Whispers continue to suggest that New York Giants co-owner John Mara could dismiss head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen with the 2-11 club on track to “earn” the first pick of the 2025 NFL Draft.
During a recent conversation with Darryl Slater of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, an unnamed “prominent former NFL front office executive” explained why Mara should fire both Daboll and Schoen.
“The question I think [Mara] should be asking himself is: ‘Did my [previous] hires not work because I was too impatient? Or did they not work because I got the wrong guys?’ If he thinks, ‘I didn’t hire the best people I could have,’ then the last thing you want to do is bring in a young quarterback and put him in a situation where you know he’s already swimming upstream based on the [GM and coach] performance over the last three years,” the former executive said.
Since the 2022 Giants fell to the rival Philadelphia Eagles in the divisional round of the playoffs, Big Blue has lost 22 of 30 regular-season games. Daboll and Schoen
failing to acquire legitimate competition for quarterback Daniel Jones last offseason resulted in the club entering its 2024 bye week at 2-8. New York parted ways with Jones in November.
According to ESPN stats, the Giants rank last in the NFL with an average of 14.9 points scored per game this season.
As recently as Wednesday, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler revealed that he has “spoken to people with the team who believe Mara wants to stick to his plan” of retaining Daboll and Schoen for another year. However, Fowler added that “outsiders are wondering how difficult that will be if it’s Week 17 and MetLife Stadium is half-full with the Giants stuck on two wins.”
Also on Wednesday, ESPN’s Field Yates predicted that the Giants will spend the first pick of the 2025 draft on Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders.
“You’re potentially going to find yourself one year into his tenure and then you have to make a change,” the former executive said about potentially marrying a rookie quarterback with Daboll and Schoen. “That’s much more harmful than making a change now. Whoever is going to coach him — and whatever they’re going to teach him, at least for the first few years — [should] be consistent.”
It was previously said that the Giants may need to finish the season with at least five wins for Daboll and Schoen to hold onto their jobs. There’s now only four games left on the schedule, and DraftKings Sportsbook listed New York on Wednesday as a massive 16-point underdog for this coming Sunday’s matchup against the 8-5 Baltimore Ravens.
