Brian Daboll made a huge difference in his first year as head coach of the New York Giants. He took a four-win team and turned it into a nine-win playoff team.
Daboll was named the AP NFL Coach of the Year for his efforts, which began last year with a lot of uncertainty and ended in the NFC Divisional Playoffs.
Former Giants Pro Bowl center Shaun O’Hara, now an analyst at the NFL Network, outlined the progress the Giants made in Daboll’s first year.
“Before the season started, the ‘P’ word everyone was using was progress with this team,” O’Hara said, via Giants.com. “That’s what everyone wanted to see. I think the fact that we’re actually saying playoffs, they made the playoffs, they won a playoff game, that’s huge progress. I think for the Giants, we saw a lot of young players develop. I think that’s something this organization has really been lacking, is look, you draft a kid, and in Year 3 and Year 4, they should be better players than the year you drafted them. We finally have seen that progress in these players, and I think it’s amazing the difference that Brian Daboll and his staff, the difference that they have created with the same players.
“Look, there’s definitely been some turnover on the roster. Joe Schoen has had his work cut out for him, but when you look at a lot of these same players that the Giants have won games with, the core players were here last year. It was a dramatically different team, different vibe, different feel. They were confident.
“It was a quiet confidence, but they were also, they believed in each other that ‘hey, we get the game in the fourth quarter, we’ve got the guys that can win it and we’re going to find a way to win games.’ That was a breath of fresh air for everybody.”
Expect some more roster movement this offseason. The Giants are far from a finished product. Schoen has a vision and he’s just getting started.
It’s an exciting time to be a Giants fan.
