or whether they will need another head coach to shepherd them into the future is really the biggest story.
By beating the Los Angeles Chargers when they were unbeaten and the defending Super Bowl champions, the Giants have shown that they are good enough to beat the league’s best teams. When they do things right.
There can’t be any more fourth-quarter meltdowns. There can’t be any more losses that should have been wins. There can’t be more losses where you question whether the decision-making in key spots put the Giants in the best position to win. There can’t be any more game day roster management decisions that backfire.
Brian Daboll’s 10-game tryout to be the shepherd of the Jaxson Dart era begins Sunday afternoon.
