Brian Daboll is doing his best to keep all of the Giants‘ losing as boring as possible.
Because the only thing worse for an NFL coach than a bad team is a bad team with drama.
But Giants defensive coordinator Shane Bowen used a word this week that appropriately sounded alarm bells entering Thursday night’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles (4-1):
“Panic.”
Bowen said it in the context of the secondary’s poor recent play when the ball is in the air. Three Giants defensive backs committed pass interference penalties in last Sunday’s loss to the New Orleans Saints: Deonte Banks, Dru Phillips and Paulson Adebo.
Banks’ penalty negated a Jevon Holland interception.
“Just continuing to work on not panicking down the field,” Bowen said. “I think these guys feel themselves, and they’re actually in decent position as we’re going, their own body, and then just as it keeps getting extended, the panic sets in a little bit. And we’ve got to be able to find some comfort when we’re on body and be able to locate the football and not foul.”
The Giants’ secondary was supposed to get better when Daboll scapegoated secondary coaches Jerome Henderson and Mike Treier in January and GM Joe Schoen spent free agent money on Abebo and Holland in free agency.
Just like every other situation under this regime, though, time reveals that these annual firings all are just delaying accountability for the people who are actually in charge of picking the players, coaching the team and winning games.
There’s a chance it could happen again.
If the Giants get blown out — again — by Saquon Barkley and the Eagles on Thursday night at MetLife Stadium, and if Daboll does not lose his job because of it, Bowen would be the leading candidate to be the next sacrificial lamb at the altar of this franchise’s ineptitude.
To think that the Colts’ Daniel Jones is an early NFL MVP candidate and somehow Schoen and Daboll would still have the standing to make that kind of judgment on anyone is complete lunacy, granted. But this is how the Giants operate.
This is why they stay bad.
The reality is that Schoen and Daboll both should be in jeopardy of losing their jobs immediately if the Giants don’t demonstrate progress and competence on Thursday night.
No one except co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch know, however, where their breaking point lies. It wasn’t at 3-14 in January. It’s not at 4-18 in their last 22 now. So how bad does it have to get?
The Eagles are a bit of a mess right now, as far as 4-1 teams go, yet they still strut into New Jersey licking their chops.
Rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart admitted “I don’t know a ton” and “I’m a little naive” to the history of this rivalry. So unfortunately, he’s about to learn it the hard way.
The Giants are 3-15 in their last 18 games against Philly. And they’re 1-6-0 against the Birds under Schoen and Daboll, getting outscored 199-113.
Barkley, the reigning NFL Offensive Player of the Year, hasn’t gotten going yet this season. So that will be Philadelphia’s focus on offense against a Giants defensive line that still has defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence “not 100%” healthy from a lingering illness.
“He’s Saquon Barkley, great running back,” Lawrence said. “Just got to do well to attack his O-line, not let him get on our DBs and stay disciplined in your run lanes, and I think we’ll have a good day… You don’t want to be the team to let him get hot. So you’ve got to stay disciplined Thursday and go win.”
But the more concerning part of this game will come when the Giants offense takes the field for Dart’s third NFL start.
Vic Fangio’s defense will be the best unit Dart has seen yet. It will be the most talented, and it will be the best coached.
Dart is playing without Malik Nabers (torn ACL) for the rest of the year, and veteran Darius Slayton (hamstring) also is out Thursday.
How Daboll and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka will be able to keep their young quarterback upright — let alone competitive and productive — is anyone’s guess.
A poor offensive performance would be nothing new for this GM and this coach, though. The Giants again are near the bottom of the NFL in scoring, averaging 17.4 points per game, which ranks No. 28 out of 32 teams.
And as frustrating and unacceptable as the secondary’s penalties were in New Orleans, an NFL team should win a game when its defense only allows one touchdown — as Bowen’s side did against the Saints.
The reality is that after Cam Skattebo’s fumble was returned for a touchdown and the Giants fell behind by 12 points last week, the offense hung its collective heads and felt like the game was over.
The reality also was that in the first half, when the Giants had an 11-point lead, both the defense and offense didn’t show enough poise. It was penalties on defense, and it was five straight turnovers on offense.
On Thursday night, it will be a mismatch of talent, coaching and final score. Again.
Then Giants ownership will have one question to ask themselves on Friday morning:
Why do we continue to tolerate this?
EAGLES’ CARTER, GIANTS’ ELUEMUNOR QUESTIONABLE
Slayton (hamstring) and linebackers Demetrius Flanagan-Fowles (hamstring) and Swayze Bozeman (ankle) are out Thursday. Right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor (back), who committed three fourth-quarter penalties in New Orleans after his man punched the fumble out of Skattebo’s hands, was upgraded to limited for this game. Running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. (shoulder) will return to the lineup after a two-game absence.
Barkley has a sore knee for the Eagles but is off the injury report and full go. Philly star defensive tackle Jalen Carter, meanwhile, was added as questionable with a new heel injury. Linebacker Nakobe Dean (knee) also is questionable, and starting left guard Landon Dickerson (ankle) and backup tight end Grant Calcaterra (oblique) are out.
