The New York Giants are mired in one of their worst seasons ever and fans are beginning to show their frustrations in the form of protest.
Ahead of Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints, a fan-chartered plane circled MetLife Stadium with a banner that read, “Mr. Mara enough. (Please) fix this dumpster fire.”
Protests continued at kickoff with empty seats lining more than half of the stadium and tickets being sold for as little as $1 on the secondary market.
Then, to make sure the point was hammered home, fans cheered as the Saints blocked a Graham Gano field goal with seconds remaining, securing the Giants’ 11 loss of the season.
Out in the parking lot, a dumpster was literally set on fire.
Despite the circus the Giants have become, NFL insider Albert Breer believes co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch will run things back, keeping both general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll in 2025.
The Giants got their high-end evaluators multiple live exposures to seven different college quarterbacks — Sanders, Miami’s Cam Ward, Georgia’s Carson Beck, Texas’s Quinn Ewers, Ole Miss’s Jaxson Dart, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier — headed into the week they went out to see Sanders in a practice setting. Over Thanksgiving weekend, they sent guys out again to get one last live look during the final full weekend of college games.
So what does this show? To me, it’s two things. First, the Giants were under no illusion that they should bank on Jones breaking through to another level — the way he did in 2022 — again, to justify picking up the $30.5 million on his contract for next season. Second, it makes it apparent that the plan has been, as John Mara has said, to stay the course with the current regime and give Schoen and Brian Daboll the chance to draft a quarterback.
Schoen and Daboll have had multiple drafts to land “their own” quarterback. They passed in the first two and failed to trade up for their target in 2024. They also chose to pass on other quarterback prospects such as Bo Nix (Denver Broncos).
Instead, they made the decision to hitch their wagon to Daniel Jones before misreading the Tyrod Taylor situation and settling for Drew Lock.
Their quarterback decisions have been suspect at best, but Breer still believes both will get a pass and return in 2025 and potentially beyond.
There’s also the fact that the Giants have, as I’ve mentioned a few times, pulled the plug quickly three times in the past decade, and the premise that Mara most certainly doesn’t want to do it again.
Which is to say, yeah, I still think Daboll and Schoen will be back next year, with some changes on the staff. But given where the Giants are right now, it’s probably best to wait before saying that with complete certainty.
The Giants have found new and humiliating ways to bottom out each week and it’s unlikely Daboll manages to buck that trend over the final month.
But it’s beginning to sound like Mara and Tisch are willing to endure the seemingly endless embarrassment because they no longer trust themselves following multiple regime failures dating back to the unnecessary parting of ways with Tom Coughlin following the 2015 season.
