Yet another Giants fourth-quarter meltdown has head coach Brian Daboll’s seat hotter than ever.
And to many of the city and country’s foremost NFL opinion-givers, Daboll is past the point of return.
ESPN’s Damien Woody and Rex Ryan, WFAN’s Brandon Tierney and Sal Licata, and even former Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes were among those Monday who said it’s time to move on from Daboll after the Giants’ 24-20 loss in Chicago dropped them to 2-8 for a third consecutive season.
“They’ve got to make huge changes,” Ryan, a former Jets head coach, said on ESPN’s “Get Up,” before adding, “I know Brian Daboll, and I know he’s a good coach, but guess what? You are what your record says you are. I mean, you stink!”
The Giants led by 10 points with less than five minutes left in Sunday’s defeat, only to allow a pair of late touchdowns to the Caleb Williams-led Bears. It was the fourth time this season that the Giants lost a game in which they led by double figures.
The Giants had a 96.9% win probability with 5:35 left in Sunday’s fourth quarter, according to ESPN Analytics. They also lost after having a 92.3% win probability against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2 and after having a 99.3% win probably against the Denver Broncos in Week 7.
A viral social media post from the account @JoeSchoenMVP pointed out that the odds of losing all three games was approximately one in 60,000.
And while that number isolates three losses, another way to look at it is that the Giants held a win probability of at least 92.3% in five games this season. They won only two of them.
“If I’m John Mara, the Giants’ owner, I’ve seen enough,” Woody, a former Jets offensive lineman, said on “Get Up.”
“When you have double-digit leads, you should know how to manage a game to the point where you’re coming out on the other sides of these things, not losing these games.”
Making matters worse was that standout rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart suffered a concussion in the second half. Dart stayed down after taking a big hit on a third-quarter run, a play in which he lost a fumble.
Dart played two snaps on the Giants’ next drive before being removed between the third and fourth quarters. He was later ruled out.
Sunday’s game marked the fourth time Dart was evaluated for a concussion this season. During an evaluation in Week 6, Daboll poked his head into the blue medical tent to check on Dart’s status — a violation that earned him a $100,000 fine.
The number of hits taken by the dual-threat Dart remains a frequent talking point.
“It was an illustration of the desperation of the coach, and it is why you cannot have a coach and a young quarterback who are not married up in timetable,” ESPN’s Mike Greenberg said on “Get Up.”
“Brian Daboll is doing what he has to do. He’s coaching for his life. He’s trying everything he can to keep his job. … It’s not what makes sense for the organization and the big picture, and it’s another team that’s fallen into this self-inflicted trap.”
The Giants went 9-7-1 and won a playoff game in 2022, their first season under Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen. Daboll was the NFL’s Coach of the Year that season.
But the Giants have not won more than six games since, and they are one loss away from clinching a third consecutive losing season. Among the 204 people to coach at least 50 games, Daboll’s .342 winning percentage ranks 186th, according to The Ringer’s Sheil Kapadia.
“Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll deserve to be fired,” the Daily News’ Pat Leonard wrote on social media. “Not sure why this needs to be said every week, but I’ll keep saying it until the Giants develop some standards again.”
Tierney shared a similar sentiment, saying on his radio show that it is “painfully obvious” Daboll’s time as Giants head coach should be over.
“Their record is 20-40-1, so we don’t need to scream about that,” Tierney said Monday. “I think the next level of analysis is, ‘At what point does the presence of somebody just suck the oxygen out of the building and become much more of a detriment than a positive?’ That’s where I think we are with Daboll.”
Tynes, who was the Giants’ kicker for their Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI victories, suggested the team make offensive coordinator Mike Kafka the head coach for the final seven games.
“He’s been a finalist on more than one occasion in the last couple of cycles,” Tynes wrote on social media. “The Daboll/Schoen experiment has had 4 seasons. It’s time to move on from both.”
