ARLINGTON, Tex. — In this, the year 2024, as the Giants’ celebrate their 100th season, their 2-9 team trudges into this Thanksgiving Day NFC East game against the Dallas Cowboys on a six-game losing streak.
Joe Schoen’s and Brian Daboll’s Giants have not led at any point in those six defeats, not since Oct. 6 in Seattle.
Their offense is scoring 14.8 points per game, dead last in the NFL. No one else is even below 16.4.
Their defense is allowing 5.2 yards per rush and has just one interception all season. Both rank dead last in the NFL.
John Mara’s and Steve Tisch’s Giants are 1-14 in their last 15 games against the Cowboys dating back to the start of the 2017 season.
They are 0-7 in their last seven games in the rivalry.
And they are 0-5 against the Cowboys under Schoen and Daboll, getting outscored 160-68.
Their overall record in the NFC East in three seasons so far is 4-12-1, including a 1-10-0 mark against the Cowboys and Eagles.
Saquon Barkley is an MVP contender — if not the favorite — for the Philadelphia Eagles. Xavier McKinney is tied for the NFL lead with seven interceptions with the Green Bay Packers.
Leonard Williams turned in one of the best performances of Week 12 for the Seahawks last Sunday.
Bo Nix, a quarterback Schoen and Daboll passed on in April’s NFL Draft, looks like he’s going to win Rookie of the Year for the Denver Broncos.
On top of that, Schoen and Daboll spent Monday trying to put out a fire in their frustrated locker room after players vented about “soft” play and poor effort, and rookie receiver Malik Nabers called out Daboll as the problem with the offense.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, the play is proceeding as planned.
The truth is that Thursday could be Daboll’s final game as the Giants’ head coach if America sees a repeat of Sunday’s 30-7 blowout home loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (the Giants are 0-6 at home, too, by the way).
It could also seal Schoen’s fate, contrary to the image that his videoed visit to Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes facility seemingly was designed to portray.
The Giants look like they’re going to start Drew Lock at quarterback against the Cowboys, one week after passing over him when they shut down Daniel Jones to start third-stringer Tommy DeVito.
DeVito, who was inexplicably left off the injury report Monday, didn’t travel with the team to Dallas on Wednesday because he had to undergo further examinations in New York.
He is expected to follow the Giant circus into town later.
So Lock wins the prize of having just two days of walkthroughs and limited reps to prepare for Micah Parsons without the Giants’ two starting offensive tackles.
Andrew Thomas (foot) is already out for the season. Now Jermaine Eluemunor (quad) is sidelined, too. That leaves Chris Hubbard at left tackle and Evan Neal on the right.
Happy Thanksgiving, Drew.
Mara has not spoken since late October, when he guaranteed there would be no in-season changes but left the door open to changes after the season, saying he didn’t anticipate any firings then, either.
But Mara has gone back on votes of confidence before when circumstances continued to spiral. And that’s what is about to happen on the AT&T Stadium field Thursday afternoon.
Tisch, the Giants’ other co-owner, has receded completely from view and has not been heard from at all recently. But his impatience and embarrassment with the Giants’ product typically is the finger that squeezes the trigger on major shake-ups with the front office and coaching staff.
Schoen and Daboll now have only a 17-27-1 record so far through three seasons, plus a 2022 playoff win in Minnesota and a 2022 playoff blowout in Philly.
Since their 6-1 start to the 2022 season, Schoen and Daboll are 11-26-1 in the Giants’ last 38 games, including 8-20 the past two seasons.
A large percentage of Daboll’s coaching staff has left voluntarily the previous two offseasons due to their operation’s dysfunction. Mara and Tisch are aware of the deep-seated problems that led to this exodus.
Schoen monitored Daboll and the coaches on the headsets for four games last season when it got out of control. The biggest fallout from all of it was the resignation of defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, who at least had given the Giants a schematic advantage on one side of the ball.
Now, the Giants are thoroughly out-coached often, like when Tampa’s Todd Bowles and Liam Coen took Daboll and Shane Bowen to the woodshed on Sunday.
Schoen’s roster does Daboll no favors either, however.
The roster is worse than when they inherited it. They have gotten rid of several of their best players and most important leaders. And Schoen’s drafts have been filled with disappointments, complete misses and players lacking important intangibles.
Schoen is also involved in every facet of this organization: he’s been in the locker room, he attends the team’s film sessions on Monday’s and he has significant input on the gameday roster.
That’s why it can’t be one or the other, coach or GM, when the day of reckoning comes.
Mara loves to praise Schoen and Daboll for their collaborative dynamic and communication after arranging a forced, oil-and-water marriage of Dave Gettleman and Joe Judge that was doomed from the start in the previous regime.
Schoen and Daboll have even conducted the majority of their press conferences together to present that united front.
The catch now, however, is that no one can say this isn’t Schoen’s responsibility or Daboll’s mess. It belongs to both of them.
It’s impossible to judge otherwise, which is why the Giants soon are expected to have two openings instead of one.
