It was supposed to be a year of celebration for the New York Giants but has instead turned into a nightmare of historical proportions.
The team’s 100th anniversary got off to a bad start with “Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants,” which highlighted their failures to land a new quarterback while allowing running back Saquon Barkley to join the Philadelphia Eagles.
Fast forward to the present time and the Giants are 2-12, have lost a franchise-record nine straight games, and are 0-8 at home with one game remaining. Should they lose their MetLife Stadium finale in Week 17, they will become the first team in NFL history to lose nine home games in a single season.
The season from hell may also be punctuated with another embarrassment: Barkley breaking the NFL’s all-time single-season rushing record against the very team that drafted him.
Sprinkled in is the bungled release of quarterback Daniel Jones, ongoing fan protests that aim to embarrass ownership, a league-worst offense now being led by street free agent Tim Boyle, and seemingly endless mockery from the national media.
In just a few short weeks, co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch will have to make a tough decision: Burn it all down and reset again, or risk a fan revolt by running it back with the current regime.
Those can be the only choices because a half measure will not suffice. The Giants can not afford to fire either general manager Joe Schoen or head coach Brian Daboll, forcing a potential replacement to inherit the other.
The reasons to fire Schoen are abundant, as Bobby Skinner of Talkin’ Giants recently laid out. His 2024 draft class should not be a saving grace, especially considering his failures in the previous two drafts have led the Giants to this point.
Daboll is equally at fault for the team’s failures. His inability to manage relationships with coordinators and assistants is alarming, his game-day roster management has directly contributed to two losses, and his play-calling has led to a points-per-game regression compared to Mike Kafka a season ago.
It’s almost like Daboll has gone from Bono to Bozo.
There are few, if any redeeming qualities about the 2024 iteration of the New York Giants. And each week, they somehow find a new, humiliating low. Things have gotten so bad that debate has stirred over this team compared to the 2021 version headed by Dave Gettleman and Joe Judge.
Who had that on their Bingo card?
But that’s also why ownership has to rip the Band-Aid completely off or leave it on for one more season. A half measure would merely kick the can down the road and continue the post-Tom Coughlin cycle that has gotten them here in the first place.
If they were to keep Schoen and fire Daboll and the general manager whiffed in another draft, the Giants would need to bring in a new GM who would then likely fire the lame-duck head coach and inherit whatever quarterback Schoen ultimately selects in the 2025 NFL draft. We’ve seen how that story plays out.
If they went the other way and fired Schoen and kept Daboll, it would force the incoming GM to inherit a head coach he didn’t hire. That’s not a recipe for success, especially when you throw in the upcoming quarterback decision.
The best decision for the franchise would be to part ways with Schoen and Daboll, hire a veteran executive with a strong resume as general manager, allow them to pick the head coach, and then go after their own quarterback of the future. A true clean slate.
But if Mara and Tisch are determined to show patience, then they need to be all the way in. Keep the current regime intact, allow them to draft a quarterback come April, and hope that it all works out and you don’t find yourself in this exact same situation a year from now.
