The Giants are going Backwards to the Future.
John Mara, the lost franchise’s president and co-owner, said Monday that he is retaining GM Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll for a fourth season despite acknowledging his 3-14 team has been “going backwards.”
“It’s my strong belief that we are going — that we are gonna go in the right direction,” Mara said. “It’s hard for me to say we’re going in the right direction right now because we’ve been going backwards.”
Mara also admitted he does not consider his roster much better than it was when Schoen and Daboll were hired in Jan. 2022.
“I’m not sure I am all that confident that it’s that much better,” Mara said.
Mara cited Daboll’s dusty 2022 Coach of the Year award, the “information” Schoen accrues to make personnel decisions and the Giants’ 2024 draft class as reasons he’s sticking by them in 2025.
“I certainly can’t justify it based on the record,” Mara said.
Of course not.
Schoen and Daboll just concluded an historically bad 3-14 campaign in the Giants’ 100th season as a franchise. It was the most losses by a Giants team in the club’s 100 years.
They lost a franchise record 10 straight games and 11 of their final 12, including Sunday’s defeat in Philadelphia. They didn’t win a single game in the NFC East, going 0-6. It was their first season ever with no division wins.
And they went 1-8 at home at MetLife Stadium, including 0-8 before a late December win over the sorry Indianapolis Colts.
They have a 19-33-1 overall record through three years, including a 9-7-1 mark, a playoff win in Minnesota and blowout postseason loss in Philly in their first 2022 year.
They then followed that up with an embarrassing 6-11 season in 2023 filled with coaching dysfunction and fingerpointing by Daboll that prompted a coaching exodus by several principles, including defensive coordinator Wink Martindale.
Then they oversaw this year’s mess. They have a 12-31-1 record in their last 44 regular season games and a 1-12-0 record against the Eagles and Dallas Cowboys, including playoffs.
Mara vowed “it better not take too long” to turn this around “because I’ve just about run out of patience.” But that ultimatum means nothing after Mara sought significant progress in 2024 and then shifted the goal posts to retain his leadership anyway.
The Giants’ co-owner said “it’s a bottom-line business” and “you’re judged on what your record is. And our record has been pretty lousy right now. And I get that, and I take responsibility for that.”
But obviously it isn’t a bottom-line business for Schoen and Daboll, because they aren’t being held accountable to the team’s absence of wins or progress.
Mara was asked if Schoen and Daboll were coming back on the hot seat in 2025, and he didn’t say no.
“You guys are gonna have them No. 1 on the hot seat so no matter how I answer that question,” he said. Then he added: “We’re gonna have to see. I’m gonna have to be in a better mood this time next year than I am now.”
He claimed the money remaining on both men’s contracts was not a factor in retaining them, despite an ESPN report that Mara has complained about those payouts to the NFL.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “That’s never been a factor in any coaching decision that we’ve ever made here.”
When asked how the Giants got to 3-14, Mara said: “Because we stunk this year.” But he said he likes the “plan” Schoen and Daboll laid out for him in a Friday meeting that lasted “several hours.”
His diagnosis of the team’s problems started with the team’s most important position.
“Obviously the quarterback is the big issue,” Mara said. He said he does not absolve Schoen and Daboll of the Daniel Jones contract mistake, either.
The co-owner revealed he also spoke with Daboll about giving up offensive playcalling, which Daboll took over for the 2024 season to disastrous results.
“I’ve talked to him about, ‘Do you really believe it’s in your best interest to continue calling the plays?’” Mara said, echoing something Schoen has said on the record in the past, as well. “I’m not gonna demand that you do one thing or the other, but are you better off letting someone else call the plays?’”
Mara then vented about how he was terribly disappointed in the defense.
“Quite frankly I didn’t think our defense played very well this year at all,” he said. “I know when you have an offense like that you put more pressure on your defense, but we need to make improvements there. I’m tired of watching teams go up and down the field on us. So I think that needs to be addressed. I think we need some more depth on the offensive line. The No. 1 thing certainly is the quarterback.”
Mara’s complaint about Shane Bowen’s defense, when Daboll’s offense ranked 31st in the NFL at 16.1 points per game, sounded a lot like Daboll’s fingerpointing at Wink Martindale and the former Giants defensive staff when the Giants’ offense floundered and couldn’t score points then, either.
It sounded like Giants ownership enabling the scapegoating that Schoen and Daboll have become experts at running on others to save themselves.
Essentially, Mara didn’t have a facts-based argument on why he’s making this decision, other than he hasn’t liked how it’s worked out before.
“When you start over, you really set yourselves back,” he said. “And if I’m standing here a year from now and we’re having the same conversation, I’ll take the heat for it. But we still believe it’s the right decision.”
The Giants can’t go back any further, though. This is as bad as it gets.
They’re a laughingstock.
The entire NFL is either unconcerned with them, chuckling at them or looking forward to playing them.
